# 19 Days to Impact > «The best way to predict the future is to invent it.» > > — Alan Kay In 19 days, we build a working intervention. Grounded in psychology, iterated with synthetic participants, and validated with real people. ## Behavioral science, AI and real people. Understanding people takes time. Good decisions shouldn't. That's why we combine artificial intelligence, behavioral psychology, and strategy. With synthetic users, we can test, compare, and refine ideas, messages, and behavioral hypotheses quickly and at low financial cost. Convincing approaches, we validate with real people. The result: solutions that come together faster, reduce risk, and work in practice. ## For 19 days, we think of nothing but you. Promise. ### Day 1–5 — Understand Who is your audience? What do we already know, and what do we still need to learn? - **Get clarity** — Which behavior do we want to change, and who exactly is the audience? - **Mine insights, bring synthetic personas to life** — Compress prior research about the audience and surface blind spots. - **Optional: targeted interviews and observation** — Identify motivators and barriers along the user journey. - **Simulate hypothetical user journeys** — Play through touchpoints, motivators, and barriers end-to-end. ### Day 6–16 — Iterate prototypes with synthetic users First ideas turn into prototypes and improve over multiple iterations. - **Interventions from psychology and gamification** — We strengthen intrinsic motivation with targeted mechanics. - **Iterate prototypes** — First ideas turn into prototypes and improve over multiple test loops. - **Real users weigh in** — The most convincing approaches get validated with real people. - **Make opportunities, risks, and effort visible** — For each approach, we check impact, risk, and implementation effort. ### Day 17–19 — Implement Together we prioritise the rollout and hand over the prototype. - **Evaluate test results** — What did we observe, confirm, or reject, we sort it out together. - **Rollout priorities** — Map out requirements, resources, and internal ownership. - **Name open questions and risks** — Together with you, we surface what's still open. - **A clear roadmap to close** — Next steps, owners, and timeline. ## We're especially drawn to questions that matter for society. - We want everyone to attend cancer screening on time. - We want our customers to buy more organic products. - We want men to engage with mental health. - We want more people to invest their savings sustainably. - We want older people to use digital services. - We want short car trips replaced by climate-friendly alternatives. - We want a higher share of generics in prescriptions. - We want tenants to consume energy more consciously. - We want more people to donate blood regularly. ## What does it cost? (package price) It depends on several factors: is the product digital or physical? How large is the audience? How hard is the problem? Realistically, sprints start at CHF 50,000 incl. VAT. ## We are with you for 19 days. ### Dr. Andrea Schneider — User insights, cognitive psychology, and tennis ace PhD in cognitive psychology; led UX research at the EPFL+ECAL Lab. Author of about a dozen peer-reviewed studies and creator of SBB's award-winning experience app. Project manager for customer experience and insights at SBB, visiting researcher at UC Berkeley, and keynote speaker on putting people at the center of the AI shift. Her toolkit spans eye-tracking, behavioral data, and co-design. - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrea-schneider-856952a0 - Email: andrea@19days.ch ### Dr. Gilles Chatelain — Behavioral psychology, strategy, and master baker Founder of The Behavior Lab GmbH for applied behavioral research. Former UN representative in Geneva for the psychology associations APA, EFPA, and FSP. Co-founder and vice-president of the Behavior Change Network Switzerland, and former lecturer in customer and economic psychology at Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Kalaidos University of Applied Sciences. - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gilles-chatelain-67a379a5 - Email: gilles@19days.ch ### Matthias Sala — AI, gamification, and tinkerer Award-winning serial entrepreneur. Computer scientist ETH Zurich, ex–Xerox PARC, ex-Siemens Corporate Technology. More than forty shipped titles for museums, brands, public squares, and broadcast TV. MSc from ETH Zurich, lecturer at HWZ, and jury president of Best of Swiss Apps. Today he works as advisor, product designer, and implementer. - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/salam - Email: matthias@19days.ch ## The team by the numbers - **66** years of professional experience - **80+** applied projects - **22** published studies - **0** legal cases - **2** cargo bikes ## Glossary - **Sprint** — A time-boxed work format with clear goals, fixed phases, and a concrete output. - **Prototype** — A testable version of the solution. It does not need to be final, but it shows whether the approach holds. - **Synthetic users** — AI-assisted personas that simulate first reactions. They do not replace tests with real people. - **KPI** — A metric for observable behavior, such as signup, usage, purchase, or return. - **Nudge** — A small change to the decision context that makes helpful behavior more likely while preserving choice. - **Fail Faster** — Early learning in a test environment before effort and risk rise in the real market. ## Frequently asked questions ### The essentials **01. What is 19 Days to Impact?** A 19-day work format that takes a behavior-change intervention from question to roadmap. We ground the work in behavioral science, test first in a protected environment, and validate with real people. **02. How can I bring change to my company faster?** Instead of a months-long programme, we compress it into a focused 19-day sprint: understand the behavior, prototype and test interventions with real people, and hand over a rollout-ready roadmap. You get tested direction in three weeks, not three quarters. **03. Why exactly 19 days?** 19 days is short enough to keep momentum, long enough to cleanly separate understanding, prototyping, and validation, three phases of 5, 11, and 3 days. **04. How do I get more people to actually do what we want?** We strengthen the motivators that pull people toward the goal and remove the barriers in their way, then prove it with real-user tests before rollout. That combination shifts behavior more reliably than adding another feature or message. **05. What do I get on day 19?** A solution tested with real users, shown to be technically feasible, and stakeholder-ready internally, set for rollout. Concretely: tested prototypes, audience insight reports, and a clear implementation plan with owners. **06. How much does a sprint cost?** From CHF 50,000 incl. VAT. The exact price depends on product, audience size, and complexity. **07. How do I turn a business goal into measurable behavior change?** We translate the goal into one concrete behavior and audience, design interventions grounded in behavioral psychology, and lock a primary behavioral KPI on day one, so progress is measured by what people actually do, not by self-report. **08. Which industries benefit?** Health, finance, energy, mobility, public sector, retail, and insurance. It fits wherever outcomes hinge on behavior, not just another feature. **09. How is this different from a Google Design Sprint?** Design Sprints focus on product solutions. We focus on behavior change, with behavioral science, synthetic testing, and a roadmap rather than a hi-fi mockup. ### More details **10. Is gamification the only way?** No. Gamification is one tool of many. We pick from nudges, defaults, commitment devices, social proof, and game mechanics depending on audience and behavior. **11. How do synthetic users work?** We build LLM-based personas conditioned on research data and demographics. They act as a first-pass filter for prototypes, surfacing logic gaps and saving real testers' time. **12. Can synthetic users replace real people?** No. They help us sort quickly. We validate every recommended solution with real humans. Real people have the final word. **13. Are you using agentic AI methods?** Yes. AI-assisted workflows coordinate synthetic personas, prototype generation, test analysis, and reporting in parallel. That shortens learning cycles. **14. How do you measure impact?** Via observable behavior: conversion, click-through, adherence, actual usage. Self-reports complement but never replace behavior. **15. What is intrinsic motivation?** Drive that comes from within, autonomy, competence, purpose. Solutions that tap intrinsic motivation outlast external rewards. **16. How is this different from a design agency?** We don't deliver a pretty shell. We deliver tested behavior change. Design is the means, not the goal. **17. Who owns the IP?** You do. All deliverables, prototypes, and roadmaps transfer to the client. **18. Can you guarantee outcomes?** We stand for methodological quality, clear tests, and useful learning. We do not promise exact KPI lifts because serious impact measurement depends on context. **19. What's day 1 typically like?** A 90-minute clarity workshop: sharpen the behavioral goal, focus the audience, define success metrics. Then we start with personas and data. **20. Can we run multiple sprints in parallel?** Yes, with independent teams. We deliberately share learnings across sprints. **21. Do you need access to our data?** Ideally to existing research, analytics, and CRM insights, anonymised is often enough. Confidentiality is standard. **22. How is this different from UX research?** UX research surfaces problems. We solve them behavior-first, prototyped, and prioritised. The result is an executable roadmap. **23. Does this work for B2B?** Yes. B2B buying behavior is often as emotional and time-constrained as B2C, with extra stakeholder dynamics we model explicitly. **24. Does this work for B2C?** Yes. Mass behavior can be modelled up front with synthetic personas and checked with real-user tests. **25. Can I add my own people?** Absolutely. Internal knowledge accelerates every sprint. We recommend a sponsor and an insights owner from your side. **26. How do you define KPIs?** Locked on day 1: one primary behavioral KPI, one or two driver KPIs, and a guardrail metric against unwanted effects. **27. What if my problem is too big for 19 days?** We narrow it. One sprint tackles one clearly defined behavior in one clearly defined situation. Big themes become multiple sprints. **28. Is the methodology scientific?** Yes. It combines published findings from behavioral economics, social psychology, HCI, and gamification with empirical on-site testing. **29. What's the role of AI?** AI speeds up research, persona construction, prototype generation, and analysis, but it replaces neither domain expertise nor real-user tests. **30. Is AI used everywhere?** No. Where humans are better, empathy, ethical judgment, stakeholder relationships, humans stay at the helm. **31. How do you handle ethics?** We follow a pro-autonomy stance: solutions must benefit the person, be transparent, and preserve choice. Dark patterns are off-limits. **32. Do you do A/B testing?** Yes, at rollout. Inside the sprint we use qualitative tests and small quantitative samples for faster learning. **33. What about long-term effects?** We design for long-term effects via intrinsic motivation and habit loops, and recommend measurement setups that track effects over months. **34. Can you work with regulated industries?** Yes, for example health, finance, and pharma. We involve compliance and legal teams during the sprint, not only at the end. **35. Do you offer Swiss or EU data residency?** Yes. Your research data stays in Switzerland by default; AI inference is available via EU/CH endpoints. **36. What does 'market-ready' mean?** A solution validated with real users, technically feasible, and internally decision-ready. It is ready for the next rollout step. **37. How is this different from Design Thinking?** Design Thinking is a mindset, we're a format. The two are compatible, we add science, speed, and tests. **38. What are touchpoints?** Concrete points of contact between a person and an offer, push notification, letter, website, conversation. Each touchpoint is a behavior-change lever. **39. What are motivators and barriers?** Motivators pull people toward a goal. Barriers hold them back. Impact comes from boosting motivators and reducing barriers, usually both. **40. Do you use hooks or habit loops?** Yes, cue, routine, reward. But only for pro-social applications. We reject manipulative hooks. **41. What happens after day 19?** You decide the next step. We optionally offer measurement setups, coaching, and follow-up sprints for scaling. **42. What's the success rate?** We plan every sprint to produce at least three testable interventions and an executable roadmap. KPI lifts are measured after rollout. **43. How fast can we start?** Within two weeks of briefing, as soon as NDA, brief, and data access are in place. ## Send us your question. We'll get back within one working day. - Email: team@19days.ch - Web: https://19days.ch --- *© 2026 · 19 Days to Impact · Zurich*