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Cognitive Overhead is Your Product’s Overlord — Topple it With These Tips | First Round Review

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Google Photos' Product Lead David Lieb cut his teeth on an app that allowed users to swap contact information by physically bumping phones. Drawing from Bump and other startups, Lieb shows how user adoption and virality can come from stripping cognitive overhead from products.

David Lieb knew his company Bump was going to take off when strangers dressed up as the app for Halloween. While at the University of Chicago, he built the app so he could more easily exchange contact information with new classmates by physically bumping their phones together. Bump was no blip. The app exploded. It was downloaded 150 million times and hit #2 in the App Store. Apple even featured Bump in a commercial that aired on prime-time television. Five years after Bump launched, Google bought it. Lieb, now the Product Lead at Google Photos , learned a lot about what drove and deterred use

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