When you first launch your web application, there is one MASSIVE hurdle that stands in between you and enormous bundles of cash.  We weren’t initially aware of it ourselves, but over time it became clear.

It’s about conversions.

The path from interested prospect to paying customer is filled with so many holes, walls and mountains that it is a wonder that anyone, anywhere ever gives you any money.

You know that smooth “conversion funnel” you built to allow people to sign up and interact with your product?

It’s really only a funnel shape in your head.  It is not smooth, and it is most definitely NOT linear.  Customers don’t gleefully slide down it as they rush to give you their cash.

The path from prospect to paying customer is in fact a fetid swamp, inhabited by lightning sand, jets of flame and rodents of unusual size.  This swamp sits at the bottom of a deep chasm through which only the truly motivated cross.

If you think of it in this way rather than as a smooth funnel, then you will know how hard you have to work to convert prospects into customers.  Really hard.

Here then in all its glory is our conversion funnel (with apologies in advance to The Princess Bride).  In the interests of transparency, we have included REAL DATA from our performance from January to April 2010.

That’s right.  The percentages discussed at the bottom of this post are real live results from our actual business.

The players in this love story for the ages are the prospective customer (whom we shall call Westley) and the paying customer (Buttercup).

We want Westley to reach Buttercup and become a paying customer, but to get there he needs to travel through our conversion path.  If we start with 1,000 Westleys, how many can we help make a perfect match with Buttercup?

Westley starts his journey to find true love (i.e.  give us money!) on our website.  To get from our homepage to the account registration page, he must first traverse the dreaded Cliffs of Insanity.

Unfortunately, over 917 Westleys prove no match for the cliffs and are unable to find their way to our registration page.  However 83 brave souls do reach the top, where they are given the option of creating an account for our product.

Now you thought that creating an account was just a matter of filling in a form?  Afraid not.  To create an account Westley must face off against Inigo Montoya, the finest swordsman that ever lived.

While each Westley puts up a brave front, just over half are slayed at the registration page and do not make an account.  The 37 that do make it (none of whom were left handed), create an account and proceed onwards and upwards into the application.

Deep within the application, we now need our brave heroes to take action and create their first event!

Easy I hear you say? (Well yes with our interface it is very easy, but that’s another story).

Unfortunately, not all 37 adventurers create an event after signing up.  Some are thwarted by Fezzik:

while others fail the battle of wits test (yes……..we know………inconceivable).

Of our 37, just 10 are able to navigate the treacherous path and successfully create an event.

Our 10 Westleys are now just moments away from Buttercup (becoming a paying customer!), but have one last hurdle to overcome.  To enter their payment details, they must cross the dreaded fire swamp!

Finally, 3 brave Westleys emerge unscathed on the other side  of the fire swamp to become living, breathing, actual paying customers.

For those following along at home, we started with 1,000 Westleys and managed to convince 10 (or 1%) to create an event.    Only 3 (0.3%) become paying customers however, which is lower than the acceptable minimum of 1% paying customer conversion.

By the way.  If you read this article and did not immediately create an account and become a paying customer, all you did was make our conversion statistics worse!

Seriously we don’t know how you can live with yourself…go and signup now!