I've been using this app for a few months now... It certainly does have the right sort of motivation to get me to the gym. It's not about getting rich, it's about not losing money.
The business model is genius, the app works well & the team is super responsive.
So happy to post @PactApp here!
I wonder can it be applied also to startup goals (getting users, reaching financial goals, finalising releases or launching product). Perhaps there is already something similar out there?
@kristapslazda They're not specifically for startup goals, but there's StickK and Beeminder which can be adapted for goals other than fitness. I only found Beeminder recently, but their approach towards tackling motivation is very interesting.
@kristapslazda@manasvinik Not sure the analogy makes sense to me with you taking yourself to the gym as a purely internal goal vs. by having to depend on other people, finding customers is more external.
@kristapslazda@kicksopenminds I agree-- "finding customers" is a fairly broad end goal, and may sometimes depend on external factors. StickK assumes you'll do whatever it takes to get those customers (or ship the product) to avoid having to pay up.
As for Beeminder, it makes you break the goal into quantifiable regular actions you can do by yourself without having to depend on others, such as 'research customer needs', 'make at least 2 cold calls a day', 'write 1 blog post a week', and so on. All of which are activities we may need to do, and often procrastinate doing :).
The main similarity lies in that all these products use commitment contracts to prevent self-sabotaging.
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