What's your "Popsicle Hotline"?

The following insight comes from the book The Power of Moments: Why Certain Experiences Have Extraordinary Impact by Chip and Dan Heath, which was introduced to me by Cat Noone / Team Stark.

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In a world saturated with choices, how do you stand out as a startup?

Crafting unique and defining moments as part of your product experience is a very powerful way to do so.

To illustrate this point, the authors of the book “The Power of Moments” introduce a rather unassuming hotel in Los Angeles, the Magic Castle Hotel. Located one block from Hollywood Boulevard's walk of fame, the Magic Castle is a 1950s apartment building repurposed into a hotel.

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Despite its modest facilities and simple aesthetic, this hotel consistently ranks among the top on TripAdvisor, standing tall alongside far more luxurious establishments.

The secret to its success? A very memorable experience / defining moment.

The Popsicle Hotline

The defining moment at The Magic Castle Hotel is the famous Popsicle Hotline:

Visitors at the hotel’s pool can pick up a red phone on a poolside wall to hear, “Hello, Popsicle Hotline.” They request an ice-pop in their favorite flavor, and a few minutes later, an employee wearing white gloves delivers it on a silver platter, no charge.

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This moment, that comes at little cost to the hotel, brings a dash of joy and delight that remains ingrained in the customer's memory, casting a favorable light over their entire stay. Which more often than not directly translates into raving TripAdvisor reviews - quite the ROI for a few popsicles.

Defining moments for software startups

There are four types of such defining moments software startups can use to their advantage (I’m focusing on external moments in this post - the same types of moments can also be leveraged internally e.g. when onboarding employees):

1. “Elevation moments” which surpass regular experiences, like the unexpected delight of a popsicle delivery: Create these by providing delightful user experiences that exceed customer expectations. It could be as simple as a seamless onboarding process, an intuitive user interface, or a unique feature that brings unexpected value. Superhuman showing you a nice image when you get to inbox zero is a good example here (my business partner Daniel is obsessed with finding out what the image is at the end of his work day 😅).
2. “Insight moments” that lead to a sudden shift in our understanding of the world: Help users discover new possibilities through the product which, if done right, will lead to a deeper appreciation of the product's value. An example here can be data visualization / reports for individual users that they can share with leadership to make them look good / get a point across. Or Hubspot’s free website grader that went viral for a while.
3. “Moments of pride” that accompany accomplishments: Can be instilled by acknowledging users' achievements within the software. For instance, fitness apps do this well by celebrating milestones reached, which reinforces user engagement and motivation.
4. “Moments of connection” that strengthen relationships: For software startups, this is where community building (if done well) comes in as connecting likeminded people with one another is incredibly powerful.

You don’t need to strive for perfection in every touchpoint

There are two main take-aways from the Popsicle Hotline analogy:

1. Startups don’t need to strive for perfection at every single touchpoint (as long as they meet the bar of “good enough” for ideally all touchpoints).
2. Rather, they need to do a great job at creating a few memorable moments that will resonate with users and help them stand out in a crowded market.

To use the analogy of the Magic Castle Hotel again - management isn’t worried about changing the yellow color of the building or upgrading the bathrooms to get better reviews. Rather, their Popsicle Hotline shows that the little things can leave the biggest impressions.

Thus, before I let you go, I got one question for you to ask yourself: What are your product’s Popsicle Hotline moments?

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