2 builders who never spoke to each other

Open on the moment the problem bit, as a scene

Assume the visitor arrived unmotivated and mid-coffee, so the first line has to physically interrupt rather than describe. Give them a picture they can stand inside, the exact incident that made you build the thing or a question about the consequence, instead of announcing that they are frustrated. Concrete beats abstract because the reader recognises the scene before they have agreed to anything.

The method

1. 01

   Dramatise the problem with a scene the reader can picture rather than describing it abstractly.

2. 02

   Come at the pain obliquely, as a question or an image of the consequence, rather than stating that the reader is frustrated.

3. 03

   Assume the visitor landed unmotivated and was not looking for a solution, so the opening line has to physically interrupt them.

4. 04

   Open the launch with the exact moment the problem bit you rather than an abstract description of the category.

What it returned

• $39

  The page opens with a stranger on the street being asked to buy a $39 book 30 seconds after meeting, then equates that to a sales page

• He wrote half a dozen headlines to find the core pain and settled on a question about conversion rates keeping you awake

• Amy Hoy's framing: someone clicking through from an email while drinking coffee, thinking about nothing in particular

• He begins with the agent insisting a SwiftUI toolbar was impossible while building Vibe Meter, because it could not read the JavaScript-rendered docs

Sources

• Step-By-Step Landing Page CopywritingNathan Barry · nathanbarry.com · Time for a rewrite · 2013-02-19
• llm.codes: Make Apple Docs AI-Readable | Peter SteinbergerPeter Steinberger · steipete.me · The Real Problem: JavaScript-Heavy Documentation · 2025-06-14