The minimum viable funnel for a new business fits on one page

4 days ago
3 min read

Updated: 2 days ago

Introduction

A new business has neither the history to build a model from nor the time to maintain one. Advice written for established firms assumes twelve months of conversion data, a customer base to segment and somebody to own the reporting, and none of that exists in the first year.

What does exist is the opportunity to start recording properly from day one, which the same business will wish it had done when it reaches year three and wants to know what worked. The minimum version is three stages, one notebook and one question asked of every enquirer, and it takes about ten minutes a week.

1. The minimum viable funnel for a new business is three stages

Enough to be useful, small enough to maintain.

Contacted you, received a price, bought. Every business can populate these from day one without any system, and they are sufficient to show where you are losing people.

2. Record the source of every single enquiry

The most valuable field, and the one most often skipped.

Ask how they found you and write it down verbatim. In year one this is your only guide to which of your efforts is producing anything, and it cannot be reconstructed later.

3. Write down the ones that did not buy

Half the data.

Name, what they wanted, what you quoted, and what they said or did not say. Twenty of these read together after three months will teach you more about your market than any research you could buy.

4. Use a notebook or a spreadsheet

Deliberately low technology.

A system chosen in month one will be wrong, because you do not yet know what you need. A spreadsheet imposes nothing and can be migrated later once your process has stabilised.

5. Do not expect meaningful rates for months

Setting expectations.

Fifteen enquiries produce a conversion rate that swings wildly on one deal. Collect for a quarter before drawing conclusions, and treat early numbers as description rather than measurement.

6. Watch the absolute numbers first

What is actionable early.

How many enquiries this week, how many quotes, how many orders. In a new business these counts and their direction are more useful than any ratio derived from them.

7. Time your response from the beginning

The habit worth forming early.

New businesses usually respond fast because they have capacity, then slow down as they get busy, without noticing the change. Recording it from the start makes the deterioration visible when it happens.

8. Ask every customer why they chose you

Free research at exactly the right moment.

The answer in the first year tells you what your actual proposition is, which is frequently not the one you wrote down before starting. This shapes everything you say afterwards.

9. Review it monthly for fifteen minutes

The whole of the maintenance.

Where did enquiries come from, where did they stop, what changed since last month. Three questions, a quarter of an hour, and it is more funnel management than most established businesses do.

Be careful about scaling the system before the process is stable. A new business changes what it sells and who it sells to several times in the first two years, and a rigid structure built early has to be dismantled before it can be replaced.

Conclusion

Start with three stages and a spreadsheet, because you have no history and no spare time.

Record the source of every enquiry in the enquirer's own words, keep the ones who did not buy as well as those who did, resist choosing a system before you know what you need, expect several months before any rate means anything, watch absolute counts and their direction in the meantime, time your responses from the beginning so later slippage is visible, ask every customer why they chose you, and review the whole thing for fifteen minutes a month.