How to Start An Article (And Make $500 a Month in the Next 6 Months)

Lessons from 1000+ articles

One thousand introductions.

That’s how many I’ve written. Only now am I getting the hang of it.

Some were horrendous, some were unreadable. But a few, the subtle few, were good, they outperformed the bad ones, 10–1. Those good intros I’ve been iterating for the last 2.5 years. Obsessing over how to make them better.

Today, I want to show you how you can level up your intro game so that you’ll get more views, in less time (without the headache). Imagine a world where your introductions wrote themselves, that’s what we’re aiming for.

Step 1: Understand your reader

The first place to start is with your reader (it’s always about your reader). Great writing is like a great product, it knows its target audience (almost better than they know themselves).

You need to understand some basics:

• Who are they?
• What do they want?
• What are they doing?
• How can you help them?

Those are all questions you need to be thinking about when it comes to writing your intro. And it’s for one reason and one reason only: to get them interested enough to read the next line of your article.

How can you possibly do that if you don’t understand who you are writing to? Before you write a word, picture your reader and answer those questions.

First, get clear on who you are writing to.

Step 2: Understand your content

Now you know your reader, you need to understand where your content exists in their life.

So you’re writing something about careers, or science or marketing, ask yourself, what problem are they trying to solve:

• Maybe they want to get smarter about marketing
• Maybe they want to feel more confident about work

Pick one problem and work through your solution. Don’t try to solve 3 or 4 problems. More isn’t better. It dilutes your message. Pick one problem and solve it.

Sometimes I write ‘what problem am I trying to solve’ at the top of my article to make sure I’m staying focused. Remember: solving one problem well is better than 3 half-baked.

By now you should be super clear on who your reader is and what problem you are solving for them.

Step 3: Start strong

Now, let’s pretend you’re at the pub with your pals.

You’re telling the story, your story. You’re relaxed, slouched back, laughing. You’re pal leans over and tells you to tell you the tale that you told him last week.

Where you do start?

At the beginning, of course. But the question is, where exactly is the beginning, because it’s not always at the start, sometimes it’s just before:

• “I never really thought about death before that day.”
• “To understand this story you need to know three things.”
• “Two minutes before the weirdest day of my life, I was on the phone.”

Think about the moment the story really started. And often (at least for me) that’s wayyyyyyy before the day. Your opening line matters, it matters a lot.

One of the best ways to start an article is a point in time but here are some others:

• Start with a question
• Start with a surprising fact
• Start by describing a person

The purpose of the opening line is to snap your reader’s attention and get them to read the next line.

Step 4: Find the sweetspot

When you start an article you’re basically saying “hey, I’ve got this thing I want to tell you and you’ll be better off for knowing it.”

But you’ve got to convince people of that, saying it and believing it isn’t enough.

Give too much away in your introduction and you’ll give them no reason to keep reading. You must interest your reader enough so they can’t help but keep reading but not too much that there’s no reason to read further.

To grab your reader you must think about what:

• Is important so important they can’t help but read
• Is *just enough* information so they don’t want to click off

A pro-tip is to read your introduction out loud and ask yourself (honestly) would I keep reading? If the answer is no, rewrite.

Step 5: What’s your promise

Your introduction is your elevator pitch.

When you end your pitch, think about what is in it for your reader. What will happen as a result of reading this piece from you:

• Will they get smarter?
• Learn something that will save them time?
• Be able to do something they couldn’t do before?

If that’s the case, make sure you tell them. Remember that problem we talked about solving at the start? Make sure you tell them what that problem is and show them what their world will look like when it’s solved. When I write, I think of my writing as a product. Any product (or service) has one job: to solve a problem. But often people don’t know they have a problem so to combat that, you must show them who they will be after reading your work. Who will they become?

End your intro with that.

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