Start at the End

How to Build Products That Create Change

By: Matt Wallaert

Narrated by: Matt Wallaert

Nudge meets Hooked in a practical approach to designing products and services that change behavior, from what we buy to how we work.

Deciding what to create at modern companies often looks like an episode of Mad Men: people throw ideas around until one sounds sexy enough to execute and then they scale it to everyone. The result? Companies overspend on marketing to drive engagement with products and services that people don't want and won't help them be happier and healthier.

Start at the End offers a new framework for design, grounded in behavioral science. Technology executive and behavioral scientist Matt Wallaert argues that the purpose of everything is behavior change. By starting with outcomes instead of processes, the most effective companies understand what people want to do and why they aren't already doing it, then build products and services to bridge the gap.

Wallaert is a behavioral psychologist who has led product design at organizations ranging from startups like Clover Health to industry leaders such as Microsoft. Whether dissecting the success behind Uber's ridesharing service or Flamin' Hot Cheetos, he underscores with clarity and humor how this approach can improve the way we work and live.

This is an essential road map for building products that matter - and changing behavior for the better.

©2019 Matt Wallaert (P)2019 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

“Clear and concise, this is a book for anyone who believes there is a better way to do business. Wallaert is right: we can all be behavioral scientists. And we all should be.” (Sallie Krawcheck, CEO and cofounder of Ellevest)

“Matt Wallaert spends his time finding ways to help people make decisions that will enable them to live better lives, and in this book he shares how we all can. Start at the End is a clear, insightful, wise, and powerful book that will help anyone whose aim is to improve human welfare.” (Barry Schwartz, professor at Berkeley Haas, author of The Paradox of Choice and Why We Work)

“The idea that products exist to change behavior isn’t new, yet most product designers don’t start with behavior as an outcome. Wallaert’s intriguing, insightful, and often humorous new book is a guide for anyone seeking to drive customer action.” (Nir Eyal, author of Hooked and Indistractable)

Important Interesting ideas

The ideas presented in the book worth knowing for both individuals and people running their business. This audio book is interesting, easy to flow with.

Great book!

Great story telling and informative. It got my brain thinking about the world in another way.

Funny and Insightful

This book tales topics like psychology and statistics and breaks down what you need to know to be able to influence behavior. I loved the humor and the way it was presented. Matt sounds like a great guy to have a beer with.

Loved this book! Fun and actionable

This book was awesome. I really enjoyed Mat style of delivery and the content and processes are super straightforward! Recommending it to my marketing teams as well as my product teams.

Almost a Good Book.

Almost a good book, unfortunately this academic thinks any relationship he can think of is evidence of correlation. If your going to knock Uber for keeping driver's on the road, a feature that shows them where the most costumers are is a poor example of an incentive, considering that feature was obviously built to aid in directing traffic. Facebook intended to give individuals the content they wanted, the fact that they chose to engage with negative content is like blaming a knife for being used for murder rather the culinary arts. And suggesting that anyone who doesn't whole heartedly act to end sexism in their business is evidence of a "f'ing niave" consultant who doesn't understand that small businesses are often so strapped for opportunities to hire, that waiting for the right woman when dozens of male applicants are pouring in is just not feasable. For a man who claims to be about the data, this academic either needs a confirmation bias check, or needs to go back to an intro to stastics and get a refresher on relationships. So many of us want to help, but thinking that all of us can, should, or should sacrifice the business for some ideal undermines the author's bigger message.

Matt brings it

clear, concise, practical steps to build for change - with the added amped energy of Matt - great listen and learn

Nice book

this was a nice insightful book 📚 talking about behavior and how to interact with it

Inspiring and truly insightful

This book widened my perspective on how to approach my work as a designer. It helped me strengthen my process through rigorous thinking, always having clarity of the goal.

Outstanding, game-changing

We now use this method to run our entire business at Focusmate. The Intervention Design Process is an awesome upgrade to the Lean Startup basics and essential for any product organization.

Is this my favorite book?

I’ve now listened to it 3 times through, plus a few chapters 5 or more times. I’m a User Experience designer which may be a kissing cousin of behavioral sciences in that many of us are obsessed with promoting and inhibiting pressures. Most don’t have a background in behavioral sciences, so our language and lexicon is different, but I’m finding we very much need the language found in this book we also need to adjust some of our processes to accommodate techniques in this book. Must read/listen.