Conversion Funnel: How to Think Like a Product Manager (Learnings from Runroom LAB with Jesica Wulf) · LAB

In a practical, direct, and unfiltered session (she didn't even use slides!), Jesica showed us that data analysis doesn't have to be overwhelming. On the contrary, she taught us to use the conversion funnel as the fundamental tool to understand user behavior and make impactful decisions.

Below, we break down the major concepts, best quotes, and key recommendations from this Runroom LAB.

1. The Funnel is like a factory: It's all about "performance"

To demystify the digital conversion funnel, Jesica drew on her background as an industrial engineer and proposed a brilliant analogy: a factory.

"Imagine basically a factory. I have raw material and end up with a final product... there's product that goes to the next machine and product that gets lost."

In the digital world, each screen or step a user takes (Home > Search > Payment > Confirmation) is a "machine." Not all users who enter will come out the other side; there will always be some loss or "waste." The goal is to understand how good our website is at retaining those users, which in engineering is called performance: "The performance of the machine... is everything that comes out divided by everything that goes in".

2. The revelation: "Everything in life is a conversion funnel"

One of the most fun and revealing moments of the session was when Jesica took the concept of conversion out of the purely technological environment and brought it into everyday life.

"Life is a conversion funnel, it's worth tattooing on a t-shirt."

Jesica explained that almost any process with a final goal can be measured and optimized as a funnel:

• Job hunting: Resumes sent are the input, they move to the HR interview, then the technical one, and finally there's hiring. If you never pass the first interview, your "drop" is in the CV and that's where you need to optimize.
• Organizing events: If you send invitations to 250 people but only 5 attend, you need to analyze where they were lost (didn't open the email?, couldn't find the door?).
• Dating apps: In apps like Bumble, the swipes are the funnel's entry, moving to chat is the next step, and having a date is the final conversion.

3. The golden rule of the Product Manager: "It depends"

When analyzing data, the automatic reaction is often to identify the step where most users drop off (for example, the payment page) and rush to redesign it. However, Jesica warns that this isn't always the right move.

"There's a very important word... which is the foundation of every product manager called 'depends'. The answer to all the questions you'll ask me from now on will be it depends."

Sometimes, the payment page has already been redesigned 15 times and getting 1% more users to buy requires a massive technical effort. Instead, "perhaps with a third of that effort I can bring 30 more users" by optimizing a previous stage, like search results. The daily job of the PM is to decide where it's worth putting the effort.

4. The funnel gives you the Where, but you must find the Why

If there's one fundamental technical lesson in this LAB, it's understanding the true purpose of analyzing conversion metrics. Numbers don't magically tell you what's wrong with the product.

"None of this gives me conclusions or solutions, it gives me hypotheses... I don't know if what happened is that people didn't move from results because they didn't click or because they didn't like the color... The role of product in general is to find hypotheses and look for problems."

💡 Jesica Wulf's 4 Key Recommendations

To move from theory to practice, Jesica shared invaluable advice for tackling data analysis without going crazy:

1. Define your goal before measuring: A funnel is useless if you don't know what you want to achieve. "Every process has a goal and based on my goal I will do that measurement", she emphasizes.
2. Simplify before you "double-click": It's easy to get overwhelmed with data. If your company operates in dozens of countries, don't analyze the funnel of each one separately at first. "You need to create general models that allow you to simplify and then, once you identify the problems, you double-click and open up". First find the big drop, then investigate which segment (for example, users from Asia) is causing it.
3. Don't underestimate the technical "Bug": Before assuming the user didn't understand the design or didn't like the button color, check for technical errors with the development team. "Before assuming the user didn't get it, ask if there's a bug... it often happens that the problem was actually that the tracking was poorly implemented".
4. Validate your hypotheses: Once the funnel shows you where users drop off, validate your theories using session recordings, heatmaps, talking directly with affected users (User Research), or conducting A/B testing.Conclusion: The true work of ProductTo close the session, Jesica left us with a brilliant reflection on the fundamental role of those of us working to create digital experiences. Speaking about the need to research and validate ideas before blindly programming solutions, she concluded:

"The entire job of the product manager is to reduce risk and uncertainty to make better decisions that generate impactful solutions. I think I've just summarized the 15 product books of a lifetime, write it down."

From Runroom, we want to greatly thank Jesica Wulf for sharing her experience, humor, and practical vision with us. We hope that from today, you all start seeing your projects (and your life) through the lens of the conversion funnel!

"Todo el trabajo del product manager es bajar el riesgo y la incertidumbre para poder tomar mejores decisiones que generen soluciones con impacto. Acabo de resumir creo que los 15 libros de producto de toda la vida, anótenlo."

Desde Runroom, queremos agradecer enormemente a Jesica Wulf por compartir su experiencia, su humor y su visión práctica con nosotros. ¡Esperamos que a partir de hoy, todos empecéis a ver vuestros proyectos (y vuestra vida) a través de las gafas del funnel de conversión!