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How One Incubator Is Using Behavioral Science to Encourage the Products Customers Really Want Based out of Duke University, the Startup Lab wants companies to consider customer behavior in the design and the features of their products.

By Michelle Goodman

This story appears in the September 2015 issue of Entrepreneur. Subscribe »

Aline Michelle Grüneisen
Looking ahead: The Startup Lab at Duke’s Center for Advanced Hindsight in Durham, N.C.

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Most incubators focus on the logistics of developing a necessary product, cultivating customers and grabbing market share. But Duke University's Social Science Research Institute is home to a new incubator for startups interested in using behavioral-change research to more accurately determine which products and services customers will want.

Led by Dan Ariely, the behavioral economist who runs the institute's Center for Advanced Hindsight, the Startup Lab will pilot its first class of entrepreneurs building health and financial decision-making tools this fall. Participating founders—who need not be affiliated with Duke—will spend three to nine months at the lab.