Every conversion test we’ve run, in public.

HypothesisA visible Option-A (€7) / Option-B (€1,797 bump, save €200) card pair will lift Sweep conversion vs the prior copy-only preview.

ResultVisible bump card lifted Sweep conversion materially in the first 14 days, without cannibalising €7 take-rate. €7 buyers held flat; Sweep moved from preview-only to first checkout.(+ measurable Sweep take)

TakeawayOrder-bumps need to be visible at decision time, not previewed in the post-purchase email. Confirmed.

HypothesisAn explicit "You're not a VC. You're a developer-investor." block before the pricing ladder will reduce wrong-buyer churn.

ResultTime-on-page lifted on home; pricing scrolls deeper. Wrong-buyer email reply-rate dropped (anecdotal).(+ 43% time-on-page · scroll-depth 38%→61%)

TakeawayIdentity is upstream of price. The identity close fires before the buyer sees the number.

HypothesisA polarised qualifier above pricing improves the right-buyer signal AND repels the wrong buyer at the same beat.

ResultHard to A/B a polarising block clean — both qualified and wrong-fit visitors self-select faster. Email reply rate from disqualified visitors dropped to near zero.

TakeawayPolarisation is the point. Don't soften the NOT-FOR column to 'be welcoming.' Confirmed.

HypothesisA single highlighted before/after worked example (D-31 → D 0 timeline) lifts trust on the prediction page more than the aggregate signal-stats.

ResultThe worked example moved page average-scroll-depth past the next-pick block. Visitors who read the demo are markedly more likely to follow the SSRN link.(+ 7.1% vs 1.8% SSRN-link CTR)

TakeawayOne worked example beats five aggregate stats. Confirmed in copy.

HypothesisExposing every public page as raw markdown lifts agent-side retrieval (Claude / GPT / Perplexity) at the cost of zero human friction.

ResultAgent-side citations measurable on Perplexity + ChatGPT searches; LLM-quoting probes return our text intact. No measurable human-side conversion delta — as expected.(+ 25 detected citations · 30d)

TakeawayTwo-audience design is real in 2026. Build for browsers AND agents — publishing where the buyer already is.

HypothesisSpecific lead-time anchor ("47 days before the deck") outperforms abstract category framing ("GitHub-momentum deal flow") on developer-investor cold reach.

ResultVariant A (specific) lifted CTR ∼2.4× over Variant B (abstract) on r/venturecapital and dev.to crossposts. Variant B did better on LinkedIn drafts (skews general-investor), variant A everywhere else.(+ ∼2.4× CTR (specific vs abstract))

TakeawaySpecificity beats category framing on developer-adjacent channels. Use the abstract version only when the audience skews non-technical. Hook bank entry: "47 days before the deck."

HypothesisNumbered, day-anchored hooks outperform descriptive category hooks on subject-line tests and apex-page H1.

Result"Five Sunday names" outperformed "Weekly engineering acceleration" on subject open-rate (∼1.6×) and squeeze-page sub-rate (∼1.8×). Same content; the difference is the number + the day.(+ ∼1.6× open · ∼1.8× squeeze sub)

TakeawayHook = number + day + outcome. "Five Sunday names" is N=5, day=Sunday, outcome=names. The descriptive hook misses all three. Ship the numbered version everywhere by default.

HypothesisAn objection-shaped subject line (taking down the most common belief) outperforms a benefit-shaped subject in soap-opera D1 position.

ResultObjection-takedown ("GitHub data is noise (here's why that's wrong)") beat benefit framing ("What commit velocity tells you") on open-rate by ∼1.4× in D1 slot. The same benefit framing wins later in the sequence (D5).(+ ∼1.4× D1 open)

TakeawayPosition-in-sequence rewrites which hook wins. Objection takedown wins early (resistant subscriber), benefit close wins later (warmed subscriber). Don't reuse the same hook archetype across the soap.

Hypothesis€7 sits in the conversion sweet-spot between €1 (filter-too-low: anyone clicks, nobody upgrades) and €17 (filter-too-high: friction kills the cohort). The right tripwire price is the one that maximises CTR × upgrade-probability, not either alone.

Result€1 produced the highest checkout-CTR (4.3%) but only 4% of buyers upgraded to Dashboard within 14d — buyer-quality too low. €17 produced the lowest CTR (1.7%) but a 35% upgrade rate at small N — buyer too cold to scale. €7 hit 2.7% CTR and 22% upgrade — the only price that produced both volume AND ascension.(+ €7 best CTR×Upgrade product)

TakeawayTripwire price is a filter, not a revenue line. Optimise for the upgrade probability × volume product, not for the highest CTR or the highest AOV alone. Confirmed.

HypothesisDefaulting to annual lifts deal-size; defaulting to monthly lifts conversion. The right call depends on whether the buyer is at the 'try' stage or the 'commit' stage.

ResultDefault-to-monthly lifted Dashboard sign-up CVR by 1.34× (most visitors are trying, not committing). Default-to-annual lifted ACV +1.6× but cut sign-ups by ~30%. Kept monthly default; annual is one-click upgrade in welcome email D6.(+ 1.34× sign-up CVR (monthly default))

TakeawayThe right cadence depends on the surface, not the offer. Cold default = monthly. Warm upgrade path = annual via D6 email. Two-stage commitment beats one-stage.

HypothesisEmerald CTAs lift click-through over sky (brand colour) on cold-traffic pages; warm pages may not show the lift because the buyer has already accepted the brand by the time they reach the close.

ResultEmerald CTAs +12% relative CTR on home (cold). No significant difference on /walkthrough (warm reader, already past the headline-trust gate). Kept emerald on cold surfaces, sky on warm.(+ 12% CTR (cold-surface emerald))

TakeawayAction colour beats brand colour on cold; brand colour beats action on warm. Surface-aware CTA palette > one-size-fits-all.

HypothesisSunday evening hits the 'next-week-prep' mindset; Monday morning hits the 'this-week-now' mindset. The latter should drive more click-through to /predicted because 'now' beats 'next' for action triggering.

ResultSunday 18:00 UTC opens slightly higher (+6%). Monday 09:00 UTC drives +18% relative click-through to /predicted. Open is a vanity metric on a digest list; click-through is the real signal. Kept Monday 09:00 UTC.(+ 18% click-through (Mon 09:00 UTC))

TakeawayOptimise for the action you actually want, not the metric that looks best. Open is the room; click is the door.

HypothesisLonger applications increase qualification at the cost of completion; the question is whether the marginal qualified application is worth the marginal lost one.

Result5-question form completed by 73% of starters; 8-question form by 44%. Quality of submissions held — fewer junk applications, qualified ones still complete. The dropped 29pp were almost entirely poor-fit. Kept 5.(+ 29pp completion (5-question form))

TakeawayLength doesn't filter quality; the right questions filter quality. 5 well-chosen questions > 8 average ones.

HypothesisVisible 30-second countdown on the OTO landing lifts take-rate via deadline-shaped urgency, without triggering the 'fake-scarcity' alarm bell — the timer represents a real one-click window the page actually closes.

Result30-second visible timer lifted take-rate +14% relative vs no-timer cohort. No refund spike on the timer cohort over 30d. Kept 30s.(+ 14% OTO take-rate)

TakeawayReal deadlines (you literally cannot get this price after the timer) are the only deadlines worth shipping. Cosmetic timers refund. The 30s is real.

Hypothesis30-minute delay primes 'this is curated' (a human queued you); immediate primes 'the system works' (automation triggered). The first frame should produce higher open + click on the welcome.

Result30-minute delay open rate +5pp, D1 click-through +2pp vs immediate cohort. Kept 30-min delay; matches the 'engineer-investor reading commit logs at their own pace' brand frame.(+ 5pp open · 2pp click (30-min delay))

TakeawayEmail arrival timing is a brand signal, not just a deliverability tactic. 30 minutes says 'we thought about this'; 0 seconds says 'a robot greeted you'.