Internet Challenges: Rules, Habits, Communities

This is the free version of Trends PRO #0049 — Internet Challenges

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❓ What You’ll Learn

• What are internet challenges?
• Which audience-first products were built using internet challenges?
• How to design incentives for your challenge?
• How to use challenges as lead magnets?
• How to build a personal brand using challenges?

🔍 Problem

You need to build a strong brand and community.

💡 Solution

Internet challenges are time-bound games with clear rules and incremental steps.

Challenges build new habits, identities and communities. 

Turning non-coders into no-coders, coach potatoes into runners and consumers into creators. Through action.

🏁 Players

Creator Challenges

• Trends Pro Challenge
• 120 Video Challenge
• 30 Days of Content
• 100 Days of No Code

Writing Challenges

• Ship 30 for 30
• Flash Fiction Challenge

Health Challenges

• Appalachian Trail Challenge
• 30 Day Meditation Challenge

Comfort Challenges

• Kick Ass Letters
• The Coffee Challenge

Lifestyle Challenges

• 8-Week Tidy Up Challenge
• Monthly Mission (Miracle Morning)
• 8-Week Tidy Up Challenge

Finance Challenges

• 30-Day Financial Cleanse

🔮 Predictions

• Challenges will lead to iconic personal brands. Casey Neistat shipped daily vlogs 534 days in a row. James Clear published twice a week for 3 years. 
• Challenges will become lead magnets for paid communities. #100DaysOfNoCode members tag updates and drive traffic back to the community. 

☁️ Opportunities

• Use challenges to build audience-first products:
  • Rejection Proof — Face 100 days of rejection (Book)
  • Rice Mountain — Trade a grain of rice for a mountain (Newsletter)
  • 1000 Awesome Things — Share one awesome thing each weekday (Blog)
• Turn your public challenge into a paid community. See #100DaysOfNoCode. Yarty is doing it with Kick Ass Letters.
• Use challenges to build an email list. See Gabby Berstein’s Manifesting Challenge. Align your value ladder with the challenge. See lead generation for more. 
• Add a challenge to your self-paced course to boost accountability and completion rates. This can be done without affecting scalability. 

🔑 Key Lessons

• Challenges drive the creator economy. Seth Godin ships a post each day. Trends.vc sends a report each week. Bad Unicorn builds a bad idea every two weeks. 
• Effective challenges:
  • Have clear rules
  • Encourage sharing
  • Celebrate completion
  • Leave room for self-expression

😠 Haters

“Challenges are fads.”
Some still read 100 pages a day like Benjamin Franklin. We ignored the pee your pants challenge in this report.

“Consistency over intensity… What if I make it too easy?”
Use the minimum effective dose and build momentum. In a perfect world, we’d baseline each person’s ability.

“The rice mountain challenge was inspired by the red paperclip challenge.”
Stew acknowledges that.                                                                                                                           

🔗 Links

1. Looking for challenges. Any examples? — The tweet behind this report. 
2. Atomic Habits — Learn to build habits in order to build effective challenges. 
3. Trends #0021 Gamification — Design incentives and ‘sticky’ experiences. 

🙏 Thanks

Thanks to Jeremy Abraham (Spiffy), Neeraj Hirani (NeerajHirani.com), Logan Johnson (Logan.io), Christina Pashialis (ContentUK), Miles Beckler (MilesBeckler.com), Daniel Hunter (#90DaysOfProse), Daniel Wulf (Wurst Circle), Max Haining (#100DaysOfNoCode), Dickie Bush (#Ship30for30) and Yarty Kim (Kick Ass Letters). We had a great time jamming on this report. 

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What you’ll get:

• 7 Creator Challenges (75% More)
• 6 Writing Challenges (200% More)
• 7 Health Challenges (250% More)
• 5 Comfort Challenges (150% More)
• 5 Lifestyle Challenges (66% More)
• 4 Finance Challenges (300% More)
• 4 Predictions (100% More)
• 11 Opportunities (175% More)
• 5 Key Lessons (150% More)
• 10 Summarized Links (233%)

With Trends Pro you’ll learn:

• (📈 Pro) How to launch a challenge for your brand?
• (📈 Pro) Where are internet challenges heading?
• (📈 Pro) Why are streaks powerful?
• (📈 Pro) How to use challenges to hire?
• (📈 Pro) How to customize challenges at scale?
• (📈 Pro) How to use challenges to sell?
• (📈 Pro) How to stay top of mind?
• (📈 Pro) How to optimize for consistency over intensity?
• And a lot more…