What is Scatter-plot funnel?

People enter awareness, interest, consideration, and decision at any stage, in any order, from anywhere; the neat staircase funnel does not describe how attention actually moves.

Why does Scatter-plot funnel matter to a founder?

Founders still build GTM as a staircase: ads at the top, a form in the middle, a sales call at the bottom. Attention is sliced across thousands of niches, so a buyer can meet you first in a subreddit, a podcast from last year, a comment on someone else's post, or a sports thing you sponsored because that is where they spend time. If only the top of the funnel is built, they bounce. The job is to be present wherever they land, with the whole system standing.

What are the common mistakes with Scatter-plot funnel?

Building only awareness and calling it GTM. Assuming the buyer will arrive at the website in order and fill in a form. Treating every platform as a duplicate of LinkedIn in front of the same people. Skipping the places they already are because those places are not 'on brand' for the category.

Concepts

Scatter-plot funnel

On this page

Overview
Why it matters
From the room
Where founders get it wrong
Numbers from the room
Go deeper

CONCEPTLAST REVIEWED 2026-09SOURCED FROM 1 SESSION, SEP 2026

The classic funnel still names the jobs — awareness, interest, consideration, decision. It no longer names the path. The GTM session called what replaced it a scatter plot: people enter at any stage, in any order, from anywhere, because attention is fragmented across thousands of niches.

Why it matters

A staircase you do not control is not a plan.

From the room

What’s happening today, though, is that it is a scatter plot. So trying to follow that neat funnel isn’t really going to work because people’s attention is becoming so fragmented across thousands of different niches.

GTM strategist, $80M quarters and $500/month budgetssession, Sep 2026

Her conference picture of the old funnel still helps as a translation: waving is awareness, the shirt they recognize is interest, the conversation is consideration, exchanging numbers is the decision. What dropped out is the gatekeeper. You show up organically in the slices where they already live — including a sports context that has nothing to do with your category — and proximity reads as legitimacy. “They happen to be at this. Maybe they are real. I will look them up.”

Each platform is a different audience, not a mirror. Liquid IV’s TikTok at launch was more than 60% people who did not follow them on Instagram. A podcast episode from a year ago is still a front door. A useful comment on someone else’s post puts you in a market you did not pay to enter.

Where founders get it wrong

Building only awareness and calling it GTM.
Assuming an ordered website visit.
Duplicating LinkedIn everywhere and calling that distribution.
Skipping the places they already are because those places are not “the category.”

Numbers from the room

Figure	Value
Liquid IV TikTok at launch	>60% net-new vs. Instagram

Go deeper

GTM as a system covers the five questions this funnel is supposed to serve, and the content types beyond LinkedIn and email.
Related concepts: Blue ocean, GTM hypothesis.