Find the Friction First: Insights to Fix Your Funnel
What’s Really Breaking Your Funnel: Start with the Friction
Why Users Drop Off — And What You Might Be Missing
You’ve got traffic. You’ve got signups. But conversions? Flat.
You’re not alone — and you’re not crazy for wondering why people show up but never stick around to pay. Chances are, you’re using the wrong tools to find the right answers.
Most teams go straight to surface-level tweaks: button colors, page layouts, onboarding flows. But if you don’t know who you’re really building for — and what’s actually blocking them — no amount of optimization will move the needle, you will spend $ on resources and your precious time.
The fix? Start with your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP).
ICP vs. Marketing Persona: Know the Difference or Burn Time
Here’s a common trap: teams confuse ICP with marketing personas — and treat them like they’re the same.
They’re not, buddy.
Your ICP is strategic. It defines the best-fit user or company that’s most likely to succeed with your product and drive revenue. It’s rooted in data: firmographics, behaviors, use cases, LTV.
A persona is tactical. It’s a fictional character that helps shape messaging, content, and campaigns — after the ICP is defined. It focuses on motivations, pain points, and language.
If you’re getting weak conversion, my practice shows that it’s often because:
You’re targeting the wrong ICP
Or using persona-level messaging without ICP-level clarity. Boom!
Without alignment between the two, you're building for everyone — and converting no one. As a product builder, you will be tempted to build for everyone, but your user-centric and business instincts should give you the hint to not to and see a growth of conversions.
The Growth Expert Workflow: From Data to Direction
A growth expert doesn’t rely on guesswork. They focus the strategy around real users — the ones who actually convert, retain, and grow. Yes, you can have a solid heuristics expertise which comes with years of experience, but data and real user insights will take you to the next steps.
Here’s how I usually approach conversion rate optimization projects for digital products and SAAS:
Start with structured feedback: Use in-product surveys (Typeform, Hotjar forms), review NPS data, cancellation reasons, support tickets, and activation logs, user reviews in app store or Capterra.
Segment the feedback by user type: job title, use case, plan tier, or engagement behavior.
Run AI-assisted analysis: Tools ChatGPT can cluster pain points, flag recurring themes, and surface what real users care about. For example, I cleaned data from Shopify survey (which we used to send for a client post-purchase to understand price sensitivity, age, type of products), anonymyzed it and shared with a good prompt in Chatgpt to get me the biggest themes. This saved me hours of work and boosted productivity as I ended up with solid groups for my ICP (ecommerce, genZ, TikTok and Instagram traffic primarily usually buys more than 1 product.
Define (or refine) the ICP based on patterns in behavior and sentiment.
Realign personas and messaging to match the ICP’s reality. Messaging is extremely important for SAAS trials and digital products like apps. If we don´t know who we serve how, which the main motivators are and what unlocks product aha moments, we just try to see what sticks and this doesn´t drive continuous growth.
This isn’t just qualitative research — it’s a loop of insight that drives smarter decisions across product, marketing for conversions, and UX.
Real Example: When Everyone's the Customer, No One Converts
A B2B SaaS company came to me with a great product and healthy trial signups (ProseWrite). But conversions? A painful 1.2%. Why? Yes, the website needs a massive improvement, but it turned out that they were not sure about their ICP either. It could be a writer for a novel, journalist, any type of writing, very, very generic.
The homepage tried to appeal to all types of leads all at once — and spoke clearly to none.
When asked who their ICP was, the response was, “We’re not really sure yet. We’re trying to serve all of them.”
That uncertainty was killing their funnel. My 1:1s with them helped them clear up the ICP first (writers who look for the best dictation and writing experience, powered by efficiency and AI).
Step 1. Stop Optimizing, Start Listening
We paused all CRO work and focused on user feedback and setting up the ground for user behavior patterns and feedback.
We cleaned up the ICP and I helped them draft survey. We launched an in-app survey, and reviewed churn notes. We categorized open-text feedback in Chatgpt in hours — not weeks.
Here’s what surfaced:
Journalists misunderstood the product and bounced quickly.
Writers? They loved the product and stuck around.
That was the signal. The ICP wasn’t a guess anymore — it was obvious. Part of the optimization comes from listening and observation before we do anything.
Step 2. Rebuild the Journey for the Right People
With clarity on who the product was really for, we rebuilt the user journey around that ICP.
Homepage messaging was rewritten for our ICP — not everyone.
Onboarding highlighted powerful workflows, not generic features.
Tooltips, product tours, and lifecycle emails were tailored to the relevant use cases.
Friction was removed: simplified nav, clear CTAs, no fluff.
It wasn’t a cosmetic refresh. It was a strategic reframe — from product-first to customer-first.
Step 3. Results That Actually Moved the Needle
Within 60 days of aligning to the right ICP:
Trial-to-paid conversion jumped from 1.2% → 3.8%
Time-to-value dropped 35%
Most importantly, the team knew exactly who they were building for — and it showed. Now they have a solid audit to rework the user journey on the website for the right ICP.
Why ChatGPT Belongs in Your ICP Toolkit
ChatGPT isn’t just a copywriter. It’s a research assistant, data analyst, and customer whisperer — if you use it right.
Here’s how a growth expert can use ChatGPT to define or refine an ICP:
Step-by-Step Workflow
1. Collect Raw Feedback
Pull survey results, churn notes, live chat logs, and onboarding feedback.
2. Segment by User Type
Group feedback by persona, role, industry, plan tier, or engagement level. Clean up your file to make it clearly usable.
3. Prompt for Theme Analysis
Example prompt:
"Act as user qualitative analyst. Analyze this feedback. What problems are users trying to solve? What outcomes do they want? Group them into themes and assign % to each."
Your prompt should clearly define the role, some examples. Don´t hesitate to refine it based on your output and add as much context as possible.
4. Ask ChatGPT to Draft ICPs
Prompt:
"Create an Ideal Customer Profile for the most engaged segment. Include firmographics, pain points, goals, and product needs."
5. Dig Deeper With Follow-Ups
Ask:
“What language would convert this group on a homepage considering the USP of the product is XYZ?”
“What objections might this segment have before buying?”
“What features are irrelevant to this ICP?”
6. Compare Segments to Prioritize
Have ChatGPT evaluate segments based on LTV, acquisition cost, or retention indicators.
Why This Matters
When your ICP is vague, your funnel leaks.
When your ICP is clear — based on real feedback and AI-powered analysis — your messaging sharpens, onboarding aligns, first user experience is clearly mapped, optimized and users feel like your product was built for them.
Because now, it is. A product built for the right audience makes conversions grow naturally.
Some stats at glance:
The Impact of a Well-Defined ICP on SaaS Performance
If you don´t trust my expertise with 500+ SAAS brands and digital products, then look at these stats ;)
36% Higher Conversion Rates: Companies with a clearly defined ICP experience conversion rates that are 36% higher than those without one. Source:CXL
33% Increase in Conversion Rates: Targeting efforts centered around a well-defined ICP can lead to a 33% boost in overall conversion rates.
Risks of Operating Without a Clear ICP
Wasted Resources: Companies lacking a defined ICP often cast a wide net, leading to wasted resources, higher acquisition costs, and lower conversion rates. Omnius
High Churn Rates: Without an ICP, businesses risk attracting customers who are not a good fit, resulting in higher churn rates and unstable revenue streams. ChartMogul
Misaligned Marketing Efforts: A poorly-defined ICP can cause misalignment between sales and marketing teams, leading to ineffective campaigns and missed opportunities. Andreessen Horowitz
Your Funnel Isn’t Broken. Your Focus Is.
Most SaaS teams don’t need more traffic. Or more experiments. They need sharper focus and strategy around their ICP. This is the first step before you even think about conversion rate optimization or PLG.
You can’t optimize what you haven’t defined. And you can’t define it without listening to your users — deeply and often.
With tools like ChatGPT and a clear feedback loop, you don’t need months of research or a giant data team. You need the right workflow, and the will to act on what your customers are already telling you.
Let’s Fix the Real Problem
If you’re tired of chasing tactics that don’t convert, let’s find the real friction.
I help B2B SaaS and product-led teams for digital products:
→ Discover their best-fit customers
→ Decode feedback
→ Redesign messaging and onboarding to convert better, faster
→ Rework their onboarding and first user experience for best results
Let’s cut the noise, find the signal, and turn more signups into paying customers.