Product Theory
The Hidden Forces That Shape User BehaviorBy Spencer Shulem
Length3h 46m
About this audiobook
Why do users stay with products they complain about? Why does raising your price sometimes raise demand? Why does every metric you optimize stop working?
The answers aren't in your analytics. They're in psychology, behavioral economics, business and design theory — scattered across four disciplines that never talk to each other. Product Theory puts them in one place, translated for people who build things.
Inside: 40+ short, thoughtfully curated chapters covering the canon every product person should know — Anchoring, the Decoy Effect, Sunk Cost, Goodhart's Law, Jobs To Be Done — plus original frameworks like the Utility Paradox, Attachment Theory for products, and Metric Theater.
Each chapter opens with a story, shows you how to apply it, gives you the research behind it, and tells you where it breaks. Every rule of thumb sits at the top of its chapter — flip through and read just the rules if you want the two-minute version.
Audiobook details
GenreBusiness and Economics, Psychology
Length3 hrs 46 mins
Narrated byListen with 1,000+ voices
FormateBook with Audio
Publish dateJul 12, 2026
LanguageEnglish
Table of contents
1Prologue
23Social Proof
2Part One: Pricing & Value
24The Shrinking Set
3Anchoring
25Laws of Attraction
4Charm Pricing
26Part Four: Perception & Positioning
5The Decoy Effect
27Positioning
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6Mental Accounting
28Jobs To Be Done
7The Utility Paradox
29Veblen Goods
8Part Two: Retention & Inertia
30The Peak-End Rule
9The Sunk Cost Fallacy
31The Pratfall Effect
10The Endowment Effect
32Broken Windows
11Status Quo Bias
33Affordances
12The IKEA Effect
34The MAYA Principle
13Commitment & Consistency
35Lenses
14Hedonic Adaptation
36Part Five: Metrics & Systems
15Reciprocity
37Goodhart’s Law
16Attachment Theory
38The Cobra Effect
17Emotional Loss Aversion
39Survivorship Bias
18Hedonic Stockholm Syndrome
40The Hawthorne Effect
19Part Three: Choice & Decision
41Regression to the Mean
20The Paradox of Choice
42Conway’s Law
21Loss Aversion
43Metric Theater
22The Mere Exposure Effect
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