marketing-loopslisted

# Marketing Loops Model growth that compounds because its output feeds back as input — not a funnel with the ends taped together. Most of the catalog treats growth as a **funnel**: stages, hand-offs, leaks to plug, a linear path from stranger to customer. `lifecycle-and-retention`, `onboarding-activation`, and `signup-flow-optimizer` all optimize that path. This skill is for the other model. A **loop** is growth where each turn produces the input to the next turn — users invite users, content attracts people who make content, revenue funds acquisition that produces revenue. **The one question a funnel never asks, and a loop lives or dies on: does one turn of the loop produce more than one turn's worth of input?** That ratio is the loop factor, k. It's the single number that separates a channel that compounds from one that merely converts. A funnel optimizer can improve every stage and still never know whether the thing loops, because "does output exceed input" is not a question the funnel frame contains. **The misconception this skill exists to correct is that k ≥ 1 is the goal.** True virality — every user producing more than one new user, growth sustaining itself with no paid input — is rare, fragile, and usually the wrong target. The durable reality is sub-viral: a k of 0.5 to 0.8 that doesn't run on its own but more than doubles the value of every acquired user. A k=0.6 loop makes each paid acquisition do the work of 2.5. Teams chase k ≥ 1, miss it, and conclude they