Lesson 2 of 3 · The funnel page

A page is a hobby. A funnel is a business.

Anyone can build a page — that's the easy half now. The half that makes it a business is tiny and unglamorous: one promise, one form, one follow-up. This lesson builds all three.

1 · The four moving parts

A funnel isn't a stack of software. It's four decisions, and only one of them involves code.

2 · Anatomy of a page that converts

The page you're reading this on follows the same skeleton as the training's own landing page. Top to bottom:

3 · The form is the business

Here's the actual form on this training. One field, a hidden timestamp, a hidden honeypot to catch bots. It posts to a tiny service that stores the lead and sends you to the thank-you page:

<form action="/api/lead" method="post">
  <input type="email" name="email" placeholder="you@email.com" required>
  <input type="hidden" name="source" value="my-landing-page">
  <input type="hidden" name="ts" value="">                <!-- filled on load: bots submit in 0s -->
  <input class="hp" type="text" name="hp" tabindex="-1">  <!-- honeypot: humans never see it -->
  <button type="submit">Get the free training →</button>
</form>

And the service behind it is smaller than this lesson. It receives the post, checks the honeypot and the timing, saves the lead, and redirects to the thank-you page:

def do_POST(self):
    form = parse_form(self.rfile)
    if form.get("hp"):            return self.redirect("/free/start/")   # bot
    if too_fast(form.get("ts")):  return self.redirect("/free/start/")   # bot
    if not EMAIL_RE.match(form["email"]): return self.fail("bad email")
    db().execute("INSERT INTO leads (ts,email,source,ip) VALUES (?,?,?,?)", ...)
    self.redirect("/free/start/")   # the thank-you page does the selling

4 · Build it with OpenCode

Now the actual skill. OpenCode works best when you describe outcomes and constraints, check what it did, and steer. Not "write HTML" — tell it the job.

Build a single-page landing page that converts visitors into email signups for
[OFFER] aimed at [AUDIENCE].

Above the fold: a benefit headline naming the outcome, a one-line subhead, and an
email opt-in form (single field) posting to your capture endpoint with hidden fields
source=[page-name] and ts.
Then: problem/agitation, 3 benefit blocks, what-you-get in 3 steps, who-it's-for
and who-it's-not, an FAQ, one guarantee line, one final CTA.
No navigation. Dark modern design, inline CSS, one accent color, mobile-first,
single index.html file. Everything points at one action: capture the email.

The loop that makes this a skill: describe the outcome → read the diff it shows you → say what's wrong in plain English → repeat until the page is right. Three rounds beats one perfect prompt. When it breaks something, say "undo that, keep everything else" — you are the editor-in-chief, it's the fastest typist you've ever had.

5 · What this lesson can't do yet

Honesty is part of the system. A funnel page with no traffic and no offer is a beautiful machine with no fuel and no engine:

• No traffic yet. Lesson 3 ships the page live; the traffic plan (search, AI answers, video, community) is what the cohort is built around.
• No offer yet. A funnel needs something on the other side of the form — an offer, a product, a service. That's the business half, and it's the most valuable thing you'll design.
• No follow-up yet. The thank-you page and the email sequence after it are where trust compounds. You'll see the whole sequence in the kit.

6 · Your build challenge