I am obsessed with product psychology. It is my favourite topic despite being a head of growth that is irrationally obsessed with Stripe pings. 

After 12 years of building products, I have come to a fundamental conclusion:

What they actually buy is a perception. A feeling.
An expectation of what the product will do for them.

Let me give you an example:

I once spoke to an engineer at ResMed who explained that velcro is incredibly strong and could easily hold a sleep apnea device on your face. But it feels flimsy - probably because of all the 90s kids with velcro wallets.

They had to change it to a silicone band purely because of that perception.

People sometimes think all this talk about perception is deception or manipulation.

It isn’t. Perception is the user experience.
Nobody experiences your product “objectively.”

They experience:

• what it felt like

• what they expected

• what they thought happened

• what they remembered

You can build all the features, intelligence, and infrastructure you want but none of it matters if people perceive it as confusing, shallow, unreliable, or low-value.

That doesn’t mean reality is irrelevant. Reality matters because it informs perception.

If your app crashes, users don’t experience “crashes.” They experience the perception of unreliability.

If your onboarding is clunky, they don’t experience “poor information architecture.”
They experience the feeling of overwhelm.

Reality isn’t the enemy of perception. Reality is the raw material that perception turns into meaning.

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Perception-Market Fit

This is why most people misunderstand product-market fit. Founders obsess over features: “Do we need another integration? Another setting? Another workflow?”

But features don’t create adoption, trust or loyalty.

Behaviour is driven by perception - i.e how well the product fits into the story in the user’s head.

Call this perception-market fit. Because until you have that, the rest doesn’t matter.

Users don’t buy reality.
They buy the perception of reality.

The Perception Stack

Here’s the model I use - how I break down perception so you can design it intentionally instead of hoping it forms by accident.

1. Framing (Salience & Identity)

“Is this for people like me, and why should I care?”

Framing determines who the user becomes in the story, the identity they adopt, before they ever touch the product.

2. Expectation (Outcome & Effort)

“What do I think this will do for me, and how hard will it be?”

Expectation is the mental contract: what the user believes they’ll get, and how much work they believe they must do.

3. Experience & Emotion (Perceived Usability & Utility)

“How do I feel while I’m using it?”

Usability isn’t about interface - it’s about felt emotional state: clarity, competence, momentum, delight.

4. Sense-Making & Attribution

“Why did this go the way it did?”

After any outcome, users create a story that assigns credit or blame. This determines trust, loyalty, and retry behaviour. Two users can have the same experience and walk away with completely different meanings.

5. Story & Memory

“How do I summarise this to myself and others?”

People don’t remember the truth. They remember the story they compress their experience into. This is usually the peak (the best part of the experience) & end (see peak end rule)

Closing Thoughts

Most teams obsess over the product they’re building.
But users only ever interact with the perception of that product - the story their brain constructs before, during, and after they use it.

It reveals an uncomfortable truth:
Better products don’t always win but the better perceived products almost always do.

In the end:
The product you build is one thing.
The product they experience is another.
Design the second one on purpose.

Until next time,

Ajay

🧠 Ajay’s Resource Bank

A few tools and collections I’ve built (or obsessively curated) over the years:

• 100+ Mental Models
  Mental shortcuts and thinking tools I’ve refined over the past decade. These have evolved as I’ve gained experience — pruned, updated, and battle-tested.

• 100+ Questions
  If you want better answers, ask better questions. These are the ones I keep returning to — for strategy, reflection, and unlocking stuck conversations.

• Startup OS
  A lightweight operating system I built for running startups. I’m currently adapting it for growth teams as I scale Superpower — thinking about publishing it soon.

• Remote Games & Activities
  Fun team-building exercises and games (many made in Canva) that actually work. Good for offsites, Zoom fatigue, or breaking the ice with distributed teams.

✅ Ajay’s “would recommend” List

These are tools and services I use personally and professionally — and recommend without hesitation:

• Athyna – Offshore Hiring Done Right
  I personally have worked with assistants overseas and built offshore teams. Most people get this wrong by assuming you have to go the lowest cost for automated work. Try hiring high quality, strategic people for a fraction of the cost instead.

• Superpower – It starts with a 100+ lab tests
  I joined Superpower as Head of Growth, but I originally came on to fix my health. In return, I got a full diagnostic panel, a tailored action plan, and ongoing support that finally gave me clarity after years of flying blind.