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The knowledge funnel

From Roger Martin's The Design of Business . With a little reflection the funnel is pretty trivial. But I do think it’s a useful way to think about things. At what stage is your business? Still tackling a mystery like Xerox Parc, or getting it down to heuristics like Zynga, or refining out an algorithm like McDonalds.

Published 4 Sep 2013

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The business flywheel

Manager time, maker time

Umbrella and Funnel management style example explained: Todd Jackson's shit umbrella or shit funnel metaphor shown with on the left, the effective manager uses an umbrella to shield their team from a downpour of tasks and requests coming from all directions. This sheltered team are focussed and productive and celebrate their achievements. On the right, in place of the umbrella, the less effective manager uses a funnel as a catch-all, showering their team with actions, sending the team members running scared.

Umbrellas and funnels

Perhaps, like me, you’re used to thinking about bringing customers onboard as a funnel. It’s a very natural metaphor for thinking about customer acquisition. For example, you market to 10,000 people, 500 people visit your website, 50 of them put something in the basket and 10 of them buy. If you draw it out it looks like a funnel. And the next time you market you start fresh with a new 10,000. But the real world isn’t like that. Delivering a good service to your customers helps the next customers come in. Hence the flywheel model. A flywheel is typically a big heavy wheel that stores and releases energy from an engine or vehicle. The flywheel metaphor is about happy customers driving your growth. And when you think about your business this way it can cause you to make different decisions. Having more customers is like a bigger, heavier flywheel containing more energy. Happy customers speed you up, unhappy customers slow you down. Making it easier for customers to try your product reduces friction, as does making it easier for for customers to talk about and share your product. Get your flywheel big, heavy and spinning like crazy and your business is doing well. The flywheel model is from Brian Halligan at Hubspot. I’ve thought about customer funnels for literally years and I wish I’d known about the flywheel long ago. Check out Hubspot’s flywheel intro for more.…Perhaps, like me, you’re used to thinking about bringing customers onboard as a funnel. It’s a very natural metaphor for thinking about customer acquisition. For example, you market to 10,000 people, 500 people visit your website, 50 of them put something in the basket and 10 of them buy. If you draw it out it looks like a funnel. And the next time you market you start fresh with a new 10,000. But the real world isn’t like that. Delivering a good service to your customers helps the next customers come in. Hence the flywheel model. A flywheel is typically a big heavy wheel that stores and releases energy from an engine or vehicle. The flywheel metaphor is about happy customers driving your growth. And when you think about your business this way it can cause you to make different decisions. Having more customers is like a bigger, heavier flywheel containing more energy. Happy customers speed you up, unhappy customers slow you down. Making it easier for customers to try your product reduces friction, as does making it easier for for customers to talk about and share your product. Get your flywheel big, heavy and spinning like crazy and your business is doing well. The flywheel model is from Brian Halligan at Hubspot. I’ve thought about customer funnels for literally years and I wish I’d known about the flywheel long ago. Check out Hubspot’s flywheel intro for more.

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