habit-formation
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Nick Allen Turned a Sunday Ritual Into a Company
Before Sunnyside was an app, it was a weekly plan, a few text messages and a founder paying close attention to what people actually did.
Shift Health
Shift Health is a San Francisco-based healthtech startup building a Human+AI behavioral care platform that keeps people supported between clinical visits. Its AI coach delivers 24/7, in-the-moment guidance across mental, physical, and behavioral health, while care teams set the protocols, tone, and clinical guardrails. Available as a consumer app ('Shift - AI Mental Health') and as an enterprise platform aimed at health systems, employers, and high-demand professions like first responders and veterans, the company frames good outcomes as coming from 'what happens between visits.'
Nir Eyal
Nir Eyal is an Israeli-American behavioral designer, author, and angel investor best known for the 'Hooked Model' - the four-step framework used by the world's most habit-forming tech products. His 2014 book Hooked became a Silicon Valley bible for building engagement; his 2019 book Indistractable offered the antidote. His 2026 NYT bestseller Beyond Belief, co-authored with his wife Julie Li, tackles the hidden variable behind human performance: belief itself. A former Stanford lecturer, Eyal has backed companies like Canva and Kahoot, writes for the NYT and Harvard Business Review, and runs the influential blog NirAndFar.com.