Who Buys Something Like That?

The question always comes up. It comes in every conversation about that time when I sold tens of thousands of plastic bracelets with an integrated hologram for 40 euros. And it comes either with a slightly mocking smile or open disbelief: who buys something like that?

You can answer that question just as mockingly or incredulously as it was asked, but over time that felt too superficial to me. So I started to look at it seriously and analytically.

The fact is: athletes bought it. Professionals who train every day, whose body is their most important asset and who will do anything for one more percent of strength and stability. They wore the bracelet and said: I feel it. And they felt it. Whether that came from the hologram or from their head didn’t matter to them in that moment. Performance was what counted.

Executives bought it. People who function sixteen hours a day and are so drained by evening that they’re open to any help. A bracelet that promises to improve your balance? Why not. It costs significantly less than an hour of coaching. And if it helps even a tiny bit, it’s paid for itself.

Homemakers bought it. Mothers who get up at six in the morning and fall into bed at eleven at night and keep everything running in between. Once again they had no time for yoga and as always no energy for fitness. A bracelet with an effect that you can wear every day without having to do anything sounds perfect.

And then there were the people with serious backgrounds. People with chronic pain. With real illnesses where conventional medicine only had symptomatic solutions. They didn’t buy out of gullibility. They bought out of hope, and sometimes I also saw desperation. Because they had tried everything and this little thing on their wrist was maybe the last thing that might help.

I wished for nothing more than for it to work. Really work. And that the effect came from the product and not just from belief. Because I saw the faces of these people. Because I heard their stories. I didn’t want to be the one selling them something that doesn’t deliver.

The feedback was often overwhelming. Thousands of people said: it helps. It works. Scientifically, there was no evidence. But these people were proof enough for me.

Then the question usually comes up in conversations: what kind of people are these? But that question has an undertone that really bothers me. Many act as if belief were a character flaw. As if you’d have to be a bit stupid to buy something like that.

Is an entire population weak? Does everyone need more energy? Does everyone feel that way? The answer isn’t surprising, but it’s my own, based on all the conversations and experiences with this product. And it sounds very simple: yes. Most people are tired. Many are hopelessly overwhelmed. Most have too little of what they need and too much of what they don’t. And when someone comes along and says, here, this helps, the threshold to buy is low. Not because people are stupid. But because they’re either exhausted. Or because they’re greedy for even more performance. Or they do it out of desperation and fear of not being able to keep up.

Exhausted people make different decisions than rested ones. That’s not a moral weakness, that’s biology. When you’re tired, you reach for what’s easy. When you’re overwhelmed, you maybe give up or at least stop checking. When you’ve been in pain for months, you’ll buy anything that promises relief. That’s not stupidity. That’s being human under pressure.

Placebo works. That’s a scientific fact. People feel less pain when they believe they’ve taken a painkiller. They run better when they believe they’re wearing professional shoes. They feel stronger when they believe they have an aid for more strength. Belief changes perception and perception changes the experience. The experience, however, is real.

The buyers weren’t the weak link. They were proof of how big the need is. The need for a simple solution. For something you can wear and that helps as easily as flipping a switch. For something that isn’t complicated, isn’t expensive, isn’t exhausting.

I served that need. I saw the hunger and I fed it, to some extent. And I’m not saying that was fine. I’m only saying that the question “Who buys something like that?” is the wrong question. The right question would be: why are so many people so tired that a silicone bracelet is accepted as a last resort?

I don’t have an answer to that. But the question won’t let me go either.