I really don't think this is about the sound effects.
To me, personally, it's about the ritual. You get up, pack up your things, go to school cafeteria, buy a coffee -- same routine, every day.
Same thing when I work from home, and it works just as well. Get up, walk to the store to get some fresh food, make a coffee, get to work.
Notice how coffee is nothing but part of the ritual -- I couldn't care less about the caffeine, it's just that drinking coffee is in my mind associated with doing work. :-)
Funny thing is this. Doing this ritual at a specific time helps a lot. Working from home can be hard with all the internet distractions, but creating a habit of getting to work at 9:00AM works miracles.
It even reminds me of the idea in Le Petit Prince, where the fox tells the prince to always show up at 4, so he would start being excited at 3.
We actually get feedback from all over the place saying similar things. I think the reality is sometimes we're in a position where going to a shop is out of the question and something like this is the next best thing. The science says one thing, but I feel like people have connected with the site for plenty of other reasons as well. Part of it is the ritual, part of it is the fact that you feel like you're out of the office, part of it is how well the audio drowns out the guys having a loud convo next to you. Those are the elements that really make Coffitivity interesting. IMO at least.
I love how there's a "growth hacker", as if this is an actual viable business plan!
This is kinda like saying "People who go to concerts seem to like the music a lot, so let's start a service where a bunch of drunk people show up at your house when you're listening to music and stand really close to you whilst talking or screaming at the band"
The idea is more that there are elements of a coffee shop that actually help increase creativity, so we built a site that recreates that ambiance for people who can't or don't want to physically go to a coffee shop.
Is there any science behind this? The reason I find coffee shops less distracting is because there is usually nobody there I know to distract me. At home my housemates distract me, at work my colleagues distract me, in the coffee shop there is no one...
To me, personally, it's about the ritual. You get up, pack up your things, go to school cafeteria, buy a coffee -- same routine, every day.
Same thing when I work from home, and it works just as well. Get up, walk to the store to get some fresh food, make a coffee, get to work.
Notice how coffee is nothing but part of the ritual -- I couldn't care less about the caffeine, it's just that drinking coffee is in my mind associated with doing work. :-)
Funny thing is this. Doing this ritual at a specific time helps a lot. Working from home can be hard with all the internet distractions, but creating a habit of getting to work at 9:00AM works miracles.
It even reminds me of the idea in Le Petit Prince, where the fox tells the prince to always show up at 4, so he would start being excited at 3.