The lack of anything to master is often why simple gamification fails. Points, badges, and leaderboards aren’t compelling unless you’re improving along some personally meaningful dimension.

Are your solutions working? How would life be different if this worked better?

Stories can take many forms, such as updating Instagram, posting to a forum, or leaving a comment on a blog.

Friend-of-friend social media sharing.

Not everyone needs to experience this path, but those who want to go deep can have more impact with the more they learn.

To create a compelling mastery system, your need context, challenge, and character transformation.

Note internal and situational triggers that are already in your early customers’ lives. What emotions or urges could drive customers to seek out your product?

Don’t fall into the common trap of thinking that your innovative offering will create brand-new habits. If you want to drive adoption and retention, it’s easier to piggyback on an existing habit than get someone to build an entirely new one, just for your product.

Extrinsic rewards are effective at getting people to complete simple, short-term tasks, but decrease effectiveness for creative tasks that require out-of-the-box thinking.