# Case: rewrite the "12% a year" landing page

> Turn a bold return promise into an honest range with a horizon, a risk line and a clear disclaimer.

- Course: [Long-Term Investing: Index Funds, Risk and Your Own Behavior](https://productovi.com/courses/long-term-investing.md)
- Module: What can an investing app honestly promise?
- Lesson 4/32, ~32 min
- Source: https://productovi.com/courses/long-term-investing/case-landing-page

## Ethan's draft

**Grace:** End of February at Zapas, and your first month as PM closes with a real deliverable: the landing page for the public waitlist. Ethan has a new draft.

**Ethan:** I kept the 12%, but added proof and a friendly promise. Read it before you say no.

> **Ethan's draft hero section**
>
> 1. **Grow your money 12% a year.**
> 2. Safe, automatic, guaranteed growth for your goals.
> 3. Proof: the world market returned 9.3% a year for 40 years.
> 4. Join 2,400 people already investing with Zapas.

**Grace:** Line by line, then. You already know what's wrong with line 1. Line 2 says "safe" and "guaranteed": neither is true of stocks. Line 3 is our synthetic Tessaro history, nominal, shown as real-world proof.

**Sofia:** Line 4 is fine: 2,400 beta users is a fact.

**Ethan:** Other apps put 15% on their pages and nobody complains. If we look modest, we lose the signup.

**Grace:** Nobody complains in a good year. The complaint comes in the first −20% year, from a user who believed the page, and it usually comes as a withdrawal. Honest copy is cheaper than churn.

> **Exercise:** Which lines of Ethan's draft must change before launch?

> **Exercise:** Match each draft line with its main problem.

## What the numbers allow

**Ethan:** Fine. But if I can't promise a rate, what number can I put on the page at all?

**Grace:** The fan from last week. For 150 dol. a month: after 25 years, the 10th to 90th percentile runs from 57,544 to 189,828, median 106,225, on 45,000 paid in. After 10 years it's 16,877 to 34,906.

**150 dol. a month, simulated balance after 10 and 25 years**

| Years invested | Paid in | 10th percentile | Median | 90th percentile |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 10 | 18000 | 16877 | 24907 | 34906 |
| 25 | 45000 | 57544 | 106225 | 189828 |

*Real dollars, 2,000 paths on synthetic Tessaro history. Not a forecast.*

**Dataset (CSV):** [Percentiles of 2,000 simulated 25-year plans](https://productovi.com/datasets/long-term-investing/case-landing-page/paths_25y.csv)

**Sofia:** At 10 years the 10th percentile is below the 18,000 paid in. That belongs in the risk line.

> **Exercise:** After 10 years of 150 dol. a month (18,000 paid in), the 10th percentile balance is 16,877. How many dollars below the money paid in is it?

> **Exercise:** Where should the risk line go on the landing page?

**Grace:** Here's how I'd structure it: a headline about the habit, then the range, the horizon in today's money, and the risk line right next to the numbers.

![An honest promise: a headline about the habit, a range of about 58,000–190,000 for 150 dol. a month over 25 years, the horizon in today's dollars, and a risk line next to the numbers.](https://productovi.com/courses/long-term-investing/diagrams/m1-l4-honest-promise.png)

*Headline, range, horizon, risk: in that order.*

**Ethan:** A headline without a number feels soft. Can the headline at least sell the time effect?

**Grace:** Yes, that one is true for everyone: starting ten years earlier roughly doubled the result in our example. Try the headline first.

> **Exercise:** Write a new headline and one sub-line for the landing page. No rate in the headline; the sub-line may use one number from this module, labelled honestly.

> **Exercise:** If the 40-year history on the landing page looks realistic, there is no need to say it is synthetic.

## Your landing page

**Ethan:** And if the honest page converts worse in the first week?

**Grace:** Then we test wording, layout and the button, not the truth. Honesty is the floor; everything above it we can A/B test. Now the whole hero section. Ethan reads it tonight, so add two sentences for him on why it's better.

> **Exercise:** Rewrite Zapas's landing hero section as an honest range with a horizon and a risk line, and explain to Ethan why it's better.

> **Key ideas**
>
> - Audit every money claim for type (nominal or real), source (labelled honestly) and certainty words.
> - Replace a yearly rate with a rounded range, a horizon and units: about 58,000–190,000 after 25 years of 150 dol. a month, in today's dollars.
> - Put the risk line next to the numbers, with the bad case: after 10 years the 10th percentile, 16,877, is below the 18,000 paid in.
> - Sell the habit and the years in the headline; they are true for everyone.
> - Label synthetic data as synthetic and not a forecast.

> **Educational, not advice**
>
> This course explains how long-term investing works; it never tells you what to buy. Investments can fall, and you can get back less than you put in. Check the current rules where you live or ask a licensed professional.

**Grace:** February's done. In March the beta users start asking the next question: how much can I lose, and for how long?

- Previous lesson: [A range, not a number: twenty-five years of possible paths](https://productovi.com/courses/long-term-investing/range-not-a-number.md)
- Next lesson: [Volatility and a typical bad year](https://productovi.com/courses/long-term-investing/volatility-bad-year.md)

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