You’ve just finished a meal of Chinese food and it’s time for a storied tradition…
Fortune cookies!
These folded confections contain a little slip of paper. It’s supposed to be a fortune, but… let’s say some are better than others.
My father tells a story about his first fortune cookie, on a school bus trip. After he’d gobbled down the cookie, the kid in front of him turned around:
“What does your fortune say?”
“What fortune?”
…
He’d eaten it 🤦‍♂️
Someone must have realized these fortunes—even if they avoided consumption—needed a little more pizazz.
I think I was in college the first time I heard someone read their fortune followed by “in bed.”
It’s almost always juvenile, but it also can improve some meaningless fortunes.
The message you put at the top of your homepage sometimes loses meaning, too. This hero message, usually on a search for benefits, can come back empty.
If you’re struggling with this or similar messaging, take one out of the fortune cookie playbook. But rather than use “in bed,” try the more appropriate “for developers.”
​Stripe’s original homepage used this format. Ten years later, it may be overdone (along with its partner, “for developers, by developers”), but it may still be an improvement over what you have today.
Treat it like Mad Libs, the fill-in-the-blanks game. If it sounds ridiculous, laugh and move on. If it has potential, see if you can improve it.
If you need somewhere to start, try these examples:
- {category name} for developers
- {solution or use case} for developers
- A developer tool to never {developer problem} again
​
If you or your team have hesitations, there’s a good chance you’re trying to reach too many audiences.
When we work with companies like yours, they often tell us one of the best outcomes we provide is to get the team on the same page.
Or, use a Mad Lib exercise as the start of a discussion. The worst case is you’ll all have a good laugh.