Decision Tech

A few years ago, I read an article that said the average Netflix user spends 18 minutes per session deciding what to watch*. With content and optionality growing, that number has surely only gone up since then.

And what about the time we spend choosing where to eat or what to order?Where to travel and where to stay? What about bigger purchases that require some research and comparison? Conservatively, let’s say we spend 30 minutes/day making what I consider to be ‘low stakes’ decisions. That’s over a week of every year of your life.

Let’s talk about tools. For restaurants, Yelp can be serviceable as a stamp of ‘you won’t get sick from eating here’, but has no personalization or social features — and food is as subjective as anything. I may (do) love the pancake house with the 3000 calorie buttermilk bang bang flapjack tower with the side of more pancakes, but my Mom may not feel the same way. Yelp treats us the same — no context derived from other favorites, habits, basic user info, etc. Huge missed opportunity in my opinion, and I think a newcomer could do something closer to Rotten Tomatoes: they have a ‘critics score’ and an ‘audience score’. In food I think that could be an ‘overall score’, and a more nuanced ‘people with your preferences’ or ‘friends’ score. Yelp also can have the unintended side effect of exacerbating decision fatigue — seeing all options at all times in one place.

In travel, TripAdvisor is the closest comp: democracy built into a single 5-point ‘traveler rating’. Hugely valuable service, but outdated and built without personalization or context. They do some suggestion work based on prior stays, and I like their filtering, but they don’t know that you always prioritize a hotel with breakfast included, or that you’ll pay more for gym access. They don’t know that my buddy Kyle told me that the taco place next to the Hilton has the ‘bombest fajitas he’s ever had’ and that I want the bomb fajitas also.

For other purchasing decisions, we trust top 10 lists from media companies that may have partnerships and sponsorships with the products they promote — so there’s some conflict baked in. And we have Amazon reviews, which is sort like going to your bakery and saying “how would you rate this scone that you sell?”. The best option will be an unaffiliated 3rd party. Honing in on decision tech for products in a democratic and personalized way is a $B opportunity. In time, that becomes a valuable source of truth for purchasing decisions.

As optionality continues to grow across categories, decisions will take longer and longer and we’ll be less satisfied with our outcomes.

If you know of someone building anything in ‘decision tech’, I’d love to meet them!

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*The Wrap article about Netflix decision times