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independence3 unconnected
standing

contested · 1 claims against 1

applies to

b2b and consumer, no audience needed

confidence

high

evidence

3 claims · 3 articles · 2 receipts

window

2017-10-23 → 2017-10-23 · nothing since 2017

3 builders who never spoke to each other · contested

Decide whether the piece is useful or enjoyable

Information on its own does not get opened and entertainment on its own does not get trusted, which leaves a real choice about what each piece is for. Know which one you are aiming at before you start, and check the audience wants that shape at all, because people who came for depth will not accept the same story squeezed into a sentence.

What both sides agree on

  • Check that your audience wants the format before you optimise it. Readers who come to a subject for depth will not accept the same story compressed to a sentence.

Where this splits

Zue writes each piece as either emotionally resonant or practically useful and says to know which, while Bourgoin builds every edition to be both at once.

1 claims against 1

Cory Zue

Aim each piece at one thing, useful or moving

  1. 01Aim each piece at being either emotionally resonant or practically useful, and know which one you are writing.
the objection · 1 claimKatelyn Bourgoin

Make every piece both useful and pleasurable to read

Aim for both halves at once: find the genuinely useful thing first, then work on making it pleasurable to read, because information alone does not get opened and entertainment alone does not get trusted.

What it returned

  • $300k

    Katelyn Bourgoin built Why We Buy on that combination and took it from 10k to 50k subscribers with more than $300k of revenue booked, growing over 20% month on month across the year.

  • Sip reduced long articles to single sentences about a launch or a funding round. The writer argues tech readers want the longer piece covering previous rounds and comparable startups.

Sources

the second source

Three plays a week, for the phase you are in

No roundup of links, no news. Three tactics more than one builder arrived at separately, with the numbers each one returned and the disagreements left in.

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More in copy

all copy plays

the second source

Three plays a week, for the phase you are in

No roundup of links, no news. Three tactics more than one builder arrived at separately, with the numbers each one returned and the disagreements left in.

963 corroborated plays to draw from · 3 a week

One email a week. Unsubscribe in one click, and the address is used for this and nothing else.