Curiosity-gap hooks for business videos

A curiosity gap asks something the viewer genuinely cannot answer and would like to. The failure mode is a question they can answer, or do not care about — so each of these has a number or a specific claim inside it.

1. What do the 3 profitable businesses on my street all do that the 9 empty ones do not?

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   Why it works. A question with a setting. The ratio implies the answer is real and observed rather than theorised.

2. Why does a business with 200 followers outsell one with 90,000, over and over?

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   Why it works. The gap between the two numbers is the gap the viewer wants closed. 'Over and over' rules out luck as the answer.

3. What is the 1 question a customer asks right before they decide not to buy?

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   Why it works. Promises a single, usable thing and locates it at the exact moment the viewer already worries about.

4. Which 2 numbers should you be able to say out loud about your business without looking?

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   Why it works. Turns a question into a small test the viewer takes in their head, and most will fail it, which is why they stay.

5. Why do most businesses fail in year 3 and not year 1, when year 1 is the hard one?

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   Why it works. Contains its own objection. A question that argues with itself is much harder to scroll past than one that does not.

6. What happens to your pricing the moment you stop being the cheapest in a 5 mile radius?

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   Why it works. A consequence question rather than a definition question, and the radius makes it a local, concrete decision.

7. Why did my worst product outsell my best one by 6 to 1 for an entire quarter?

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   Why it works. First-person and counter-intuitive. The ratio makes it a puzzle with a real answer instead of a rhetorical flourish.

8. What is the 1 thing every business that survived 2020 had in common, and it is not cash?

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   Why it works. Pre-empts the obvious answer, which forces the viewer to admit they do not know and stay for the real one.

9. Which part of your business would stop tomorrow if you lost your phone for 3 days?

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   Why it works. A question the viewer starts answering immediately, and the answer is usually uncomfortable enough to hold them.

10. Why does raising prices by 10 pounds lose you the customers you actually want to lose?

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    Why it works. Frames a feared outcome as a desired one, which makes the viewer need the reasoning to resolve the contradiction.