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How to hijack habits like Raycast

Chess Move

The what: A TLDR explanation of the strategy

Every new shortcut, workflow, or action you require users to remember increases the chance they forget your product exists.

“Whenever someone sends you an email, click our icon in the menu bar to see XYZ”

“Whenever you download a file, launch our app to XYZ”

“Whenever you sign up to a new tool, add it to our database to XYZ”

= too much cognitive overhead.

Raycast took a different approach: hijacking an existing habit that's already deeply embedded in their target users' muscle memory.

Apple introduced ‘Spotlight’ to MacOS in 2004 - a system-wide desktop search allowing users to quickly locate documents, pictures, music, applications, websites, bookmarks, and settings.

Using Spotlight was dead-simple:

• Press Command+Space

• Start typing

Raycast’s hypothesis: If you can make a 10x better product than Spotlight, that’s triggered by the exact same activation mechanism (Command+Space), you can piggy-back an established habit rather than try to create a new one.

Breakdown

The how: The strategic playbook boiled down to 3x key takeaways

1.  Find & Replace the existing habit

Raycast specifically targets developers and power users - people who:

• Live and breathe keyboard shortcuts

• Are willing to invest energy into better tools

Many of them already use Command+Space to trigger Spotlight, so they’re pre-trained to think "Command+Space = do something quickly".

No behaviour change required.

When users install Raycast, the first thing they see is a prompt to remap Command+Space from Spotlight to Raycast.

They don’t just let users choose between using Spotlight and Raycast on a case-by-case basis - they actively encourage (and guide users through) disabling Spotlight entirely, and configuring Command+Space to launch Raycast instead.

2. Replace without compromise

The cornerstone of Raycast's strategy is ensuring there’s zero downside to switching:

• Everything Spotlight does, Raycast does (better)

• Raycast does many things Spotlight does not

Users don't have to maintain two systems or sacrifice any existing capabilities. It's purely additive:

• Spotlight: Find anything

• Raycast: Find anything + do anything

To give a taste of the power and flexibility it provides, here are just a handful of my personal favourite Raycast features and workflows:

Alias shortcuts to my email inboxes (‘b’=business, ‘f’=finance, ‘p’=personal).

Spotify deeplinks and bookmarked quicklinks to my favourite playlists.

Convert currencies and timezones with free-text.

Global shortcuts mapped to the Notion extension, e.g. add a task to my Notion database (Command+;), navigate to my Task Manager (Command+/), or search Notion (Command+.).

Option+Command+V to open Clipboard (quickly find and paste anything I’ve copied semi-recently, instead of the most recent thing I copied).

At risk of making this a ‘How I use Raycast’ instead of ‘Raycast strategy analysis’, I’ll stop the list there, but safe to say that with enough time, this beautiful piece of software truly does become the primary interface for controlling, navigating, and interacting with your computer.

3. Designing for both worlds

Raycast faced a unique design challenge: satisfy both command-line purists (their core developer user-base) and Apple design enthusiasts (the generalist power-users they convert from MacOS Spotlight). Rather than choose between these divergent aesthetics, they found the sweet spot between them.

The interface embodies this duality perfectly:

• The product design channels the immediacy and flexibility of a CLI - instant performant responses, keyboard-first navigation, and powerful extensibility.

• The pixel-perfect aesthetics, subtle animations, and subtle gradients provide the polish Apple users expect.

Raycast's true innovation wasn't just building a better launcher.

→ It was creating something that’s a joy to use.

Rabbit Hole

The where: 3x high-signal resources to learn more

“We want Raycast to be a better way of using computers” ↗

[8 minute read]

Interview unpacking the strategic choices that turned Raycast from a utility into an interface:

• The counterintuitive bet: starting with power users to reach mass market

• Why they chose ‘hijacking Spotlight’ as a go-to-market wedge

• How they navigated the "speed vs customisation" paradox

How does the Raycast CEO use Raycast? ↗

[15 minute watch]

→ Application switching with hotkeys (⌥ + first letter)
→ Window management with custom shortcuts
→ Weekly updates extension for team comms
→ AI coding assistant for React, Node etc
→ Volume and screen controls
→ Color Picker extension
→ Weather updates
→ Spotify controls

If there’s any video to learn ‘How to get the most out of Raycast’, it’s this one. After publish this piece I’m testing a bunch of these.

The other tools of a tragic software adopter ↗

[1 minute read]

Confession: I try new software nearly every day. Reverse-engineering onboarding flows, analysing activation emails, and hunting for product-led-growth loops are legitimate hobbies that I’d be upset to give up.

I built a free database featuring Raycast and 30+ other tools that keep Strategy Breakdowns running, profitable, and firing out content every day.

Check it out here.

That’s all for today’s breakdown - adios ✌️

— Tom

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