let’s take a trip down memory lane.
it’s september 2024 - you’re an aspiring copywriter who just joined copy elite (ifykyk), and you’re going through the modules.
as you listen to kj rainey explain what first principles are for the first time, you feel a third eye open in the middle of your head…
you can finally SEE!
welp, that’s it.
no going back now.
you spend damn near every day in google docs for the next couple months writing copy and getting it reviewed..
and after your first 20 outreaches, someone responds saying they were impressed with the free VSL script you wrote for them.
so you get em on a call, bumble your way through the conversation, and somehow close them on a $500 trial.
you’ve just landed your first ever client, the sun’s shining, you can hear ‘stay schemin’ by rick ross playing somewhere in the background…
and it’s all because of the blood, sweat and caffeine you put into actually learning the skill.
you don’t know it yet, but you’ve just chosen a path with a lifetime payout worth a lot more than $500 which is:
influencing the human mind with written words.
that was what life looked like nearly 2 years ago (when i first started writing copy), but the game has changed a LOT since then.
it used to be the standard to buy someone’s $4k course…
put in AT LEAST 20 hours of pain in the g docs…
and write over a hundred pieces of copy before anyone would half take you seriously…
but in the 25-26’ season of info, that standard has become nearly invisible to most people, all because of two powerful letters:
A. I.
you might’ve heard of it.
it’s only a force of hyper-intelligent robots who do whatever you say and work for you 24/7.
you also might’ve heard that these robots have taken the world by storm over the past year…
and it’s been no different for the info space.
copywriting as a biz opp is nowhere to be found:
you’ve got growth ops / founders posting reels about how they “fired their copywriter” along with 95% of their team because their clawdbot is doing everything for them…
people are throwing around ai slop EVERYWHERE - i see it in ads, youtube videos, emails, landing pages…
(if you don’t know what i’m talking about, try listening for some of these lovely phrases next time an ad pops up on instagram):
‘it’s not this, it’s that’ x1000000
‘that’s the shift.’
‘here’s the thing’
‘here’s what no one tells you’
‘—’
‘no x. no y. no z.’
‘here’s the part that changes everything’
‘that’s the whole game’
and as an old-fashioned copywriter at heart, it’s clear that things have gotten out of hand pretty quickly.
people have discovered these robots and become obsessed with “leverage” and how much they can get done with the least amount of effort / resources possible.
they’re searching in every crack and crevice of their business, automating everything they can find, including their copy…
without realizing that copy is the literal core of their entire operation.
think about it - what do you absolutely need to run ads? ad copy.
what do you need to run a webinar funnel? a webinar script.
what even is a funnel, at the first principle-level?
words.
it’s all copy.
and when you outsource the foundation of your business to a robot, you forfeit all the creativity and human soul that’s meant to be felt by your customers.
MEANING that until AGI (when we’ll all be cooked), there will always be a need for highly skilled copywriters / creative strategists.
the only thing that’s changing now is the caliber of business owner who realizes this and adapts to it.
a couple real-world examples of this:
nearly every mastermind my good friend + founder of webinar wizards, charlie, goes to has at least 1 person brought on to specifically speak about copywriting.
i still see multiple job postings for copywriters inside the old copy elite discord (which got shut down in january btw)...
zarak is doing 6 figs a month with his agency, that literally trains + deploys copywriters / creative strategists…
so the demand is higher than ever, and it’ll only keep going up as time goes on.
because real deal long-term business owners understand the value in copy.
they know it has to be good.
and with ai slop raining down on info right now, the pool of people they can trust to get the job done is getting smaller by the day.
which is really bad news for the claude gremlins stealing prompts from ig reels…
and an amazing opportunity for the true writers putting in the REPS.
to help you take advantage of it, lemme put you on to how i learned to sell with words back in 2024.
i present to you…
the entire copywriting first principles course from inside copy elite (RIP):
when i say this is the only video you need to learn this skill, i mean it.
i’ve helped make people over $1M with copy so far, and i owe a HUGE part of my success to these 10 hours.
you’ll learn what copywriting is at a first principle level, and how to get insanely good at it to make a lot of money.
and just because i’m such a nice guy, i’ll let you in on the exact steps i took to get the most out of it too:
watch one section of the course at a time (there’s 8)
genuinely take notes as you watch (to help retain the info)
choose a brand / influencer with a product (fitness coaching, supplements, e-books, etc)
write a piece of copy for them BY HAND, using one of the principles from the video
repeat
it’s definitely not as sexy as telling claude to write everything for you…
but it’s just what it takes to truly understand how marketing (and honestly the world) works.
over time though, each principle you learn will get you one step closer to becoming a lean, mean copywriting machine.
and you’ll be no match for everyone else depending on other machines to do the work for them.
to copy,
gabe
ps. don’t get me wrong, i am in no way shape or form dissing ai.
it is a revolutionary technology that you need to be using right now, especially in business.
but in 2026, it’s more important to THINK like a copywriter…
who can use ai to put out more copy than humanly possible, at a much higher quality.
more on that in another email.