Who Buys Something Like That?

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

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

The fact is: athletes bought it. Pros who train every day, whose body is their most important capital and who will do anything for even a percent more strength and stability. They wore the wristband and said: I feel it. And they did feel it. Whether it 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 in the evening are so drained that they’re open to any help. A wristband that promises to improve your balance? Why not? It costs substantially less than an hour of coaching. And if it helps even a few percentage points, it was worth it.

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. They had no time for yoga again and as always no energy for fitness. A wristband with an effect you can wear every day without having to do anything sounds just right.

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 the wrist was maybe the last thing that could still help.

I wished for nothing more than that it would work, really work, and that the effect came from the product and not only from the 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 again wouldn’t hold.

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

In these conversations the question usually comes up: what kind of people are they? But this question has an undertone that really bothers me. Many act as if belief is a character flaw, as if you would have to be a bit stupid to buy something like that.

Is a whole population weak? Does everyone need more energy? Do all of us feel like this? 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 need. And when someone comes and says, here, this helps, then the threshold to buy is low. Not because people are stupid, but because they are either exhausted, because they are hungry for even more performance, or because they do it out of desperation and fear of no longer being able to keep up.

Exhausted people make different decisions than rested ones. That isn’t moral weakness, it’s biology. Those who are tired reach for whatever is simple. Those who are overwhelmed give up, or at least stop checking. Those who have been in pain for months buy anything that promises relief. That isn’t stupidity. That’s being human under pressure.

That placebo works is 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 itself is real.

The buyers weren’t the weak point. They were the 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. I saw the hunger and I fed it a little. And I’m not saying that was okay. 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 wristband is accepted as a last resort?

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