What Noom can teach product teams about behavior change and retention | Christine May (Behavioral Scientist & Advisor, Ex-Noom

We see that the folks who are most successful in the program were people at retirement age. And so, you know, for a lot of folks who are making the argument that, oh, okay, older adults aren't tech literate and they can't do this kind of program, we have some really strong data to say, like, actually these are folks who are the most successful and when they're at retirement ages, they're, you know, seeking more structure. And Noom is providing structure in their lives. And so that wasn't even really on our radar at all.

Hi everyone, I'm Kristen Berman and this is the Irrational Mind. This podcast is for product marketing design people, people who want to know more about how their customers think and get inspired to build and grow products that work to do that. I'm talking to people who really get human behavior. Today we're going deep with Christine May, former behavioral scientist at Noom. Noom is a popular weight loss app. They are famously known for a long, long signup flow, but also for working. Noom helps you, you lose weight, which is hard. So how do they do that? The secret I'd propose may be in book clubs. Yes, book clubs. I'm gonna kick us off and tee up the interview with a rant on book clubs because book clubs may have cracked behavior change. It goes something like this. People sign up for a book club because they like the people in the club and they like reading. But what the book clubs do is force you to to read the book, maybe even a book you wouldn't normally read on your own. And they do this. They force you to read the book by a certain date. It's an incredible accountability device. But that's not even why you join a book club. They don't advertise accountability. They advertise the book and a sense of community. It's clever. So who else does this? Workplaces. Companies don't advertise how good they are at getting you to do something that you wouldn't necessarily do on your own. But it turns out they are incredibly good at that. Behavioral economist David Lipson calls this idea private paternalism. People join Apple because of its reputation and its status. They do not join Apple because it is the foremost world leading accountability system. But it is. People who worked at Apple consistently reference the grueling nights and weekend work pace and dedication to the craft. Just like book clubs, Apple doesn't advertise their deadlines as the reason why you join them. You don't need to opt into their accountability for accountability sake. It is just baked into the Core system. And Apple isn't alone. Overall, accountability is something that all workplaces around the world have, and they all kind of do it in the same way. We have meetings with coworkers to talk about status. We declare regular goals and report progress with our manager. We have deadlines and it works. Works. You just don't show up to a meeting and say I forgot to do my presentation. Or even worse, just skip a team meeting. And yet, for personal goals, we do this all the time. This morning I didn't do my 20 minute ab workout. No one knew, cared, or asked me if I was okay. Our personal goals are made and executed in solitude. And we wonder why we fail. There is no work environment in the world that hires somebody and then doesn't talk to them again. And as soon as they will 100% execute on their goals. Okay, so why are we talking about this? Well, mastering accountability could be a superpower for any business that cares about behavior change. And that's why I'm talking to Christine about Noom. Noom is an app that helps people manage their weight. It's skyrocketed in popularity over the last few years and at a glance, they aren't doing too many things that we haven't seen before. They ask you to track your food religiously, there is a color coded system to gauge healthiness, and you're fed motivational bits of content, which we'll talk about later in the show as well. But there are two things Noom does do to differentiate and I would argue that drive their outcomes. Noom asks you to hold yourself accountable and they give you multiple ways to have other people hold you accountable. I love accountability as a behavior change hack. It just works. But the one thing I can't stop thinking about is how to make consumer products like Noom more like a book club. Accountability in and of itself is not a desirable good. Christine said only 10% of people choose to get a coach. It's unlikely that only 10% of people would benefit from a coach. Research consistently shows one to one interventions in coaching do drive outcomes. So if you're building an app or product, you also probably need to hide it like a book club. Riffing for a minute. How would Noom act more like a book club and hide accountability but achieve the same outcomes? To do this, you may need a nonlinear approach to behavior change. Imagine if Noom changed their coaching promo to be a prompt to meet regularly with a top fashion consultant. Way more than 10% of people would join this. This fashion consultant would check in with you give you weekly advice on style and clothes and maybe maybe ask you a few things about how your weight loss journey was going. The silver bullet of behavior change is accountability. But it doesn't just have to be a coaching program or community. The opportunity is for your product or service to make it not seem like accountability. And this is the hardest part. But I believe this is the place that companies can drive innovation. I'm excited for you to hear Christine on this. For sure, NOOM has figured out something and more than just a long sign up flow. Although don't worry, we do talk about this too. Maybe, just maybe, they are starting to eat away at America's weight loss program. After this podcast was recorded, Christine left noom. She is no longer working with them. This podcast was also recorded before GLP1s hit the market. Currently Noom is a player in the GLP1 market TBD how this is going but I'm hopeful they can support people on their weight loss platform medical journey and even crack the nut on sustaining weight loss long term. This podcast is sponsored by Irrational Labs, a top applied behavioral science consultancy. We help companies design products people use, love and pay for. If you're looking to understand your customer psychology, improve your funnel, change your pricing, or just do overall behavior change, go to irrational labs.com and say hello.

ANU is a behavior change platform and it's focused on helping people establish long term healthy behaviors. We're probably most known for our weight management program, but we also have a stress management program as well and also a diabetes prevention program. So there's a few different platforms that we have going on, but it all centers around behavior change.

And what is your role at noom?

Yeah, I'm the head of Behavioral science.

How fun. So I'm going to ask you the hard question first, which is generally weight loss is one of the hardest behaviors that we have to change. You have to make three decisions or more every day, all day. And so there's a question on what is your approach? How does NOOM look at it weight loss differently than other companies? And what's your theory of change here?

Yeah, so we come in from at it, come at it from a pretty diverse perspective. So we utilize a lot of tools in the toolbox to help people with behavior change. You know, and weight is one of the most challenging topics. I think what's interesting is that a lot of people know what to do, but they don't know how to do it. And so that's the what centers around the new program is trying to establish each Individual's how So there are things like tracking tools which you can get from lots of other programs, but we combine that with really engaging content. We also have coaching and so there's a lot of features that are all sort of happening simultaneously. I think what's really interesting is when, typically when our users come in, they experiment themselves so they use all of the features and they're trying to figure out what this thing is. And then over time we see engagement on certain features drop off and people are still finding success. So it's sort of like you find your way through what actually works for you.

What's an example of a highly engaging feature that most users are still engaging with a while after they've started with you?

I would say that's probably the content. Most people really find the content engaging, accessible, it breaks down really complex topics and helping people understand the themselves better. And I think that's really like the crux of where NOOM is, is pretty successful is helping people discover more about themselves and therefore be able to make those changes and figure out why they want to make the changes. How to time meeting, to, to, to making those different decisions about their behaviors.

Okay, so, so if content is engaging, maybe help square this for me. Because we have, you know, as, you know, we have a saying in behavioral science which is like information doesn't change behavior. Which basically means like look, I can like tell you how many calories are in something, but like this isn't gonna get you over the hump of not eating the cake that's sitting in front of you. So what does the information do as the theory of change or the motivational push to get me to do something different?

Absolutely. So we, we've been talking a lot about sort of our theory of behavior change and establishing what that means at noom. And I think we, we really like the health action process approach. And so there's different steps to understanding someone's behavior, whether that's, you know, trying to change one thing. Like I am obsessed with M&Ms. And so I will never stop eating M M's even though it's an orange food. And so like recognizing like that's okay, but how do we sort of modify those behaviors along the way? And so the content I think is really meant for people to explore about themselves. So one of my favorite parts about the program is that when, when our users come in, they establish what's, what we call your big picture. And it's, you know, you're an annoying three year old toddler. I have one of Them who asks why all the time? And so, you know, you answer a question about like, you know, what's your goal? And most people come in and say, I want to lose weight, I want to lose 20 pounds, 5 pounds, whatever it might be. And then we ask them why. And I think a lot of people don't think about the why. And it might be, oh, well, I'm getting married soon. And so then they're prompted again with another why. So you know, why are you getting married? And maybe it's about the relationship. And maybe you want to build healthy habits with your partner or eventually you want have kids and you want to be healthy for them. And so really getting at like the root of what motivates somebody to behave. You know, we take action and inaction every day. And so there's motivation behind that. And many people don't think about some of maybe the unconscious things that we can maybe bubble up to the surface to figure out, you know, why somebody's behaving in that way. And I think that's also where coaching comes in, where we can help customize the experience. And so, you know, you might create, you know, your big picture or coaches have access to that, your big picture and refer back to that a lot. If you're having difficulty with like logging foods, like that is not the most fun activity. So thinking about the why you're doing it can like make that a little bit more accessible and maybe set a goal for like the next week instead of thinking about the next six months.

And so for something like that, where basically it seems like a big theory here is getting people to articulate their own motivational mechanism. Do you guys test that? Or like, what do you, how do you think about testing kind of those big, you know, pushes or, or, or guesses at what will actually change behavior.

Yeah, it's been really interesting. A couple of years ago we looked at, we did like a qualitative analysis of people's, we call them YBPs, your big pictures. And you know, it was really fascinating to look through the slog of responses where, you know, some folks are just like, I just want to lose weight because I just want to. But the people who were like really thoughtful about why and added more text, purely just more text and then also thinking like abstractly versus concretely. So it was actually really interesting looking at the, the abstract responses that were maybe a lot, a little bit more idealistic and conceptual rather than like is for our win back users. So people who joined doom, they left and then they came back the level of commitment that they had was, you know, astoundingly high, especially compared to the first time they came in. So I think it's, we've got a few hypotheses, but one is some people are just like wondering what is noom. I hear about it, I listen to nvr, I hear an ad, I'm just trying to figure out what this thing is, how is it different? And maybe they're not ready for the commitment because it is, it is a commitment. But when they come back to the program, it's really fascinating to see like how, how committed they are when they do decide this is the time to change.

Right. So what I'm hearing is I should fail first for dieting and then come back and I, I have a better chance at winning success.

I will always be a proponent for failing fast, fail, figure out, figure out game plan. You know, you have your intention formation phase, you go into planning, it doesn't work out, you reset and you figure.

Out, I ate a donut today. So I feel like I'm failing today. So tomorrow, tomorrow will be the day. This is, I like the idea of using the text input field about asking people, you know, why they're doing something and using that as a proxy for retention. I think a lot of companies struggle with, if you have to wait 30 days to have a retention metric, then you just aren't learning fast enough. And so it's very interesting that in the sign up flow you're actually getting some level of correlation to their future motivation and maybe who you should invest in. So once you guys had that insight, did you do something different with trying to predict retention or is it just like a general, like, okay, we have, we have X percent of engaged users here.

Yeah, it's, it's been interesting how we think about the framing of the program. So, you know, another interesting piece is, you know, folks who are coming through our notoriously long buy flow which has, you know, 8,000 questions attached to it. One of the questions I think that was really interesting for us to take a look at was like how confident people were in sort of their like level of commitment. And you know, we thought that, okay, the people who are like, I got this, I'm going to do it, we're going to have the most success. But it was actually the people who were like, I feel okay about it, but I'm unsure. So it was like that I think was, was surprising to us. But you know, hindsight's 2020 where you can look back and if somebody is, you Know, a little bit hesitant. Like they're feeling, you know, kind of, kind of sorta, you know, into it. It's like they're almost building in preparation for failure and not expecting themselves to be perfect. And that's when we see long term behavior change fails when we're expecting perfection. Like your donut example is perfect like to say, okay, well I had donuts today. So like today's out the window. But like is it, it's you know, 5pm my time, there's still several hours left in the day. Does that mean you're going to like go home and have three glasses of wine or like, oh, okay, great, I had a donut, I enjoyed it. That was that. So I think that's like really fascinating to think about. You know, just we talk about self efficacy all the time, right? That confidence is important, but it's like you don't want to have too much, like too much of a good thing isn't maybe so much of a good thing. And that can be anything from confidence to donuts.

Okay, we're going to move on a little bit and deep dive into the coaches. So this is a really interesting thing that Noom does differently than other kind of apps where you're just tracking calories. Can you explain the coach model and then we'll go into kind of how and why it works.

Yeah. So Noom's coaching model has evolved a lot over time. I mean it started with like one to one phone coaching like forever ago and you know, it's not easily scalable to do those kinds of things. And it morphed into, you know, text based coaching. So what happens in the app is basically like a text message within the app back and forth with a coach. And that's even evolved over time too where users actually have the option now to have like a one on one coach that is going to be a little bit more like an accountability force or like a coach that they can, you know, ask specific questions about maybe a certain food or diet or something like that where it's a little bit more self guided and most people actually opt for the sort of self guided coach where they're just there hanging out like not bugging them. There's a certain kind of person we found that really needs and wants that like person to really push them. And it's on average not everybody.

What percentage want the kind of the accountability coach?

I think we're down around like 10%. It's a really small number of people which I think is fascinating and I think what Also is interesting is we have groups too. So we have that social support and there is a coach that's also moderating those, moderating those groups. And so you get sort of another maybe more specialized layer of coaching. We have these things called circles now where you can opt into a group that's like specific maybe to one of your demographics. So like you might like for me I might join a mom's group who like you know, I'm trying to feed my family who likes different foods than I do and they just want like chicken nuggets and french fries. But like I'd actually like some screen somewhere in there. So there are those pieces as well that are in there where you might have a specialty coach who sort of understands, you know, more about specific dietary changes like a keto diet or something like that. If somebody's subscribing to like one of those other, you know, kinds of diets.

And what percentage up into the group thing or is this defaulted for them?

I believe that it's like they're defaulted into the group but if they're not active then they're removed from the group. And it's very much self guided. If you want to be in the group and you're interacting like great, that could be something that really works for you. I, I don't really like groups to be honest, just personally and so like that's not like a feature that I would really care too much about using. Like I don't really want to interact with a bunch of strangers. Like that's not my thing. But I know, you know, even from before I started at Noom, sort of the power and impact of groups and super years has been in those groups and really, really helping sort of a group of people maybe with a similar goal. It could be centered around running a 5K or you know, some other maybe non weight loss related topic. So yeah, it's, it's really interesting to see, you know, who opts for the group and not and it really doesn't dictate their success in the program. It really is about like meaningful engagement for that person. And for me it's not groups. And for you it might be.

That's fair. And we, we probably have a self selection problem by which if I were to assign everybody a paternalistic accountability coach, it's likely that more than 10% of people would find value with it. And yet it, when you're looking at it and saying do you want somebody to nag? You probably people think no, not for me. And so how do we get away from this or should we get away from the self selection problem? Which is like we don't actually understand ourselves as well as we think we do. Even though we think an accountability coach may not work for us. Is quite possible. It could in some situations, maybe not.

This is one thing I say till I am blue in the face over and over again to so many people. And I think this is like tech companies in general are like very over reliant on user feedback. And I love that we're in touch with our users. I think that's incredibly important. But our users are human, they are not robots. And so even if they ask for something that isn't necessarily what do they need in order to be successful. And so that's really, it's a huge challenge. One of like the best examples, back when I was on postdoc, one of my favorite examples, we were running these Facebook weight loss groups and over and over again, or you know, feedback we would get at the end of the study, it was like, oh, be great if we had like some kind of an in person, like walking meet up or something like that. Heard it over and over and over again. The handful of times that it was offered, nobody showed up. Nobody. So there is this really fascinating like microcosm of like human behavior happening in this one small piece of the puzzle. And so that's where I think a lot of this. You know, the ability to gather more data and insights about people is really helpful to start to carve out a path where, you know, we might surface a few options to people. And you know, it promotes autonomy. You know, they can sort of make some decisions, but you know, the hope is that generating some of those decision options for them is that they're able to make a decision but within the confines of like what we really think is going to be most successful for them based on the data that they've given us.

Yeah. And you know, a lot of behavior change, we can't force people to do something. So this is a general like, you know, and we have the idea of reducing choice. It's not like the idea is no choice or one choice. It's that actually people do enjoy choice, they like picking it. And yet so that some level of agency has to go into it. And yet at some other level, the idea that our intuition could predict which choice would be best for us is quite flawed. So this is kind of the conundrum in behavioral science, which is sometimes we don't understand ourselves well enough to pick the thing that could actually drive what we want in the long run. And it seems like you're in the thick, the thick of it, struggling with this. So how, how do the coaches drive accountability? Like if imagine you are in that 10% of group who opted into it, what are the mechanisms or what are the things that they do to help people achieve their goals?

It varies person by person, but I would say, you know, if we, if we have a user who is not engaging, that coach will send a message. It sort of provides a push notification to be like, hey, how are things going? Just checking in. I haven't seen you like log your food or log your weight in a while. Like, how are things going? Anything I can help with? So there are sort of those active prompts, but the app is also set up even outside of the coach. Users create their own SOS plan. So, you know, there's a series of questions in the curriculum where folks are asked like, okay, at what point, what threshold do you think you are essentially being non compliant? At what point are you disengaging? And we should raise a flag of like, oh, I need something from, from the program. And so it could be I didn't log any food for one day. It could be I haven't logged my weight in three days. It could be, you know, any kind of measure. And then you can decide, do I want noom to send me a text message, an email, do I want them to do nothing? That's an option too. Some people just don't want to be bothered. And so it is, it's. But it's back to that same problem of like, okay, somebody might say they don't want to be bothered, but the text message is more likely to help them. And like, we try to surface that in the curriculum. You know, for users, we'll say, you know, if you choose like a text message or an email, you're like, you're three times more likely to hit your goal weight. Like we, we give these sort of like subtle prompts, nudges if you will. Not that I love that term, but nudges if you will, to say like, okay, you have this as a choice, but like, it's not probably going to lead to the outcome that you're looking for.

Well, precise. Your folks just opt out of these, say, basically, no, no, thank you. I don't, I don't need you, I don't need your help.

Yeah, I actually, I don't know that stat off the top of my head, to be honest. I think most people set them up. You can go back into and change the settings. But, you know, there's something to be said for the default option. Once you've set it up, you're less likely to go back and change it. So, yeah, just, you know, having to go through those extra steps, create a little more friction for them to. To modify that. I think most people, on average are creating some kind of a plan, but maybe if they're really falling off. I think what's been a challenge is for people who, for example, are dealing with a sickness, right, they might have. Need to be, like, hospitalized for some kind of an issue. They have a family emergency, and they're getting these constant pings from noon. You're like, this is so annoying, right? Like, I don't. I can't do this right now. And so we're working really hard to sort of create a program that's a little bit more flexible for people where they can let us know, right, like, hey, I'm like, I'm sick, or I've got this family emergency, like, I need a couple weeks off or whatever that might be so that they're not being inundated at a time where they just have zero capacity to be thinking about the. Those kinds of things.

Any other commitment devices that coaches or noom uses to get people to follow through on these big goals?

Yeah. So I, I think one of my favorites is like, pulling on temptation, bundling. So we talk a lot about that. You know, if TV is your vice, like, who doesn't love a good, you know, Netflix session? Maybe you're doing that while you're walking on a treadmill at home or, you know, you're doing. They're doing some, some form of activity. If you love chatting with your friends, like, get them to come on a walk with you or something like that, I think that's a big piece. And then another, more recent one has been, you know, really focused on social support with social incentives. So you can now nominate, like, a buddy and so you can put their email as sort of like, accountability. So it could be like your spouse at home, and they can get notifications about your progress so they can cheer you on throughout your journey. Which is, I think, really, really interesting to see how that works. And I think it's that, that social support piece, there are so many options. There's a constant experimentation on, like, what is the right. What's the right mix. But I think sort of that family and close social tie network is. Is really, really critical.

And so they're adding somebody. Does this person have access to see their weight? Like so what level of access does the person have in their, in their new bliss?

Yeah, so this is, this is ongoing with, with to what extent they have access. I don't think it has to do with, like, their specific way, but more about their behavior. So do we, we do a lot to reinforce the behaviors that we know are effective that lead to the outcome that they're looking for, rather than specifically really focusing on, on the outcome. So, you know, a lot of the, like, incentives and reward systems, we have what's called NOOM Coin. And so people can earn NOOM COIN as they progress through the program. They'll earn a coin if they log their weight, they log their meals for the day, and they read their set of reading for the curriculum for that day. So that will earn them a new coin. And then over time, those new coins are really essentially unlocking other features. And. But it's really promoting the behavior rather than the outcome. It's not, oh, you've lost five pounds, we're going to give you coins. It's about like, are you actually doing the behaviors that are going to lead to the outcome that you're looking for?

Yep, for sure. Very interesting. So there's something called social desirability effect, which is basically when our behavior is more visible, we act in a more socially desirable way. And so it's interesting to think if somebody just can see my behavior within noom, I may behave a little bit better or a little bit more idealistic to whatever I, I think is ideal, which in this case may be weight loss behaviors. So that, that's very nice. So basically, let's move on to motivational tactics in general, because you have so many things people in NOOM have to do. They have to log food, they have to read this content. They then have to, like, eat a salad or like, eat better, you know, eat the green foods versus the orange foods. And so how do you keep people going? And how much can people fail before they fail?

Yeah, it's so tricky. It's sort of balancing this idea of like, I'm in the groove, right? You're sort of in this maybe state of flow of like, you get it? And novelty. Like, we know that introducing some level of novelty is important, but not wanting to change the experience so much that users are like, wait a minute, you know, I feel like I worked so hard for this thing and now it's gone. We have a lot of internal debates about streaks. Do we use them? Do we not use them? Are they motivating or demotivating? It's it's, it's, it's, it's a huge challenge. But I think, you know, when, when it comes to when, when folks are failing and I think we have to like, define what failure is and, and that could be highly individualized. I think oftentimes it centers around like plateaus. So maybe they've lost a little bit of weight, they hit a plateau and they're like, what the heck, right? I'm doing all the things that I was doing before and it's not working like what is happening and it's, you know, it's, it's a natural part of, of the journey. And so thinking about what are the things that you could maybe tweak and trying to find those maybe like alternative ways, like, okay, you've been doing this thing consistently for four months or whatever the timeframe is, your body's going to change and adjust. And so how do you sort of keep it fresh and whether that's, you know, sometimes we'll introduce physical activity a little bit to a greater extent when there's a, you know, a weight loss plateau. But sometimes it truly is just not the right time for somebody. And I think like that's, there's so much stigma and shame around weight and then, you know, I feel very strongly about a lot of the, you know, non scale wins, like we like to call them. So people who are, you know, maybe the scale isn't budging, but they've increased their physical activity and we see them coming off of like blood pressure medication. Like, to me that is so much more meaningful. There's so much data out there to support that. You know, even if folks are staying at the same weight, but they become physically active and are sort of meeting the activity requirements, their metabolic profile is going to look a lot better than somebody who's their same weight but is inactive. And so there are other ways to win. And I think, you know, changing our culture to some extent of like not shaming people for the bodies that they're in and recognizing that there's power and where they are currently, I think is also just like, I don't know, maybe they want the scale to go down. But some people learn some really interesting things along their path. And like, it really is about self discovery. It is tremendous to read the user stories and testimonials that like, okay, you know, maybe I hit my weight goal or maybe I didn't, but I gained X, Y and Z and I've, you know, shaped my children's eating behaviors or things like that. That really is Just like so tremendous.

So let's double click on the sign up flow. This is basically maybe what NOOM is known for in kind of the shiny object. It's you have a really long sign up flow. So tell us how this came about and what testing you guys have done to figure out if and how it works internally.

We have a very love hate relationship with our, you know, ridiculously long what we call our buy flow. And it's been, it's been fascinating to see from a psychological perspective as folks are answering questions, we're getting them to essentially buy in more to the process. And so it's like the, they're as you're answering all these questions and you're committing this time and effort, you want that commitment to be for something, right? For not for nothing. So there's like sort of that, that business side of things. But the way that we can gather data from our users, it allows us to segment them out better too and understand these different user segments to maybe surface different curriculum or you know, sort of different behavior change options based on what we think on average, you know, works for these different segments. So for some people it's, you know, they in the past have been very avoidant or they've tried lots of diets in the past and they're in their 60s and they're retired. And so what does that mean for somebody like that versus, you know, a busy mom who works full time and lives in the country and has no street lights. So like you know, just, you know, really from the very beginning in the get go to understand who these users are also allows us to predict, you know, who, who is most likely to be successful and maybe who's least likely to be successful and where do we want to invest more in the program to support the people who are least likely, you know, to be successful or do we just focus in on the folks who, who are the most. And so yeah, I think that's, it's been so interesting to see and like we've gone back retrospectively. I worked on a project, it was like right after I started at noom, so like nearly three years ago and we were interested in cancer and I had come from postdoc where I was doing some work in the cancer, breast cancer space and you know, the first place I could start was like, hey, do we have a biflow question that has says anything about a history of cancer? And lo and behold, we had a question like that. So I could actually go back and for folks who, you know, didn't opt out of being a part of research. I had their email addresses and I could email them and ask them about their experiences and generate some surveys. So it's like from a, it's a scientist's dream, honestly, like if you're an academic or have academic training, it is like a gold mine to be able to just look through all of the data that we have to start to generate some additional questions. So I give you a nice long response for a long buy flow. But it's, yeah, it's been so fascinating to be able to look at the different sort of predictors and some things are, I think surprising for us. You know, we see that the folks who were most successful in the program were people at retirement age. And so, you know, for a lot of folks who are making the argument that oh, okay, older adults aren't tech literate and they can't do this kind of program, we have some really strong data to say like actually these are folks who are the most successful and when they're at retirement ages they're, you know, seeking more structure. And NOOM is providing structure in their lives. And so that wasn't even really on our radar at all. But for us to kind of think about, okay, how is, how is the product serving that group of people and how can we maybe make it serve some of the other busier, very structured groups as well?

And you know, the trade off for a long sign up flow is obviously drop off and so at what point does it become, I mean, I don't even know if NOOM is long, so I don't know if we could say too long. But where do you see the drop off? Because you're obviously making a trade that the people who finish a sign up flow are more invested because of the sunk costs they've had and so they will be be better customers, better paying customers. And yet you're losing probably a handful of folks to the length. So what's the trade there?

It's a really large trade off to think about. I think what we really have wanted is users who are more likely to get through to trial and get through to being a paid customer. For us, there's no benefit really to acquiring users who aren't going to use the program and like be invested. So in some ways it's already kind of like weeding out the people who probably wouldn't be using the program anyway or using it for any length of time. So from like an acquisition perspective, it's a pretty low cost way to like weed out some people who just maybe Aren't ready. You know, we see that if people are coming in and they're really committed and they get through the flow and they're in, they're like ready to rock and roll. We don't tend to have as many people who are just like, you know, you might get the curious people, but those are probably the ones who are going to be more likely to fall off. They're like, screw this, I don't have 10 minutes to go through this. I help flow.

So we sometimes call this entrapment, where you're basically filtering people based on really an observable variable. But you're not just asking, do you want Noom? You're asking us, do you want to spend 10 minutes signing up for Noom? And you're kind of entraping the people who will actually do it and be successful while everyone else will drop off. So very clear. And within that, at the end they get to this recommendation. You know, the basis is sign up for noom. Here's a plan. And it's interesting to, to contemplate and I'm very curious why you guys have a fixed plan. So most companies have an endless subscription model. You know, I'm not on Netflix for two months, I'm on it forever. And so why do this fixed plan? So there's usually like a 12 month or 16 month plan recommendation, if, if I'm correct.

Yeah, yeah. We often will offer like several different plan lengths and we've experimented a lot. I think, you know, most people are usually somewhere between the like 4 to 8 months. Although I think the 12 month is like increasing last I knew over time. And you know, from, from a behavior change perspective, there's like a finite period of time that a user is expecting themselves to engage in this behavior change. Whether that is the 4 month or 8 month or 12 month. It sort of allows the person to say, I'm going to commit to this thing for this amount of time. They might renew. If they're not done yet, they're not done with their journey. They need, they want more, they need more. But some people, you know, get what they need and then they're all good to go. And so I think, you know, we've, we've talked about and I've pushed a lot and folks of, you know, are we trying to push people into the app? Are we trying to push people out of the app? Because maybe out of the app is the best thing for them. Maybe it's not the best thing for the business, but it might be the best thing for them and their behavior change. And so I think that's, you know, NOOM is set up in a way that people are supposed to be learning lifelong change and like have a true lifestyle shift. And so, you know, it takes time to do that. You know, if our program is based around the diabetes prevention program, which is a 12 week program, our 12 month program. And so, you know, having that sort of contained period of time, somebody can see how they're progressing in that amount of time and decide, do I want more? And I think what, what I also like about it is we often will recommend a plan based on how much somebody's wanting to lose. So we follow the recommended, you know, one to two pounds a week from the CDC. And so if somebody wants to lose 50 pounds, like that's a long time. And so, you know, we're not wanting to be a quick fix and a crash diet for somebody. We want it to be this sustainable behavior change that, you know, does take time. But again, we're human and we can fall off from habits. And so there's again, if we want the win back example where people might come back to the program if they're needing a tune up. And we're experimenting with, we just baselined like a weight maintenance program. So folks who have achieved their goal weight, oftentimes I think it's that hard work is done. But actually weight maintenance is arguably more challenging than weight loss because you're starting to sort of like reintegrate or readjust your calories and that sort of thing. So trying to support them in their long term journey and allow them to sort of come back to maybe weight loss if they need to, or figure out where at what point they need like a weight maintenance SOS plan of like, oh gosh, you know, my scale has gone up, you know, ten pounds or five pounds, whatever the threshold is. Maybe I need to have a quick refresher and get me on track.

You know, a critique in general health behavior change studies is they just don't last. So there's a very scary chart that kind of goes up during the intervention and then goes very quickly down to the baseline right after the intervention is removed. And this is the meta analysis of lots of studies and it's fairly depressing. And so how like am I just going to always remember an orange food? And so M&Ms. Are always orange. And I just thought, no, I should feel, you know, guilty plus pleasurable while, while eating them. Like what is the theory that keep that you think NOOM will sustain the change?

Yeah, I think it's, it's been so incredible to see that. We actually just recently analyzed some data from our new mood program, which is the stress management. And, and we looked at, you know, users who use the program for 16 weeks and looked at them 16 weeks after they stopped. And I could not believe how flat the line was like, to not see the, like, rise in stress, anxiety, depression measures, et cetera. Truly, like all of the data says like this, this, you know, all the research out there, like, wow, like something is happening for, for these users and for, for weight. It's, it's the same thing. I think the part of Noom that I think is maybe missing from some other programs is this like, idea of self compassion. And you know, we, we pull on acceptance and commitment therapy, act and you know, that kind of therapy is really just radical acceptance of like, where you are. DBT is in there as well, thinking about like, okay, yeah, I had the donut today and like, that's okay. Really wanted that donut. Instead of the like, guilt and shame that often goes with like, oh, gosh, I ate like an unhealthy food. And I hate labeling foods that way. And it's just, it's a pet peeve. And I bring it up all the time that there are not healthy and unhealthy foods. It depends what your goals are, et cetera. But I think that's the, the piece where folks start to learn to move away from black and white thinking and they start to accept that the, like, my diet doesn't need to be all green. It's not meant to be all green. A large proportion should be green, but you should also be eating yellow and orange foods. Like all of them are in there. You don't have to take away the things that bring you so much joy. My M&Ms. Are not going anywhere. For somebody else, it might be their glass of wine. Like, that's not going anywhere.

No one's taking my glass of wine away.

Yeah, definitely.

And so we talked earlier about community. And so some of this, you have to internally motivate yourself and know the failure is okay. And a donut day is not going to mean that I should splurge at lunch or dinner. And so the other theory of change in any behavior is just norm. So we are who we surround ourselves with. And so it seems like for Noom, you guys have a community that could help set these new norms. Could you describe the community and how it got started and like, what, what fuels how it works?

Absolutely. I mean, I think really, it Started with the science, right? To, to see the role of social support and helping people achieve their healthy behaviors. I mean, we see people posting in there. It could be there's an after work party and somebody might be feeling nervous about it. You know, they learned that they need to plan ahead for these kinds of outings. Or they might go to their group and be like, oh, gosh, right, I have this after work party that I'm going to. I know there's going to be crazy appetizers and drinks and whatnot. Like, do you guys have any advice on what I might be able to say to people? And so I think that's like, where the crowdsourcing and like quick feedback, like in the moment responses from people who are in your shoes or even just to say, like, hey, you know, where are you at in your, in your calorie budget for today? Like, maybe, maybe a drink is worthwhile or you know, sort of planning ahead for, for those kinds of things. But I think relying on people who have been there or who are currently there and struggling through that. It's been so fascinating to see a lot of our coaches were also users of the program. And so to see folks who, you know, have used the program have been successful in the program, you know, the amount of sort of stock that you would put into the things that they have to say versus somebody who's like, never struggled with weight, you're not really going to hear from them as much. And often that can be like your medical provider or they don't know how to have those conversations. And so, you know, coming to like a nonjudgmental community of people who are understanding where you are and being able to figure out, okay, well, this worked for Susie. I don't think it's going to work for you. Maybe I could try it this way. And finding those, those ways, it's a big experiment in your behavior of like, what's going to work for me? And I'm different from Bobby and Joey and Susie, but I've learned all this stuff from them. Like, I think I might pull, you know, that, that one piece. Like, okay, maybe I'll have, you know, the appetizer, but I'm not going to have a drink or vice versa. Whatever is going to be like, most enjoyable for them in those moments.

Thank you for listening. If you like the show, go to irrational labs.com to say hello to us or post a review on Apple or Spotify. Big thank you to the show's two Jax, Jack Buer, our writer, and Jack Steger, our genius editor. Until next time.