Tag: stickk

This is still pie-in-the-sky philosophical navel-gazing but it makes me very happy. Not just because I love pie-in-the-sky philosophical navel-gazing (we could say Product Vision if we wanted to sound more respectable) but because a couple years ago this sounded preposterously theoretical and fantastical...

Earlier this year we completed a lovely Beeminder book club to read behavioral scientist Katy Milkman’s new book, How To Change. The discussion all happened in the amazing Beeminder forum but as a private group of 18 of us, so we could trash talk the book guilt-free (or just to be able to talk more...

We use the word “goal” a lot but, ironically, we agree with Scott Adams (of Dilbert fame) who argues that goals are for losers. He points out that the most amazing people he knows tend not to just have goals that they achieve and then are done with, but systems for constantly improving. This is the biggest...

Technically we deployed this feature over two months ago, but not very well so we didn’t have much fanfare. It was one of our daily UVIs (@beemuvi) and we mentioned it in a beemail. The feature itself is pretty self-explanatory: In the Settings for a goal you can add supporters — friends, family, enemies — who...

This post is by Erica Edelman, our very first employee! She’s been knocking our socks off since we met her a couple months ago, and apparently the feeling was mutual because last week she moved to Portland from Columbus, Ohio to start with us full-time. The main excuse to hire her was that she’ll be...

StickK popularized the idea of the anti-charity as a commitment device. Another [Update: former] Beeminder competitor, Aherk, offers to publish embarrassing photos of you on Facebook to ensure you don’t fall prey to akrasia. Another clever idea — proposed by Jennifer Hamon on Akratics Anonymous — is...

This is a guest post by Philip Hellyer, who has done more in 2012 than he thought possible, with the help of Beeminder. He’s going to get a head start on 2013, and so could you. Here’s how. It’s approaching that time of year again. People will ask you about your resolutions for the new year. They might...

Until now you haven’t had much choice about how much to pledge (put at risk) on your Beeminder commitment contracts. It starts out free, then $5, then each subsequent time you derail from your yellow brick road you’re encouraged (though not forced) to jump to the next pledge level for your next attempt:...

We’ve been collecting a list of synonyms for the crazy lifehack that sites like Beeminder facilitate. In addition to us being shameless SEO-whores, it seems like this list could be genuinely useful for humans, especially the kind of humans who read the Beeminder Blog. Here’s how a co-founder of StickK...

We have a new competitor about to launch: Lift! Their (meta) goal is the same as ours. They want to “eliminate willpower as a factor in achieving goals”. Our approaches, however, are quite opposite. Or at least they have opposite sign. Lift emphasizes in their pre-announcement blog post today that they...

[UPDATE 2024: We’re continuing to keep this list up to date (see the “On the Horizon” section for the very latest). Let us know in the comments if there are any competitors we’ve missed!] I just blackmailed myself with a silly photo thanks to our competitor [UPDATE: former competitor; see graveyard...

This is a guest post by Josh Jordan. While waiting for a Beeminder beta account, I tried using StickK to help me lose some fat. StickK is a brilliant concept and I hope they succeed in a big way, but I don’t like their weekly weigh-ins, for two reasons: It’s way too easy to temporarily and unhealthfully...