💡 From Funnels to Loops: Building Products People Love in the Age of AI

Gayathri Geetha
Oct 8
3 min read

Funnels are out.

Loops are in.

In the AI era, products don’t grow linearly - they grow organically, through the people who love and share them.

At ProductCon San Francisco, two speakers Elena (Head of Growth at Lovable) and Rob Seaman (CPO at Slack), shared frameworks that beautifully capture this shift.

Here are six takeaways that stuck with me 👇

🔁 1. Think in Loops, Not Funnels

Dropbox didn’t grow because of ads. It grew because users earned value by sharing value — giving friends extra storage in exchange for their own.

That viral loop turned customers into a distribution engine.

Growth loops compound: ➡️ Every new user fuels the next. ➡️ Every action feeds the next wave of growth.

For PMs: Design systems where value creation naturally leads to value sharing. Ask: “Can this action reinvest back into adoption?”

⚡ 2. Make the First Two Minutes Count

Elena reminded us: the first two minutes decide whether a user stays or churns. It’s the window where activation, emotion, and brand collide.

At the same time, product-led growth (PLG) is blurring boundaries - PMs, designers, marketers, and data teams now co-own growth and storytelling.

For PMs:

Design onboarding around “aha” moments, not tutorials.
Measure time-to-delight, not just time-to-value.
Empower every function to shape those first two minutes.

🔍 3. Distribution Is Changing

SEO and SEM are losing steam. Users now discover products through LLMs, AI assistants, and in-product recommendations, not just search results.

Ecosystems and partnerships are the new growth levers. When your product integrates where your users already work — Slack apps, OpenAI’s store, API-first platforms — you grow through shared trust networks.

For PMs: Distribution isn’t about ranking anymore. Be discoverable by AI. Be present in ecosystems. That’s how products grow in 2025.

🧱 4. Build a Data Moat

In the AI era, defensibility = data + context + integration depth.

A strong data moat means:

Capturing unique signals competitors can’t.
Making data interoperable across products.
Strengthening privacy and learning loops at scale.

Example: Salesforce continues to deepen its moat - from CRM context to analytics to its acquisition of Informatica for data unification and governance.

For PMs: Data is both distribution and defensibility. Lose user context, lose long-term differentiation.

💜 5. Brand Is a Product Function

Both Elena and Rob emphasized: brand lives inside the product.

At Lovable, every launch starts with one question: “Is this lovable?” At Slack, that same spirit shows up in its product principles:

Principle	What It Means for PMs
Don’t make me think	Simplicity is empathy — every hesitation is a brand crack.
Be a great host	Every touchpoint should feel welcoming.
Prototype the path	Learn fast; iterate on delight.
Exceed expectations	Create magic moments.
Take bold bets	Reimagine familiar surfaces with intelligence and trust.

For PMs: Brand isn’t marketing - it's product behavior. Before shipping, ask: “Does this feel true to our brand promise?”

🌐 6. Founders and Creators = The New Distribution

Distribution is shifting from channels to people. - Founders building in public. - Creators reviewing and remixing products.- Authentic stories outperform ads.

For PMs: