I spent years trying to reduce human behavior to equations. Now I help businesses understand humans through the very thing that makes us human: language.
This transition wasn't planned. It was forced by a simple realization that numbers alone couldn't capture the full picture of human decision-making.
The Economist's Obsession
As an economics student, I was fascinated by models that claimed to predict human behavior. Supply and demand curves, utility maximization, game theory—elegant frameworks that promised to make sense of the seemingly chaotic world of human decisions.
I loved the precision. The certainty. The idea that complex human behavior could be distilled into mathematical relationships.
But the more I studied, the more I noticed the gaps.
"All models are wrong, but some are useful." - George Box
Economic models assumed rational actors making optimal decisions with perfect information. But humans aren't rational actors. We're emotional, inconsistent, and deeply influenced by factors that don't fit neatly into equations.
The First Crack
The first crack in my faith in pure modeling came during my thesis research on consumer behavior. I was trying to predict purchasing decisions using traditional economic variables: income, price sensitivity, substitution effects.
The models were sophisticated. The data was clean. The results were... mediocre.
Then I started conducting interviews with actual consumers. Not to validate my models, but to understand why they often failed.
What I discovered changed everything.
People made decisions based on stories they told themselves. They chose products not because of optimal utility calculations, but because of how those choices fit their identity. They avoided certain options not due to price sensitivity, but because of fears they couldn't articulate.
The most important variables couldn't be measured. They had to be understood.
The Debate Training Ground
Parallel to my economics studies, I was competing in championship debating. What started as an extracurricular activity became my laboratory for understanding human persuasion.
In debate, pure logic isn't enough. You need to understand your audience—the judges—at a deeper level. What arguments resonate? What evidence convinces? How do you frame your case to align with their existing beliefs?
I was practicing persuasion at the highest levels while studying it academically. The contrast was striking:
- Economics taught me humans should be predictable
- Debate taught me humans are persuadable
The difference matters. Predictability assumes you can model behavior from the outside. Persuasion requires you to understand motivation from the inside.
The Synthesis
I didn't abandon economics. I evolved it.
The analytical rigor remained. The obsession with understanding cause and effect stayed. But I added layers that pure mathematics couldn't capture:
- Language patterns - How people describe their problems reveals their underlying motivations
- Emotional triggers - What feelings drive action more than rational analysis
- Identity alignment - How decisions must fit who people believe they are
- Social proof dynamics - Why others' choices matter more than individual optimization
The Business Application
When I co-founded a fintech startup in 2017, I had the chance to test this hybrid approach in the real world.
Traditional startup wisdom said: build a product, analyze user data, optimize conversion funnels.
But I applied my evolved understanding: talk to users constantly, understand their language deeply, align our messaging with their internal narratives.
The results were immediate. When we spoke to users in their own language about problems they already recognized, conversion rates jumped. When we positioned our solution as the natural next step in their existing story, adoption accelerated.
We weren't just optimizing metrics. We were engineering understanding.
The Evaderix Method
This experience led to what became the Evaderix method: systematic persuasion through obsessive understanding.
It combines the rigor of economic analysis with the insights of human psychology:
- Data collection - But not just numbers. Language, emotion, context
- Pattern recognition - Finding systematic relationships between understanding and outcomes
- Hypothesis testing - Experimenting with different approaches to persuasion
- Optimization - Continuously improving based on results
The Competitive Advantage
Most businesses approach persuasion like economists approach markets: they assume rational behavior and optimize for logical outcomes.
But persuasion isn't about logic. It's about understanding.
When you truly understand how your market thinks, feels, and speaks, you can engineer messages that feel like their own thoughts reflected back with clarity they've never experienced.
This is where science meets art. Where analysis enables intuition. Where systematic understanding creates systematic results.
The Evolution Continues
I'm still an economist at heart. I still believe in measurement, optimization, and systematic improvement.
But I've learned that the most important variables in business aren't economic—they're human.
And humans are best understood not through equations, but through the patient, obsessive pursuit of what they really want, how they really think, and why they really buy.