Four For Friday | May 2, 2025

LF171 Boosting for behavior change, time to update Lean Startup, consumer wellness manifesto, agile government + Wispr

Welcome to this week’s Four For Friday. Four things that have piqued my interest this week, together with a bonus: AI Tip of The Week.

1. From nudging to boosting

"Nudging" has been the Big Thing in behavioral policy-making circles for years, subtly directing choices through framing, environmental design and social comparison among other things. This piece suggests that we need to do more than nudge - which accepts human limitations as fixed - we need to boost human capabilities.

The nudge approach assumes people's decision-making is inherently flawed and focuses on leveraging cognitive biases to steer individual choices. Governments around the world have embraced it as cost-effective and a way to get change happening with minimal regulation.

The "boosting" approach instead builds on human strengths. Digital literacy boosts teach strategies to assess online information credibility. Risk literacy boosts help people understand cumulative health risks. These interventions foster agency rather than merely tweaking behavior.

COVID-19 was a good reminder that people can do more, and are more capable, than is often assumed. The paper suggest that adherence to public health measures was sustained through shared identity and community resilience, not through nudges.

Addressing today's pressing challenges may require developing collective human agency rather than simply compensating for individual shortcomings.

The So What? I imagine you can split hairs about what’s a boost and what’s a nudge, but the central idea of filling in gaps not just working around them resonates well.

2. The Lean Statup is Dead

A bit click-baity, but this article saying the Lean Startup is dead is a useful reframe. It points out that Lean Startup thinking came out at a time when it was expensive to build, so startups should spend a lot of time getting input upfront - getting outside and speaking to customers - rather than spending time and money creating a product that may not be what the customers want.

Now with Gen AI, it’s far easier to build multiple different MVPs, so you can have a more informed conversation with customers based on something that looks real.

The So What? You still need to speak to customers, now you can do it with a more robust draft product.

3. Long consumer wellness

A succinct thesis by a VC on why he’s long the growing consumer wellness trend - not just a market but a way of life.

Already valued between $2-$6 trillion globally (25% increase since 2019), this sector is experiencing both massive growth amid several key dislocations and catalysts.

Big dislocations include the GLP-1 medications, a nationwide chronic disease crisis entering political discourse (e.g. Make American Healthy Again) and a pull back from the processed, sweet staples of CPG food brands, who now need to think about healthier options.

Consumers now rank health and wellness as their top life priority, and new "Longevity Leaders" influencers (e.g. Andrew Huberman, Peter Attia, and Bryan Johnson) are shaping trends and policy discussions.

Looking ahead 25 years, retail shelves and brand portfolios will transform dramatically to align with consumer wellness priorities. This represents a generational opportunity for companies and investors in this space.

The So What? Health and longevity is going mainstream, taking some of the shine off convenience. There’s a groundswell of bottom-up demand for healthy options and longevity - just ask your 19 year-old or 69 year old friends) that will rock politics and legacy brands.

4. Test and learn: a playbook for mission-driven government

Speaking of Lean Startup being dead - this playbook draws upon many of the useful themes and tactics used by startups to suggest ways the UK government can improve policy development and service delivery.

The "test and learn" approaches - unlike traditional "waterfall" approaches where most decisions are made upfront - are iterative - starting small, testing critical assumptions early through rapid feedback cycles, and adapting based on real-world evidence. It suggsts principles:

1. Practice > policy: Frontline insights should inform policy

2. Learning loops: Short, iterative cycles beats linear processes

3. Test assumptions: Validate key elements early at small scale

4. Shape conditions: Enable collaboration and distributed decision-making

The UK government already has many building blocks for this approach but needs changes to funding rules, procurement systems, data infrastructure, and team structures to fully embed test and learn in its operations.

The So What? Government isn’t a startup but can learn from iterative cycles. How this works in practice with today’s mindsets and political systems is a different matter.

Bonus AI tool:

Wispr - a super easy dictation tool for computers, activated by a hot key. I find I’m using this more than typing a lot of the time.

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That’s all for this week. As always, feedback welcome, especially on the new audio features.

- Stephen