Forget the Funnel

Traditional funnels put businesses at the center—put customers at the center instead

Gia Laudi
Customer-led growth | Georgiana Laudi (Forget The Funnel)

Forget the Funnel

"The problem with funnels and pirate metrics and the favorites that I love to pick on are MQLs and SQLs is that nobody knows what those mean. It puts every customer in the same sort of buckets. It assumes that all customers and all products are the same. It puts businesses at the center of the business versus putting customers at the center." - Gia Laudi

What It Is

"Forget the Funnel" is a counter-framework to traditional marketing and growth metrics that argues funnel-based thinking fundamentally misleads teams. Rather than measuring your business through the lens of how you extract value (funnels, pirate metrics, MQLs/SQLs), measure through the lens of how customers receive value.

The core critique is that funnel thinking:

  • Puts business at the center instead of customers
  • Measures business value (conversions, MQLs) instead of customer value (outcomes achieved)
  • Assumes homogeneity — all customers get the same treatment
  • Ends at acquisition — ignoring retention, expansion, and advocacy
  • Deletes the problem stage — ignoring what customers experienced before they found you
  • Feels gross — the language of "pushing through a funnel" reflects a fundamentally extractive mindset

For SaaS companies with recurring revenue, ending your growth model at acquisition is particularly damaging—most of your revenue comes from keeping and expanding customers, not just acquiring them.

How It Works

Instead of mapping a funnel (Awareness → Interest → Decision → Action), map a customer journey through value milestones:

Traditional Funnel (What to Forget):

TOFU → MOFU → BOFU → Customer
  • Focuses on your conversion steps
  • Measures business outcomes (visits, leads, trials, purchases)
  • Ends at acquisition
  • Treats all customers identically

Customer Journey (What to Use Instead):

Struggle → Evaluation → Growth
(Problem → Interest → First Value → Value Realization → Continued Value → Expansion)
  • Focuses on customer value moments
  • Measures customer outcomes (problem solved, outcome achieved)
  • Continues through retention and expansion
  • Differentiates by customer job

How to Apply It

  1. Stop using MQLs and SQLs as primary metrics — They're internal definitions that nobody agrees on and don't measure customer value

  2. Replace funnel stages with value milestones:

    • Problem: Customer experiencing the struggle your product solves
    • Interest: Customer actively seeking a solution
    • First Value: Customer experiences your product's core value for the first time
    • Value Realization: Customer achieves their desired outcome
    • Continued Value: Customer builds ongoing habit/frequency
    • Value Growth: Customer expands usage or becomes an advocate

  3. Define metrics around customer outcomes, not your conversions:

    • Instead of "trial conversion rate," measure "% who reached first value milestone"
    • Instead of "MQL to SQL," measure "% who solved their core job"

  4. Include the world before you:

    • Map what customers were doing before they found you
    • Understand their trigger moments and influences
    • Use this context in your messaging

  5. Design experiences that deliver value, not that push through a funnel:

    • Proactive: Help customers reach the next value moment
    • Reactive: Catch and re-engage when they fall off

When to Use It

  • When teams are debating what MQL or SQL means
  • When marketing and product teams have disconnected metrics
  • When growth efforts focus on acquisition without retention
  • When customer experience feels "pushy" or extractive
  • When you need shared language across marketing, product, and CS
  • When post-acquisition optimization is an afterthought

Source

  • Guest: Gia Laudi (Georgiana Laudi)
  • Episode: "Customer-led growth | Georgiana Laudi (Forget The Funnel)"
  • Key Discussion: (00:00:00, 00:07:04) - Why funnels are problematic
  • YouTube: Watch on YouTube

Related Frameworks

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