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- The Psychology of Packaging: How Visuals Drive Revenue
The Psychology of Packaging: How Visuals Drive Revenue
PLUS: Growing a16z crypto's social to 100K Followers In 8 Months
Startup Spells 🪄
October 27, 2025
The Psychology of Packaging: How Visuals Drive Revenue
Packaging and first impressions drive revenue in ways most people underestimate. When you look successful, people assume you are successful, and they want to work with successful people. The same principle applies to your product. When it looks polished, people assume it works well.
Over 12 months, Neil Patel spent $162,301.42 on clothes from Tom Ford, Dolce and Gabbana, and Burberry. This investment in personal presentation generated $692,500 in additional revenue.
Nothing else changed. Not the pitch. Not the prices. Not the companies. Just how he packaged himself.
What a 60% increase in closing ratio looks like
Neil tracked every meeting he did for 4.5 years in a spreadsheet. Company names. Job titles. Pitch prices. Closing ratios. The data revealed something remarkable.
His closing ratio jumped from 25% to 40%. That means 4 out of every 10 meetings resulted in signed contracts, up from 2.5 out of 10. The reason was simple. People felt he was extremely successful, so they wanted to be associated with him.
The transformation was purely visual. His expertise hadn't changed. His services hadn't changed. Only his packaging had changed, and that was enough to increase revenue by nearly $700,000.
The same experiment on a $10,000 budget
His friend Mike Kamo ran the same experiment with under $10,000. When he started dressing well at tech events, people approached him and asked what he did. Several hired him to build their sales teams, and within months he hit 6-figures in monthly income.
Previously, when Mike wore t-shirts and jeans to these same events, people were polite but nobody wanted to work with him. They felt he wasn't successful enough to help them succeed.
Then Mike posted a photo of himself with a Lamborghini. Within days, he received 107 Facebook requests from business owners and 5 of them even offered him equity in their companies for advice. One paid him $50,000 upfront just for his time.
All from a single photo demonstrating success.
Why product packaging follows the same rules
People judge what they can see. Personal presentation matters, but product packaging and first impressions matter just as much. The companies that understand this principle win more customers.
Linear obsesses over every pixel with dark mode, smooth animations, and effortless typography. The design tells you the product is good before you use a single feature.
Apple ships products in boxes that feel expensive to open. The unboxing experience sets quality expectations before you even power on the device.
Stripe created documentation that developers actually enjoy reading with clean layouts and beautiful code samples. If they care this much about documentation, they clearly care about handling your money.
Poor packaging makes people question everything. Typos in your emails? Maybe your product has bugs too. Outdated website? Maybe your product is outdated too. People look for signals of quality, and when they don't find them, they move on to competitors who package themselves better. Only companies like Berkshire Hathaway can get away with an outdated look because they've built decades of reputation that precedes their presentation.
To make first impressions count, tailor your clothes so they fit perfectly. Polish your designs until they shine. Perfect your packaging at every customer touchpoint. Apple and Starbucks are examples of companies with phenomenal physical experiences.
People do judge a book by its cover. Your packaging and first impressions are your fastest form of communication, so make them count.
Top Tweets of the day
1/
i watched a video a few weeks ago where @AlexHormozi said to send a gif
to any lead / influencer that ghosts you
i tried it just for laughs on a big influencer that we were really hoping to land a deal with
surprised to share that it does seem to work
— ethan (@_eth0n)
11:21 PM • Oct 23, 2025
Still underused.
2/
I bought the misspelling of my startup domain 3 years ago
We now have 1871+ conversions just from people going to the wrong domain
Our LTV for a paid user is around ~$143
Which means the domain we paid $20k for has returned $270k
That's over a 1250% ROI :D
— David Park (@Davidjpark96)
4:05 PM • Oct 25, 2025
Most of the world is uneducated, so make domain names use common words.
Unfortunately, domain hoarders hoard the simplest domains. Reminder, any domain that has unusual spelling will have tons of customers type the wrong domain name in the browser, especially as social media punishes linking to URLs.
Yet another case-study: Testimonial.to also bought testimonials.to and testimonial.io and it had the same results.
3/
The dirty little secret of edtech: the biggest names don’t actually care if you learn anything.
As co-founder of Udemy, it is something I reckon with every day…
Duolingo - edtech’s only decacorn, worth $14B. Brilliant app, addictive product, and great for motivation. But let’s
— Gagan Biyani 🏛 (@gaganbiyani)
2:57 PM • Oct 24, 2025
Most people cannot self-learn. That's why schools had schedules.
Rabbit Holes
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