External Copy Style Guide
Principles for writing on behalf of Eddy
This guide is a shared reference for anyone writing on behalf of Eddy — investment materials, landing pages, blog posts, product announcements, or anything else that faces outward. It is not a formatting manual. It is a set of principles about how we want to sound, and more importantly, how we want to think about what we're saying.
1. Start with the concrete
Default to describing what something is or does before reaching for what it means. A reader who can picture the thing will follow you anywhere. A reader who can't will lose trust in your abstractions, no matter how elegant they are.
Weak: "Eddy enables organisations to operationalise their institutional knowledge."
Stronger: "Eddy lets teams lay out each step of a process on a visual canvas — what needs to happen, in what order, and who is responsible."
The first version sounds impressive but leaves the reader with nothing to hold. The second gives them a picture. Once they have the picture, you can build on it.
2. Earn your abstractions
Abstractions in writing work the same way they do in code: they must be earned. A good abstraction compresses real complexity into a term that carries its weight. A bad abstraction papers over vagueness and makes the writer feel clever while leaving the reader behind.
Before introducing an abstract concept or a branded term, ask: have I shown the reader enough concrete reality that this abstraction now saves them effort? If the answer is no, the abstraction is premature. At best it will feel exclusionary — insider language that signals "this isn't for you." At worst it will seem lazy or deceitful, as if you're dressing up something thin.
Example — a term that earns its place: "Process Intelligence" works because by the time a reader encounters it, they've already seen the concrete ingredients: timestamps on each step, bottleneck identification, handoff durations. The term compresses all of that into two words the reader can carry forward.
Example — a term that doesn't: "Structural Memory" restates what the surrounding sentences already say in plain language (data is captured as a byproduct of the work). It doesn't compress; it decorates. The reader gains nothing from the term that they didn't already have from the paragraph.
The test: would someone use this term naturally in conversation after reading it once? If yes, keep it. If it only works on the page, cut it.
3. Be simple and transparent by default
Plain language is not unsophisticated language. It is language that respects the reader's time and attention. For most of what we write, clarity is the goal — not flair, not persuasion, not cleverness.
Reserve rhetorical flourishes for moments that genuinely deserve emphasis. A well-placed image or an unexpected sentence lands harder when the surrounding prose is clean and direct. If everything is heightened, nothing is.
Think of a piece of writing like a dish. Key, quality ingredients should be given the stage to shine. Dressing matters, but overdressing smothers. Too many competing flavours become noise.
Overdressed: "Eddy transforms the ephemeral choreography of human collaboration into a persistent, structured symphony of operational clarity."
Clean: "Eddy turns the way your team already works into something you can see, run, and improve."
4. Don't perform
People know when they are being sold to. They know when they are being pandered to. They can feel the difference between a company that believes what it's saying and one that is optimising for impressiveness.
Write honestly. If a feature is simple, describe it simply. If something is hard or incomplete, don't hide it behind grand language. Confidence comes from saying true things clearly, not from inflating ordinary things into extraordinary-sounding claims.
This doesn't mean being self-deprecating or understating what Eddy does. It means trusting that what Eddy actually does is compelling enough when described plainly — because it is.
5. Write as yourselves
Even in formal or institutional contexts, the voice behind the writing matters. Eddy was built by specific people with a specific perspective on how work should be organised. That perspective, history, and set of values should come through.
This doesn't mean every piece of copy needs to be confessional or personal. It means: don't write in a voice that could belong to any company. If you wouldn't say it in a room with someone you respect, don't write it on a page. The things that make Eddy's point of view distinctive — the game engine mental model, the belief that process should serve people rather than surveil them, the insistence on clean data as a first-class outcome — are worth letting through.
Generic copy is forgettable. A clear point of view is not.
6. Respect the reader
Jargon, when unnecessary, is exclusionary. It signals an in-group and pushes everyone else out. For external copy, the reader is almost never a member of our in-group — they are someone we are inviting in. The language should feel like an open door, not a membership test.
This applies to industry jargon as much as to our own terminology. Terms like "orchestration layer," "data asset," or "operational efficiency" can be useful shorthand among peers, but in investor materials or product pages, they often land as filler. If a simpler word does the same job, use the simpler word.
Jargon-heavy: "Eddy provides a low-code orchestration layer for cross-functional process automation with built-in compliance guardrails."
Accessible: "Eddy helps teams design processes that run consistently, collect clean data, and keep everyone accountable — without writing code."
7. When naming things, be deliberate
There are moments where defining or redefining a term is the right move. A good branded term gives people a handle for an idea they couldn't easily name before. It becomes part of how they think and talk about the problem, not just how they talk about your product.
Do this sparingly. Every new term you introduce is a small cost to the reader — they have to learn it, remember it, and decide whether it's worth carrying. If you name too many things, none of them stick.
A rough test for whether a branded term earns its place:
- Does it name something the reader can't easily name themselves?
- Does it compress a paragraph of explanation into a phrase?
- Would someone use it unprompted after hearing it once?
- Does it still sound right six months from now, or does it sound like a pitch?
If a term passes all four, use it with confidence. If it passes one or two, consider whether the plain-language version is actually better. If it passes none, it's jargon.
8. Prefer showing to telling
"We believe in simplicity" is telling. Showing is writing simply and letting the reader notice. "Our platform is powerful" is telling. Showing is describing what it does and letting the reader conclude that it's powerful.
This is the hardest principle to follow consistently, because telling is faster and easier. But readers form stronger impressions from what they observe than from what they're instructed to believe. Wherever possible, demonstrate the quality rather than asserting it.
Telling: "Eddy's innovative approach to data capture ensures best-in-class data quality."
Showing: "Every piece of information entered during a session is saved to a structured table. Each completed session produces one clean row. Each form field maps to a column. There is no re-keying and no cleanup needed."
The second version never claims quality. The reader infers it.