Company playbook / 09 / Content & trust
incident.io
Teach the job before you pitch the tool
incident.io published a practical startup incident-management guide. The article helps a small team decide what to do during an incident without requiring the reader to buy the product.
01 / What they actually did
A guide teams can implement tomorrow
Its startup guide discusses severity levels, incident roles, coordination, communication and follow-up. The advice is deliberately sized for startups rather than copied from large enterprises. [I1]
The product pitch is held back
The article acknowledges a product angle while leaving most of the piece devoted to the actual job the reader needs to do. [I1]
02 / What you can learn
Lesson to keep: Teach the whole workflow. A practitioner should be able to put the advice into practice without a demo.
Don’t over-copy: One strong guide is not proof of content-sourced ARR. The point is relevance, usefulness and earned trust.
03 / How to do something similar
- 01Choose one painful, recurring task in your category.
- 02Write the exact sequence someone should follow, including examples and decisions.
- 03Include a checklist or runbook someone can copy.
- 04Explain where manual approaches break down without pretending they never work.
- 05Only then show how your product helps, with a low-pressure next step.
Examples you could publish or run
What to measure
Qualified readers, saves/shares by practitioners, workshop and trial interest.
04 / Copy the framework
Inspired by incident.io
Practitioner guide + checklist
Teach the workflow first and introduce the product only after.
TITLE: The practical guide to [recurring technical job] WHO IT'S FOR: [team profile] WHEN TO USE IT: [trigger] STEP 1: Prepare the inputs and team STEP 2: Decide roles, priorities and thresholds STEP 3: Execute the workflow STEP 4: Verify that it worked STEP 5: Handle exceptions and failure modes STEP 6: Review and improve the process DOWNLOADABLE CHECKLIST: [ ] Prerequisites confirmed [ ] Owner assigned [ ] Rollback or recovery path ready [ ] Success metric checked [ ] Lessons documented LAST: Where a product can reduce manual effort (honestly).
05 / Original sources