If someone hits a vape during a call I don’t think I’d mind that much 😂

Music in the background? Well that’s just rude.

Here's an interesting "Zoom Etiquette" chart of behaviors that people don't think are acceptable:

When self publishing a book a few years ago I decided to A/B split test two different covers and titles.

Version A: "The Ten Commandments of Copywriting"
Version B: "The Book Will Teach You How To Write Better"

The result from 842 votes was:
Version A: 21% votes (loser)
Version B: 79% votes (winner!)

This version of the book cover was just quickly drummed up as the placeholder for the book cover until I could find a better one.

But of all the book covers and titles we tried this one just dominated every time!

Exactly two weeks ago I decided to cold turkey stop drinking caffeine. I made sure I had a free-ish weekend to lay in bed and do nothing to cope with the caffeine withdrawals.

The first few days I had minor headaches and felt lethargic, this lasted about 3-4 days, then I started feeling a bit better.

Basically it took ~5 days to feel normal.

I've been finding it super easy to wake up in the morning and just start my day without caffeine.

One morning I woke up around 4:30am (HIGHLY HIGHLY UNUSUAL FOR ME!) and was able to just start working, and had steady energy throughout the whole day.

My energy each day just seems "stable." It doesn't have the wild spokes up and down as when on caffeine.

Conclusion: My goal was to just break my morning dependency on caffeine by stopping for two weeks....well TODAY I AM ALLOWED TO HAVE COFFEE!

But it's weird.....I really enjoy not having to rely on it: I like being able to just get up and start the day. I like not having to worry about acquiring 2-3 cups of coffee per day. I like the steady amount of energy I have from morning till night.

Not sure if this will be a permanent stop, but I could get used to this!

I'm writing this on a plane headed to Costa Rica right now, and I was able to wake up at 6:15am and workout before my flight without any caffeine (that is unusual for me).

My friend Noah did a fun b-day party where he did "Birthday Olympics"

• We all met up in a park and did games like:
• Who can hold the longest plank challenge (I got 3rd)
• Who can throw a kettlebell the furthest (I got 3rd)
• Which team could throw a frisbee furthest (I won this one)!
• A team "hold a kettlebell and run a lap"
• A 2-lap sprint and you have to chug a beer or sparkling water before 2 the 2nd lap (I lost this one bad bc couldn't chug the bubble water that fast)....the guy who won had to leave early because he felt sick 😂

It was fun!

Last week I posted this homepage a/b/c/d split test, and asked which you thought would win??

Most people guessed A or D....

Here's the results →

It was C!

And it boosted my homepage conversion rate from about 14% to 23%. 

This means if 100 people come to the homepage, instead of 14 of them signing up to my email list, 23 of them signup. A ~60% increase.

This was designed in Figma by @benpixel and it looked awesome.

Here's the final numbers....and to be fair "D" came in reallllyyy close....almost the same.

A) 14.51% conversion
B) 20.52% conversion
C) 23.69% conversion
D) 23.20% conversion

This simple split test resulted in a 60% improvement for relatively little effort.

It comes back to the old principle that if you give people less options on a page, they'll take the one you give them.

Less options and text meant more people just plunked in their email:

I'm currently reading Read Write Own by @cdixon:

I like how it breaks down complex topics into simple elements, like this chart of different networks:

• Protocol is like SMPT email.
• Corporate is like creators on YouTube.
• Blockchain is like BTC or ETH.

He says there's been 2 eras of the internet and we're moving into the 3rd era called "Read Write Own."

“Read” Era: You could put up a static website. Little to no interaction on websites.

“Read-Write” Era (current): Posting and publishing for anyone to a large audience. You can use and interact on networks like X, Amazon, or YouTube....but not own them.

“Read-Write-Own” Era: You can own pieces of the network you participate in. This is like the Ethereum network where you can interact with it, use it, but also own pieces of it as tokens.

Good book so far!

It was C!

And it boosted my homepage conversion rate from about 14% to 23%. 

This means if 100 people come to the homepage, instead of 14 of them signing up to my email list, 23 of them signup. A ~60% increase.

This was designed in Figma by @benpixel and it looked awesome.

Here's the final numbers....and to be fair "D" came in reallllyyy close....almost the same.

A) 14.51% conversion
B) 20.52% conversion
C) 23.69% conversion
D) 23.20% conversion

This is an interesting little chart: 
YouTube is the widest used social platform.

What has been the most profitable technical tool you’ve learned how to use?

Here's my personal tool stack I use plus the proficiency level:
- Figma (10%)
- Photoshop (40%)
- Descript (40%)
- Wordpress (75%)
- Canva (80%)
- ChatGPT (80%)
- Google Docs, Presentations, Sheets (80%)
- ConvertKit (90%)
- Camtasia (90%)

Some others have told me some really helpful skills they've learned are:
- WebFlow
- ClickUp
- Make
- Superhuman
- AirTable
- Framer

This is an ultra-simplified explanation of how AI image generation works.

They train a neural network to know what things are:

You give it a prompt like "Corgi Sitting In A Field."

It starts off with random noise like this:

Then the neural network tries to figure out which tiny pixels it thinks kind of look like a Corgi and which pixels look like a field, so something resembling that starts to emerge:

The neural net then keeps repeating this until an image is formed:

So from rubbish-to-finished picture is might look something like this:

This is of course a very simplified version, but isn't it interesting how much processing is being done behind the scenes to create AI images!

Image Credits: Ethan Mollick and AltexSoft

Apparently when Steve Urkel first came on TV he was 12 years old....I looked kinda similar at 12....at least the glasses were the same 😂

Neville on the Left, Urkel on the Right 

Look at this “Split Testing” Noah Kagan did to find the right book cover: He took a picture from a book store shelf, then rendered different colors of the book to see which stood out the most. The yellow book blended in, but the green stood out!

He also ran Facebook Ads to test which book covers/colors people would click on the most:

The end result looking like this!

You can also watch Noah talk about how he reverse-engineered reaching NYTimes Bestseller with his book launch here:

Speaking of books....

In our Copywriting Course Office Hours member Rob Roseman said he wanted to a release a book to his Instagram followers:

Just 4 weeks after thinking of the idea I'm holding Rob's physical book in my hand! That's impressively fast execution!

I've procrastinated writing books by months and years, so to see someone do this in ONE MONTH was impressive.

He did it like this:

WEEK 1: He got the concept for the book, then split tested titles and covers on Instagram.

He also did some sample book store split testing for fun:

WEEK 2: In Office Hours sessions we came up with content formats for inside the book, he split test those as well on his Instagram account:

WEEK 3: Once he got the content types down, he created all the content and published. He heavily leveraged his divorce Instagram account for content which helped show what content was socially proven.

**Side Note: His Instagram just started to pop a few months ago, so he didn't have an already giant community until very very very recently.

WEEK 4: I'm holding the book in my hand 🤯

Now that's some HUSTLE seen right inside our copywriting community!