Gia Laudi

Co-founder at Forget The Funnel

Co-founder of Forget The Funnel, a consultancy that works hands-on with B2B SaaS companies to unlock growth through customer-led strategies, formerly head of marketing at Unbounce, known for doubling and tripling conversion rates by replacing funnel thinking with customer journey mapping.

The Growth Architect The Growth Scientist

Dimension Profile

Strategic Vision 50%

Execution & Craft 45%

Data & Experimentation 55%

Growth & Distribution 80%

Team & Leadership 30%

User Empathy & Research 90%

Key Themes

customer-led growth strategy replacing funnels with customer journeys jobs-to-be-done for positioning messaging and positioning optimization product onboarding as growth lever post-acquisition retention focus

Episode Summary

Gia Laudi shares the exact process she uses at Forget The Funnel to help B2B SaaS companies unlock growth by replacing traditional funnel thinking with customer-led strategies rooted in jobs-to-be-done research. She walks through how better messaging and positioning regularly doubles or triples conversion rates, why product onboarding is the most overlooked growth lever, and how an Airbnb customer journey map she saw in 2013 transformed her entire approach to growth strategy.

Leadership Principles

→ Funnels put businesses at the center instead of customers — recurring revenue businesses cannot think of growth as ending at acquisition
→ Better positioning and messaging that speaks to the customer's context before they discover you is almost always the biggest growth unlock
→ Product onboarding is no man's land between marketing and product — and that's exactly where the biggest conversion opportunities hide

Notable Quotes

"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."
— On why traditional funnel thinking fails SaaS companies

"We shortened the trial from 30 days to seven. The conversion on the website went up with this new messaging by 89%. But the trial-to-paid conversion rate increased 40%, and we didn't even touch it."
— On how better positioning attracts more qualified customers who convert naturally

"It was a customer journey that was focused on the customer. The emotional journey was part of it. The role that Airbnb played as a direct touchpoint and also indirect, what was going on in the person's life outside of Airbnb."
— On the Airbnb customer journey map that transformed her approach to growth

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