Apple Watch, Oura ring, WHOOP bands, and wearable tech has been making massive gains recently. They are more reliable than ever and more accurate. And with accuracy comes access to good data and with good data comes the ability to provide users with actionable insights. And with access to information comes… behavior change? Right? Unfortunately no. Access to information isn’t a stage gate to behavior change.

If you’ve been following you may have heard WHOOP released a new cutting-edge feature, “Quantified Gains” - if you haven’t welp, keep reading.

What’s this “Quantified Gains” metrics you speak of?

Exactly - most people don’t know what this jargon is but it sounds cool!

Based on WHOOP's recovery metric, which measures the strain on the body's nervous system users can track their muscular load during strength training. By tracking muscular load, users better understand how workouts impact their bodies and can adjust training accordingly.

Optimization to the nth degree. Seems to be a practical feature to drive adoption.

Sounds great for fitness fanatics but what about the rest of us?

You nailed it and this is where the problem lies. The constant struggle for wearable companies to provide products that appeal to the mass market vs a segment. WHOOP's strategy seems to double down on serious athletes and fitness enthusiasts who want sophisticated ways to monitor training rather than converting the everyday health-conscious person like myself.

In theory, their path forward goes down one of two routes towards growth:

Double down on Early Adopters: Find people who are already engaging in the behavior (working out)… and help them engage better. Think fitness fanatics.

Pros? You already have these folks, now find more of them. Negative? Market segment is limited.

Double down on the Early Majority: Find people who aren’t already engaging in that behavior… and get them to engage in said behavior. Think of folks who work out but aren’t fitness fanatics. Like me 😀 .

Pros? Bigger market. Negatives? New segment.

Explain this whole “Early Adopter” thing

This ties back to what we in the bizness call a product adoption curve, how customers adopt a new product over time. It is a graph that shows the percentage of the target market that has adopted the product or technology, plotted against time or the product's life cycle divided into categories of adopters, such as innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards. Each category represents a different type of customer with unique characteristics, behaviors, and motivations for adopting or rejecting the product.

Fitness fanatics are well… fanatic about wearables and fall into the early adopter part of the curve. They convert easily; they’re bought in to the overall methodology, but as a company matures it must move through the curve; beyond early adopters into the early majority.

With this latest feature, WHOOP decided to find more early adopters rather than move through the product adoption curve.

Well, that’s great! So what’s the problem?

The problem though? Potential market opportunity and impact. Early adopters represent a small segment of the TAM (total addressable market) and this is OK for early-stage companies but if to drive growth, break out of the early adopters and move through the curve.

WHOOP has been around for about a decade and has yet to move through the rest of the product adoption curve.

Why don’t they move beyond early adopters?

Another great question. It’s context specific so let’s talk about this context but it comes down to deciding between changing behavior vs enhancing behavior.

Enhancing Behavior

Serving early adopters means enhancing existing behaviors. “Oh, you already workout 6 times a week? Here are some ways you can make your training more productive.” And that’s easy, well easier. You’re not asking users to change their behavior, you’re asking them to optimize their behavior. They’re already doing what they should be doing, you’re helping them do it better.

It’s much easier to push a boulder down a hill that’s already rolling than pushing a boulder that’s at a standstill.

But it’s risky. This market segment is smaller. You’ll have an easier time penetrating but you’ll run out of people to sell to and when you do, your product built for the early adopters won’t appeal to the mass market - it’s not built for them. You’re stuck.

Changing Behavior

Changing behavior is hard, such as nudging folks to work out who don’t typically work out. These folks don’t need a “Quantified Gains” feature they need tools and resources to help them go from 0 times per week working out to 2. And not just tools but rather behavior-change techniques that spur action.

And this is where real opportunity lies - moving beyond early adopters. I mean this in both the impact (making us healthier) and in the market opportunity. Very soon they’ll run out of early adopters and when they do, their product will be so tied to early adopters they’ll have to make major modifications to move out of it.

None of this is simple and easier said and done but is a prime example as to why not all features are created equal.

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Until next time,

Nate