There I was in the eighth grade, riding with my friend to our baseball game in his dad’s new Infiniti. I was sitting in the backseat, just hanging out, when my friend’s dad said, “Hey, do you want to see some new technology in this car?” “Sure,” I replied. His dad then said out loud, “Volume up,” and the song playing at the time—“Bad to the Bone” by George Thorogood—got louder. Then he said, “Volume down,” and sure enough, the music got quieter. Then, he said, “Next song,” and the car stereo skipped to the following track on the compact disc. I was blown away. There was no voice interaction technology like that at the time—this was many years before Alexa and Siri existed.

Then, after a minute or two of smirks and quiet chatter, my friend and his dad burst out laughing. It turned out there was no voice control after all. The new car had buttons on the steering wheel that allowed the driver to raise and lower the volume and advance the track on the CD. While it wasn’t the voice-activated technology we take for granted today, I believed it was real in that moment. It felt like one of those unforgettable magical moments when a new technology sears itself into your brain, and you remember exactly when and where you were when you first experienced it.

Last year, I was reminded of this when I got into a Waymo self-driving car for the first time. I was traveling to California with my family and excited to try one out. I downloaded the app, requested the vehicle, and waited seven or eight minutes. Then a white Jaguar, equipped with a variety of gadgets on top, pulled right up and stopped. The door handles popped open. I opened the door slowly, and we all sat inside. The car welcomed us in a pleasant voice, and I pressed a button in the app to take us to our destination. We looked at each other, mesmerized, as the car pulled forward and, without a hitch, took us from point A to point B. It was truly a magical moment in technology.

Entrepreneurs would do well to think through the “magic moment” in their products—what wows people, what makes someone excitedly share their experience with a friend, and how they can reduce the time and effort it takes for a new user to encounter that magic moment. Magic moments, just as they sound, are incredible experiences. Even to this day, I vividly remember the magic moment from decades ago when I believed a driver could control the stereo in his car with his voice.