Happy Sunday!

If you're reading this, I hope you're hydrated, you got outside this weekend, and you have a few minutes for something I end up explaining on almost every intro call I take with a new founder.

I'll be honest, I'm living it right now too. I'm helping out a new supplement brand that's at this exact stage, and most of what's below is stuff I've had to figure out again in the last few months... not stuff I remember figuring out years ago. Humbling. Also why I wanted to write it down.

The brand is a good example of the whole problem. Good product. Real reasons it took so long to formulate. A site that looks like a company that has it all figured out. And early ads that produced a sale here and there with no pattern anyone could point to. The easy read was that the ads weren't working. The real read was that the ads didn't have anything to work with yet.

That's zero to one. You're selling before you've proven who wants this or why. A brand doing $20M can pull a report and see exactly which customer and which product brings people in the door. You can't look that up yet. You have to make a call and go collect evidence.

So when I'm helping with this, I go to two places. The first is positioning and copy... who might want this, and how to say why in the words they'd use themselves. The second is the website, and I'm including the offer in that. What does a first-time buyer get, and what are they committing to?

The message gives someone a reason to care. The page and the offer help them understand the purchase and make a decision. Work on both together and you finally have a way to learn what customers respond to, instead of staring at Ads Manager and guessing.

Let's get into it. But first...

Vendor of the Week

Roku Ads Manager - free first-party data on who's actually watching, before you spend a dollar on CTV.

Most CTV planning still runs on assumptions. TV skews old. Streaming means Netflix. Nobody under 40 sits through an ad. The real numbers have always lived inside a sales deck you had to book a call to see.

Roku just put them on a public page. Roku Streaming Insights is an interactive hub built on 125M+ US daily active users, and you can poke through it in five minutes.

Three modules: what an audience looks like on Roku (gender, urban vs. rural, cord cutters), where they spend their hours (free ad-supported vs. subscription vs. live bundles), and what they're actively searching for compared to the average Roku home. Toggle between Gen Z, Millennials, 18-49, 25-54, and 55+ across all three.

A few things I didn't expect. Millennials on Roku are a clean 50/50 gender split, 73% are cord cutters, and half their streaming hours go to free ad-supported content... the stuff your ad runs inside of.

That's the spot. Stop guessing who's on the other side of the screen.

Explore Roku Streaming Insights.

Limited Supply

This past week on Limited Supply, we ran a crossover episode. I sat down with Peter Griscom and David Vanderveen from Verified, The Social Commerce Podcast, and the conversation was too good not to share. We got into building a network of thousands of micro creators who each speak to one persona, how AI collapsed the cost of creative (I walked through landing pages built in Codex or Claude Code and shipped in 30 minutes) while Meta's ad costs keep climbing, and why some celebrity brands work and most flop. Fits nicely with today's topic.

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube. Just search "Limited Supply" and click the blue cover art.

Start with a guess about who's buying

"Women 25 to 45" is not a customer. It's a Meta targeting setting. It tells you nothing about why anyone would pull out a credit card. What you want is a moment you can picture. Someone carrying a laptop and their lunch onto the train every morning... that's a moment. You can see that person, and you can go find them.

Here's the sentence I make founders fill in: "We think someone in [this spot] may want this because it helps with [this specific problem]. Today they handle it by [doing this other thing]."

That's a hypothesis, not a life sentence. You're not deciding the brand is for train commuters forever. You're picking one place to start so the ad and the page are aimed at the same person, and if the response tells you you're wrong, you change it. What you can't do is skip the guess and write for everyone. A page written for everyone reads like it was written for no one.

If you have zero customers, go talk to people who live that morning. And don't ask "would you buy this." That question gets you polite answers that predict nothing. Ask them:

• Tell me about the last time you dealt with this.

• What did you use or do instead?

• What was frustrating enough that you'd consider changing it?

• What would you need to know before paying for this version?

Write down their words, not your summary of their words. Someone telling you about digging through their bag for their phone while the train pulls in is useful. Someone saying "oh cute, I'd buy that" is not. Competitor reviews are good for finding questions to ask, but they don't prove anyone wants yours. If you already have a few customers, use their pre-purchase questions and whatever they told you they were trying to fix.

And if a handful of those conversations tell you the problem isn't really a problem for them, don't polish the pitch harder. Change the guess.

A feature is a fact. Nobody buys a fact.

Let's say you're selling a commuter tote. Everything from here on is a made-up example so we can walk through the process... not a client story. The bag has a padded laptop sleeve, a zip closure, an exterior pocket, and room for a lunch container. It's $98. There's a matching zip pouch for $24. Shipping is included in the US.

Your homepage right now says "Premium bags for modern life." Accurate. Also useless. Any bag company in the world could run that headline unchanged, and if a competitor could run your headline, it's not doing any work for you.

Compare that to a Halfday ad I saved to ads.nik.co this summer. One image, one line: "Packs like a carry-on. Fits under the seat." Same category as our tote. The difference is that Halfday's line answers two real questions a traveler has before buying a bag, and the image proves both. "Premium bags for modern life" answers nothing.

Here's the thing. Most early pages stall out at the product fact. "Thoughtfully designed with functional pockets." OK... for what? The exterior pocket is a feature. "Keep your transit card in the outside pocket so you can tap through without opening the bag" takes the same pocket and puts it inside a moment the person recognizes. Now they can decide if that moment matters to them. Someone who pays with their phone might shrug, and that's fine. You're writing for the person you chose.

Two cautions here. Don't inflate a fact into a feeling it can't support. A bag with pockets does not "reduce stress," and a supplement ingredient does not "support" whatever outcome you wish it did. Specificity should make the claim easier to believe, not bigger. And don't lead with a material or a mechanism nobody has a reason to value yet. If the fabric matters, explain what it means for the commute before you expect the fabric to carry the sale.

I wrote about this a few years ago in the copywriting newsletter with Lundberg rice cakes... "the best low-calorie rice cakes on the market" versus "the only pre-workout snack with a satisfying crunch." Same product. One of them tells a person what it's for. That was an illustration, not a test with a reported winner, but the lesson holds.

List the reasons before you touch the headline

Before anyone writes a headline, I have founders write down every plausible reason someone would buy. Not polished. Just a list. For the tote it might be: carrying a laptop and lunch in one bag. Keeping small things reachable. Looking put-together at work. Each of those is a possible motive, and none of them is proven yet.

Group the similar ones, then pick one to lead your first test. For each candidate, ask what product fact backs it up and what the first skeptical question is after someone reads it. "Room for your laptop and lunch" is backed by the sleeve and the interior volume. The skeptical question is "will MY laptop fit?" That one answer shapes the copy and the photography at the same time.

Let me be clear about something, because I watch it happen every week. Changing "Meet your everyday essential" to "Discover your everyday essential" is not a test. It's the same idea with a different verb, and the fact that it has its own line in your ad account doesn't make it a new idea. Going from a style-led pitch to a "here's the laptop and lunch going in and the zipper closing" demonstration is a different reason to buy. That's a test. I wrote a whole issue on this last month and I'm still seeing ad accounts with fourteen "variations" of one idea and zero second ideas.

Then write yourself a short brief. Five lines, not a deck:

• The customer moment you're aiming at.

• The main reason that person might want this.

• The product facts or demonstration that back it up.

• The unresolved question most likely to stop the purchase.

• The one sentence that leads the ad and the first screen of the page.

That's enough for you, or whoever's making the creative, to build something aimed at the same person. A founder story can live in there too if it explains why the product exists. It doesn't replace telling people what they get.

Here's what that looks like on the tote.

Main pitch. Before: "Premium bags for modern life." After: "A work tote with room for your laptop and lunch." The rewrite gives someone a job to evaluate, and it tells your photographer exactly what to shoot: the stated load going in, and the zipper closing.

Ad opening. Before: "Meet your new everyday essential." After: "Taking your laptop and lunch on the train? See how they fit in this tote." The ad promises a demonstration, so the page has to deliver that demonstration immediately. Not a styled exterior shot where the visitor has to infer capacity. The actual items going in.

Neither rewrite is "high-converting." I have no idea yet, and neither do you. They're more specific and more honest about what a person is deciding, and that's what makes them worth testing.

What should a first-time customer actually buy?

This is where I want to spend the most time, because the reality is most copywriting advice skips it completely. Someone can understand your product and still stall, because now they have to pick an order. What exactly am I getting, and am I signing up for anything?

The first purchase is another hypothesis. Ask what a new customer needs to give the product a fair shot. Sometimes that's just the product. Sometimes it's a small set, or an accessory they need to use the thing at all. There's no rule that says you need a bundle.

At scale you'd look at what new customers buy first and compare it to what the site pushes, because your overall bestseller is often being driven by existing customers refilling, and that doesn't make it the right front door for a stranger. At zero to one you don't have that data. So you choose based on how the product gets used and how much you're asking someone to commit.

Here's the plain-language check I run on any first-purchase offer:

• What exactly shows up at the door?

• Why is this amount or combination the right one for the person in the message?

• What does the customer pay today, including shipping if there is any?

• One-time, or subscription? If there's a later charge, when, and for what?

• Why is this a reasonable first commitment for someone who has never used the product?

Notice that "how big is the discount" is not on that list. Discounting is one lever inside the offer. It's not the offer.

Work through the tradeoff honestly. A bigger pack gets a lower unit price but asks a stranger to spend more before they know they like it. A smaller starter option lowers the commitment, but it has to be enough to experience the product properly, and it has to make money. Bigger basket is not automatically better. And a "free" gift isn't free to you. If you include an accessory, be able to explain how it helps someone use the main product, and know what it costs you to ship.

If you sell something replenishable, the first order and the second order need to make sense next to each other. Look at what's live right now on a few pages I checked this week. Thesis sells the one-time box at $129, or $59 for your first month and $79 a month after that. MUD\WTR's starter kit is $34 on subscription (against a $60 one-time price), then $40 every four weeks. Auri's mushroom gummies are $55 plus $6.95 shipping one-time, or $39.99 every four weeks on subscription, and they email you three days before the next shipment.

Three different answers, and all three put the first charge and the next charge on the same screen so nobody feels tricked in month two. That's the part I care about. A heavily subsidized first box that hides what comes next is buying a customer who's about to churn. I've given specific AOV multiples for this in past offer newsletters, and I'm leaving them out today on purpose. A brand at zero to one doesn't have a stable AOV to multiply.

Back to the tote. Two options on the table.

Option A: the tote alone, $98, US shipping included. Simple. If someone just wants the bag, they buy the bag. You still eat the shipping cost, so account for it.

Option B: the tote plus the zip pouch, $112, US shipping included. Bought separately they'd be $98 and $24, so the set saves $10. The pouch holds loose cables inside the tote, which supports the "small things reachable" reason if the customer cares about it.

The set asks for $14 more and adds product cost on your end. A higher AOV does not make it the better offer. Compare purchases and contribution after costs, and watch whether the extra decision slows down the original decision. Keep the tote-alone option visible either way. Don't call the pouch free, and don't inflate the reference price to make the saving look bigger.

Build the page around the buying argument

Your page has one job here: help a stranger understand the product and evaluate the offer. It should be possible to trace the ad's promise through the first screen and all the way down to the buy button without the argument changing shape.

I don't want to hand you a rigid template because it depends on the category, but the questions the page has to answer are pretty consistent:

• What is this and who is it for? Give me a clear way to inspect it or buy it right there.

• Show it doing the job the headline promised. A demo, real details, whatever evidence fits the claim.

• Answer the questions that would change my decision. Dimensions, compatibility, upkeep... whatever applies to your product.

• Explain the first-purchase offer clearly. What's in the box, total price, the choices I have.

• Put shipping and returns where they're useful, and keep the path into the cart short.

The order depends on the product, and plenty of products can do most of this in a tight opening and buy module. Nobody should have to read five sections before they find a purchase button.

Now open your existing page and look for these four things.

Your opening announces the brand instead of telling me what the product does. Replace it with the job, and pair it with an image that shows the same job. The tote page opens with "A work tote with room for your laptop and lunch" and a photo of exactly that load.

The answer to a purchase-critical question lives nowhere near the decision it affects. Dimensions belong next to the size or fit choice. A subscription's second charge belongs on the subscription selector (see the three brands above). And your returns policy is a real thing customers read, so it has to say what you actually do.

The first order takes mental math. Show exactly what's included and what the price covers. On the tote, the purchase section goes from "Upgrade your everyday. Shop now." to "Commuter tote: $98. US shipping included. Choose your color." with a "Check the dimensions" link right under it. The real version also says when it ships and what the return terms are.

Your proof answers a question nobody asked. You're new. You might have four reviews, and that's fine. A clear demonstration of the product doing the job gives a visitor real information while honest customer evidence builds. What you don't do is fake it. No review widget with placeholder stars, no "as seen in" bar with logos of publications that have never heard of you, no testimonial you wrote yourself at 11pm. I see this on new brand sites constantly and every time I do, I trust the whole page less. A page that looks established and isn't is worse than a page that's honest about being new.

Last thing, once the message and offer are set: walk through the whole purchase on your phone. Make sure the option you picked carries into the cart and the first charge is obvious before anyone hits pay. Housekeeping compared to everything above... but skip it and none of the above matters.

The reason I'm making you do the offer and the page at the same time is that they have to agree. If your message promises an easy way to try something and your offer requires a 90-day supply, those two things are fighting. If your message sells a complete setup and the accessory you need is sold separately with no explanation, same problem. On the tote, the laptop-and-lunch demo sets an expectation, and the offer tells the shopper which bag they get and what it costs. Both parts are talking to the same person about the same morning.

Put it in front of people, then listen

You rewrote the page. Now what? You don't need a media buying course. You need a loop you can actually run.

Pick the buying reason you're leading with and write down the assumption underneath it. Get the page and offer to the point where a visitor can evaluate that reason. Screenshot the current version so you know what changed later. Then, before you spend a dollar, show it to a few people in your target moment and have them explain the product back to you in their own words. Where they stumble is where your explanation has a hole.

When traffic starts, hold the offer and everything else steady if you're testing the message. If you have to change six things because the experience was obviously broken, do it. That's sensible work. Just don't pretend you know which of the six moved the number. At low volume, watching session recordings and reading the questions people send is often more useful than calling an underpowered test a winner. Track completed orders and what each first order costs you to fulfill. A jump in CTR tells you the ad earned attention. It doesn't tell you the acquisition is profitable.

Reading the response is mostly about figuring out which of the two areas is broken. If people can't explain the product back to you, the explanation is the problem. There's a term or an assumption in there they don't share. If they understand it perfectly and still ask why they'd need it, the buying moment is the problem, and no amount of clean copy manufactures demand that isn't there. Go back to the guess.

When the questions are about quantity, shipping, or a later charge, that's the offer talking. Those terms aren't easy enough to evaluate yet. Questions tell you what's missing without proving price is the only issue. And if clicks go up while purchases stay flat, check the page they landed on and where the traffic came from before you blame the headline or the platform.

When orders start coming in, ask those customers what made them buy and compare it to your hypothesis. Look for a pattern over weeks. Six orders doesn't mean you've found product-market fit. It's the first evidence your guess was in the right neighborhood, which is what traction means at this stage: more reliable information about who buys and what they respond to, with purchases starting to back it up.

Why I keep coming back to this

I've written about zero to one before, and if you go back and read the July 2025 version, it's a launch playbook. Landing page, offer, ads, reviews, organic, the whole recipe. I still stand by it. What I'd change is the emphasis. That issue spent one paragraph on the offer and a few bullets on the landing page, and treated "figure out your angles" as step one of the ads section. Having gone through this again recently, I think those two things are most of the work. Everything downstream is easier or harder depending on whether they're right.

If you're a bigger brand reading this, the exercise still works, you just get to do it with real data. Pull what new customers bought first and the pre-purchase questions sitting in your support inbox, then check whether your page is still organized around the reason people buy or the reason you launched with. And if you're taking an existing product to a new audience, you're doing zero to one again whether the company is big or not.

The product still has to be good and the margins still have to work. Nothing here fixes a product people don't want. But the message and the page are where you find that out, faster and cheaper than anywhere else.

That's all for this week

If you're at this stage and this was useful, hit reply and tell me where you're stuck. I take fewer intro calls than I used to, so this is my way of scaling the ones I do take.

It's Sunday night, so I hope you plan to get a full 9 hours of sleep tonight and have an incredible upcoming week. Take care of yourself... get a walk in, drink some water, get a good sweat in.

I'll see you next Sunday. Same time, same place.

Nik