I’m staring at our landing page analytics. 247 visitors in the past few days. 3 signup requests. 1.2% conversion rate.
For a Private Alpha launch with zero marketing budget, this isn’t terrible. But it’s not great either.
The problem is obvious: visitors land on the page, scroll for 8 seconds, and leave. They’re not self-identifying. They’re not seeing themselves in the copy. They’re bouncing before they understand what we do or who we built this for.
I’m a solo founder with 9 AI agents at my disposal. One of them is literally a Business Strategy Agent that applies 11 strategic frameworks—including Jobs-to-be-Done—to business problems.
So I did what any rational founder would do: I asked STRAŦUM to audit STRAŦUM’s own landing page.
Day 1: By evening, the revised landing page was live in production. Same-day turnaround. Zero external consultants. Just me, the Strategy Agent, and a ruthless focus on outcome-focused copywriting.
Then I did it again.
Day 2: My whitelist confirmation email was a 500-word information dump with 9 agents, 3 categories, and zero clear path to value. I fed it to the Strategy Agent. Within an hour, I had a revised email with a 2-step onboarding path and outcome-focused messaging in my authentic voice.
This is the story of dogfooding done right—twice—and why the first version of your product should be used to improve itself.
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The Problem: Visitors Couldn’t Self-Identify
Our original landing page followed the standard SaaS playbook:
1. Hero section: Big bold claim (“Marketing Execution Without Strategy Is Just Expensive Noise”)
2. Features: Progressive Learning, 11 Frameworks, 9 AI Agents
3. Demo video: 15-minute walkthrough
4. Comparison table: Us vs. Execution-focused tools
5. Audience segmentation: For SMEs, For Agencies (buried at section #6)
The structure made sense from a product perspective—lead with the problem, explain the solution, differentiate, then segment.
But here’s what I missed: Users don’t care about your unique technology until they know it’s for them.
An agency owner managing 15 clients lands on the page. They see “Progressive Learning” and “11 Strategic Frameworks.” Great. But what does that mean for their time-starved, client-juggling workday?
They scroll. They see the demo video. They see the comparison table. By the time they hit Section #6 (“Built for Two Distinct Audiences”) and see “Scale Your Strategic Capacity, Not Your Headcount,” they’ve already decided this isn’t for them.
The landing page wasn’t bad. It was just ordered wrong.
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The Audit: Using STRAŦUM’s Strategy Agent on Our Own Copy
I opened STRAŦUM’s Business Strategy Agent and pasted our entire landing page copy—all 7 sections, word-for-word.
My prompt:
> “Review the current landing page copy section by section. Using Jobs-to-be-Done principles and outcome-focused messaging, what improvements would make this landing page more compelling for our two target audiences (SMEs and Agencies)?”
The Strategy Agent responded with a 4,200-word analysis. Here are the three critical insights:
Insight #1: Move “Built for Two Distinct Audiences” to Section #2
Strategy Agent’s rationale:
> “By placing the audience segmentation section immediately after the Hero section, you allow users to self-identify and see their specific, outcome-focused benefits before they dive into the technical details of your product. The goal is to answer the user’s most pressing question as quickly as possible: ‘Is this product for me?'”
Why this matters:
– Original flow: Problem → General Solution → Technical Details → Specific Solution
– Revised flow: Problem → **Specific Solution (for me)** → Technical Proof → General Comparison
An agency owner now sees “Scale Your Strategic Capacity, Not Your Headcount” within 2 seconds of scrolling. They self-identify immediately. The rest of the page is read through the lens of *their* specific pain points.
ICE Score for this change: Impact (9/10), Confidence (9/10), Ease (8/10) = **6.48/10** (Highest priority)
Insight #2: Shift from Features to Outcomes
The Strategy Agent identified 14 instances where we focused on *what the product does* instead of *how the customer’s life improves*.
Example #1: SME Benefits
| Before (Feature-Focused) | After (Outcome-Focused) |
| “Zero-to-Hero in 5 minutes: Your first marketing win in your first session” | “Clarity in 15 Minutes: Get your first complete, data-backed strategy before your coffee gets cold” |
Why it’s better: “Clarity in 15 Minutes” promises a specific outcome (clarity) with a time-bound result (15 minutes). The emotional job is fulfilled: *confidence and relief from overwhelm*.
Example #2: Agency Benefits
| Before (Feature-Focused) | After (Outcome-Focused) |
| “Multi-tenant native: Complete data isolation between clients, team role management, secure access” | “Client-Ready Strategies, Instantly: Generate a full strategic blueprint for a new client in the time it takes to write an email” |
Why it’s better: Agency owners don’t wake up thinking “I need better data isolation.” They wake up thinking “I need to deliver a killer strategy for this new client by Friday.” The revised copy speaks to the *functional job* (deliver strategies fast) and the *social job* (look like a strategic genius, justify premium fees).
Insight #3: Add Concrete Examples to Progressive Learning
Our “Day 1, Week 1, Ongoing” timeline explained *how* Progressive Learning works, but it didn’t show the visceral benefit.
Strategy Agent’s suggestion:
> “Week 1 revision: Add a concrete example. ‘Tell the Persona Agent about your target customer’s pain points, and the Content Agent automatically adjusts tone and messaging for all future outputs.'”
This single sentence does three things:
1. Proves cross-agent intelligence sharing (not just a feature claim)
2. Shows time savings (you don’t re-explain context to each agent)
3. Demonstrates system intelligence (it’s not just keyword matching—it’s semantic understanding)
The Lesson: Dogfooding Reveals What Analytics Can’t
Here’s the thing about building AI products: you can obsess over latency, hallucination rates, and token costs. But if your landing page doesn’t convert, none of that technical excellence matters.
Using STRAŦUM’s Strategy Agent to audit our own landing page forced me to confront three uncomfortable truths:
Truth #1: I Was Too Close to the Product
I’d spent 75 days building 9 AI agents. I knew every feature, every technical decision, every architectural pivot. But I’d lost sight of the user’s first impression.
The Strategy Agent doesn’t care that we have 83 Row Level Security policies or 214 database migrations. It cares about the user’s emotional job: feeling confident in their marketing decisions instead of overwhelmed.
Truth #2: Features Don’t Sell—Outcomes Do
“Multi-tenant native with complete data isolation” is a feature. “Seamlessly manage strategy for all 15 clients” is an outcome.
The Strategy Agent’s Jobs-to-be-Done analysis revealed 14 places where we were selling the architecture instead of the benefit. Agency owners don’t hire STRAŦUM to get “data isolation”—they hire it to “scale strategic capacity without hiring another strategist.”
Truth #3: Structure Matters More Than You Think
Moving “Built for Two Distinct Audiences” from section #6 to section #2 didn’t change a single word of copy. But it fundamentally changed the user journey:
– Before: User reads 4 sections of general product info before self-identifying
– After: User self-identifies within 2 seconds, then reads the rest of the page through the lens of their specific pain points
ICE Score: This one structural change had the highest Impact (9/10) and Ease (8/10) of all the Strategy Agent’s recommendations.
Day 2: Dogfooding the Whitelist Confirmation Email
The landing page is live. Users are signing up. But then I look at the email I’m sending to whitelisted users.
It’s… not great.
The Problem: Information Overload, No Clear Path
The original email:
– 500+ words of text
– 9 AI agents organized into 3 categories (Foundation, Planning & Creation, Intelligence)
– Feature list: “Progressive Learning,” “Multi-campaign management,” “Brand Guidelines”
– Vague CTA: “Start with the Strategy agent”
– No clear onboarding path
The email was comprehensive. But comprehensive doesn’t mean effective.
What I realized: Users getting this email have *just* been whitelisted. They’re excited, maybe a little skeptical. They don’t need a feature encyclopedia. They need to know: “What do I do first? How long will it take? What value will I get?”
The Strategy Agent’s Diagnosis
I fed the entire email to the Strategy Agent with this prompt:
> “This is my whitelist confirmation email. The goal is to drive immediate sign-up and guide the user to the first high-value action. Using Jobs-to-be-Done principles, how can I make this more compelling and action-oriented?”
The Strategy Agent’s response (summarized):
1. Too many steps – Original email had 4 steps including optional business profile filling. Friction before value.
2. Feature-focused, not outcome-focused – “9 AI Marketing Agents” doesn’t answer “How does my life improve?”
3. Missing clear time commitment – How long until I experience value?
4. No teaser of what’s next – After the first action, then what?
Strategy Agent’s recommendation:
> “Create a clear 2-step path: (1) Sign up, (2) Run Strategy Audit. Remove the business profile step—users can discover that later. Lead with the outcome: ‘Free AI Strategy Audit—a complete, data-backed strategic blueprint in your first session.'”
The Revision: From Information Dump to Clear Path
Subject Line:
– Before: “You’re in – STRAŦUM Private Alpha Access”
– After: “You’re In: STRAŦUM Private Alpha Access + Free Strategy Audit”
Why it’s better: Includes brand name, emphasizes exclusivity (Private Alpha), promises value (Free Strategy Audit).
Opening:
– Before: Generic “You requested early access… here’s what you’re getting”
– After: Personal introduction with founder story and vulnerability
“`
I’m Chandler, the founder. I built this platform because I wanted strategic
intelligence without the execution risk (and honestly, I was tired of marketing
tools that automate first and think later).
“`
The revised email followed the same principle as the landing page: move the value proposition forward, remove unnecessary friction.
The Key Insight: Remove Friction Before Value
The Strategy Agent identified the same pattern in both the landing page and the email: Users experience friction before they experience value.
Landing page: Had to read 4 generic sections before self-identifying in Section #6.
Email:** Had to complete business profile before getting to the Strategy Audit.
In both cases, the fix was structural: Move the value proposition forward. Remove unnecessary steps.
The Strategy Agent didn’t just say “your email is too long.” It said: “The business profile step is optional friction. Remove it. Let users discover it after they’re already experiencing value.”
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The Meta-Lesson: Your Product Should Improve Your Product
Two dogfooding sessions in 48 hours. Same Strategy Agent. Different outputs (landing page, email). Same underlying insight: Remove friction before value.
This entire experiment was possible because we built STRAŦUM to be a strategic intelligence layer—not just a content generator or a chatbot.
Landing Page:*The Strategy Agent didn’t just say “Your copy is bad.” It:
1. Applied 11 strategic frameworks (SWOT, Jobs-to-be-Done, ICE Scoring)
2. Identified 14 feature-to-outcome conversion opportunities
3. Prioritized changes by Impact, Confidence, and Ease
4. Provided specific, actionable copy suggestions with rationale
Email: The Strategy Agent didn’t just say “Your email is too long.” It:
1. Identified the core problem (friction before value)
2. Recommended structural changes (2 steps instead of 3)
3. Suggested tone adjustments (match Chandler’s authentic voice)
4. Provided before/after examples with reasoning
And then we implemented both. Same day (landing page), same hour (email).
This is what “Intelligence Over Execution” means in practice. Not “move fast and break things.” But “analyze first, execute confidently.”
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What’s Next: Testing Both Hypotheses
The revised landing page is live. The new whitelist email is ready to send. The CTAs are updated. The audience segmentation is front-and-center.
Now we wait for the data:
Landing Page Metrics:
– Will self-identification improve conversion rate from 1%?
– Will “Get Free AI Strategy Audit” attract higher-quality alpha users than generic “Request Early Access”?
– Will outcome-focused copy (e.g., “Mistake-Proof Your Budget”) resonate better than feature copy (e.g., “Adaptive strategies”)?
Email Metrics:
– Will the 2-step onboarding path increase immediate sign-ups?
– Will removing the business profile friction improve completion rates?
– Will outcome-focused subject line improve open rates?
– Will authentic Chandler voice increase engagement?
I’ll report back in 2 weeks with the analytics. For now, I can say this:
Using STRAŦUM to improve STRAŦUM—twice in 48 hours—was the most efficient time I’ve spent in the past 75 days.
Landing page revision: 1 hours, 36 minutes.
Email revision: ~30 minutes.
Both deployed. Both tested with the Strategy Agent. Both outcome-focused.
And if the metrics don’t improve? Well, at least I’ll know it’s not because visitors couldn’t self-identify or because users hit friction before experiencing value.
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P.S. If you’re a solo founder or small agency building in the AI space: Use your product on your product. Not because it’s cute meta-marketing, but because you’ll find bugs, UX issues, and copy problems that no amount of user interviews will reveal.
Dogfooding isn’t optional—it’s your competitive advantage.
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About STRAŦUM:
STRAŦUM is a Private Alpha marketing strategy intelligence platform with 9 interconnected AI agents, progressive learning, and 11 strategic frameworks (SWOT, Porter’s Five Forces, Blue Ocean Strategy, BCG Matrix, VRIO, McKinsey 7S, OKRs, Three Horizons, ICE Prioritization, Business Model Canvas, Jobs to Be Done). Built in 75 days by a solo founder. Zero production users. Invite-only access.
If you want to see the Strategy Agent in action (and get a free audit of your own landing page), request access at https://stratum.chandlernguyen.com/request-invitation