made-to-stick

# Made to Stick Framework

A framework for crafting ideas and messages that are understood, remembered, and drive lasting action. Based on decades of research into why some ideas survive and others die.

## Core Principle

**The Curse of Knowledge is the single greatest barrier to effective communication.** Once we know something, we can't imagine not knowing it—which makes us bad at explaining our ideas to others. Sticky ideas aren't born, they're made: the SUCCESs framework provides six principles that make any idea more memorable and impactful.

## Scoring

**Goal: 10/10.** Rate any messaging (copy, presentations, campaigns, onboarding) 0-10 against the SUCCESs principles: simple, surprising, concrete, credible, emotional, and wrapped in a story scores 10; forgettable communication scores low. Always state the current score and the specific improvements needed to reach 10/10.

## The SUCCESs Framework

**S**imple · **U**nexpected · **C**oncrete · **C**redible · **E**motional · **S**tories

**Not a checklist—a toolkit.** Not every sticky idea uses all six, but the stickiest ideas tend to use most of them. **Ethical boundary:** use SUCCESs to make true ideas stick—never to make false claims memorable.

### 1. Simple

**Core concept:** Find the core of the idea and share it compactly. Simple ≠ dumbed down—it means ruthless prioritization: "if you say three things, you say nothing."

**The Commander's Intent:** if everything else goes wrong, what ONE thing must we accomplish? For messaging: if people remember ONE thing about your product, what should it be? **The inverted pyramid:** lead with the most important thing; readers who stop anywhere still got the core.

**Techniques for simplicity:**

| Technique | How It Works | Example |
|-----------|-------------|---------|
| **Core message** | Strip to the essential | Southwest: "THE low-fare airline" |
| **Analogy** | Explain new via known | "It's like Uber for dog walking" |
| **Generative** | Core idea that generates behavior | "Names, names, names" (local newspaper motto) |

**Application to product messaging:**

| Before (Complex) | After (Simple) |
|-------------------|----------------|
| "AI-powered, cloud-native customer engagement platform with omnichannel capabilities" | "Talk to all your customers in one place" |
| "We leverage machine learning algorithms to optimize conversion funnels" | "We find why visitors don't buy and fix it" |
| "Enterprise-grade project management with Gantt charts, resource allocation..." | "The simplest way to manage projects" |

**The test:** Can you explain it to a smart 12-year-old? **Warning:** don't simplify into emptiness—"we make the world better" is simple but meaningless.

See: [references/simple.md](references/simple.md) for simplification exercises and templates.

### 2. Unexpected

**Core concept:** Get attention by breaking patterns (surprise); hold attention by creating curiosity gaps (interest). The surprise must connect to the core message—identify the counterintuitive implication and communicate that.

**Example surprises:**

| Category | Expected | Unexpected (Sticky) |
|----------|----------|---------------------|
| **Product launch** | "Introducing our new feature" | "We removed your favorite feature. Here's why." |
| **Statistics** | "Obesity is growing" | "A bag of movie popcorn has more fat than a bacon-and-eggs breakfast, Big Mac and fries, and steak dinner — combined" |
| **Value prop** | "Save money on insurance" | "15 minutes could save you 15%" (specific, unexpected) |

**Creating curiosity gaps** — open a gap in knowledge, create the desire to fill it:

| Technique | How It Works | Example |
|-----------|-------------|---------|
| **Question** | Ask what they don't know | "What's the #1 reason startups fail?" |
| **Prediction** | Ask them to predict | "How many X do you think...?" |
| **Mystery** | Present a puzzle, delay the resolution | "Nordstrom once refunded a set of tires. They don't sell tires." |
| **Challenge** | Violate assumptions | "Everything you know about X is wrong" |

**Anti-pattern:** Gimmicky surprise without substance.

See: [references/unexpected.md](references/unexpected.md) for pattern-breaking techniques.

### 3. Concrete

**Core concept:** Use sensory language and specific details instead of abstract concepts. Abstraction kills memorability; the more concrete and specific the idea, the stickier it becomes.

**Abstract vs. Concrete:**

| Abstract | Concrete |
|----------|----------|
| "Improve customer experience" | "Customers get their order in 30 minutes, still hot" |
| "Increase engagement" | "Users open the app 8 times a day" |
| "Optimize efficiency" | "Reduce report generation from 4 hours to 10 minutes" |
| "World-class support" | "Call us and a human answers in under 60 seconds" |
| "Scalable solution" | "Handle 10,000 users on day one without code changes" |

**The Velcro theory of memory:** concrete ideas have more "hooks"—"bicycle" is easier to remember than "vehicle" because you can picture it.

**Techniques for concreteness:**

| Technique | How It Works | Example |
|-----------|-------------|---------|
| **Specific numbers** | Replace "a lot" with exact figures | "2,347 customers" not "thousands" |
| **Sensory language** | Engage senses | "Crispy, not crunchy" |
| **Concrete example** | Replace category with instance | "Like John, a 35-year-old teacher in Denver" |
| **Before/after** | Tangible transformation | "Before: 4 hours. After: 10 minutes." |

**Application:** features → outcomes; percentages → real numbers ("saves 40%" → "saves 16 hours/month"); categories → specific examples ("restaurants" → "pizza shops in Brooklyn"); demos > feature lists.

See: [references/concrete.md](references/concrete.md) for concreteness exercises.

### 4. Credible

**Core concept:** Help people believe your idea using external credibility (authorities, credentials) and internal credibility (vivid details, human-scale statistics, testable claims)—inter