Does your company create “d4?”​ (for Linkedin)

I am a fan of @Kunal Shah. His clarity of thought and conceptual understanding of first principles is refreshing. A few moons back, I heard him talk about the concept of delta four (d4). He posits, drawing inspiration from evolutionary biology, that a true behavior change happens once you experience d4, i.e., at least a four times efficiency over the way things are done. If you create a product or a service that lets people (users/customers) experience d4, you can unlock great wealth. According to him, @Uber and @Truecaller are a couple of companies that have created d4. One key tenet of d4 is that it seems like magic. People can’t wait to show it to their friends. Another key attribute is that once you experience d4, it creates irreversible behavior change. Think about Uber and how it is very hard to go back to traditional ways of hailing a cab.

Kunal is creating @Cred next. I use Cred to pay my credit card bills. It will be very interesting to know how or whether he can provide d4. It is not there yet.

Since learning about the concept, I have been thinking about “d4” products and services that I use. Two examples come to mind. Both are travel-related. One is of a company that I think is definitely d4, while other is most definitely not. First the d4 company – @HomeExchange. Think of it as @AirBnB but without monetary exchange. People host guests at their home for a simultaneous or non-simultaneous reciprocal exchange, or for guest points. It is a wonderful community of travel and culture enthusiasts. On the other hand is @MahindraHolidays. It is a complicated mess to book a holiday. Despite being a subscriber of their resort service, I have chosen not to use their referral bonuses to encourage others to join.

What do you think about d4? Do you use any products or services that are either definitely d4 or not?