Stackable is a switched-on friend who knows the science, can explain it in plain language, and occasionally makes you smile.
How Stackable looks →Think of a friend you can hear from across the room. You know who it is before you see them.
"Three Bricks this week. Your Block is taking shape."
We say more with less.
"Congratulations on completing three learning modules this week! You're making fantastic progress on your learning journey and we're so proud of you."
Same information, and twice the words. That's not an accident.
We have the same voice throughout Stackable. But we use tone at different energy levels.
| Example | Tone | Where |
|---|---|---|
| "Are you a blockhead?" | Playful, bold | Marketing and social |
| "Start building" | Functional, warm | Product UI |
| "Something went wrong loading this Brick. Try again in a moment." | Helpful, straight face | Error messages |
| "Your brain is engineered to forget. This Block is engineered to make you remember." | Mentor, not comedian | Learning content |
| "Stack complete. You built something that lasts." | Maximum personality | Completion moments |
| "We're not just stacking skills, we're stacking careers." | Precise, belief-driven | Investor materials |
Marketing is where the vocabulary gets to have fun. In our product, we are always clear first, clever second. And if we use a joke and it doesn't help us teach, it doesn't belong.
"Every learner is a builder."
The learner is the subject. They're doing the building. It's direct, it's clear, and it puts the reader in control. This is the single most important writing rule we have.
"Learning is delivered to participants through our platform."
Same idea. All the life sucked out of it. The reader becomes a passenger and nobody is doing anything. The sentence just sort of… exists.
You'll notice passive voice creeping in when you're tired, writing fast, or reaching for what sounds professional. It's the default setting for corporate writing, which is exactly why it kills our voice.
Every paragraph starts with a sentence that tells the reader what the paragraph is about. This sounds obvious. Almost nobody does it consistently.
Look at the paragraph above. "Every paragraph starts with a sentence that tells the reader what the paragraph is about." You knew what was coming before you read the rest. That's a topic sentence. It orients the reader and keeps your writing tight.
Once you have a topic sentence, you just follow the rhythm:
You don't need all four every time. But when copy feels loose or waffly, it's usually because one of them is missing. The topic sentence is the one that matters most. Start there and the rest tends to sort itself out.
If you can remove a word without losing meaning, please remove it. Watch out for creep:
If a sentence sounds weird when you read it aloud, rewrite it. This catches passive voice, over-long sentences, and anything that's trying to sound clever rather than being clear.