Funnel teardown: Airtable (Productivity and workspace)
Founder(s): Howie Liu, Andrew Ofstad, Emmett Nicholas

Airtable's funnel runs on the database-superpowers-for-non-developers positioning. The marketing sells the magic moment when a spreadsheet becomes an app.

TL;DR: Airtable's funnel works because the marketing sells the specific magic moment when a spreadsheet stops being a list and becomes an app. The hero shows that moment — drag-drop forms, linked records, automations — in ways non-developers immediately recognize as 'this is what I have been trying to do in Excel.' The lesson for indie founders: when you democratize a previously-expert capability for non-experts, the marketing must show the magic moment, not explain the technical primitive.

What they sell: A relational database platform for non-developers with Interfaces, Automations, and AI for building no-code internal tools.
Who it's for: Operations-heavy teams, marketers, ops leaders, and product managers who need structured data and internal tools without engineering.
Pricing: Free up to 5 editors; Team ~$20/seat/mo; Business ~$45/seat/mo; Enterprise custom (verified 2026-05-18).

Hook pattern: Magic-moment demonstration
The hero shows the specific moment when structured data becomes an app — drag a form field, link records across tables, trigger an automation. Non-developers who have lived in Excel hitting database-shaped problems recognize the magic immediately. The hook compresses category evaluation because the audience does not need to be sold on database value; they need to be shown that database value is accessible without code.

Story pattern: Internal-tools-without-engineering narrative
Story is told through ops-team case studies — content calendar that auto-publishes, inventory tracker with reorder alerts, applicant pipeline with status updates. The narrative pattern is consistent: 'this team built an internal tool in days without engineering involvement.' The story tells the buyer 'you can do this too' rather than 'here is what we can do.'

Offer pattern: Free editor cap plus per-seat enterprise ladder
Free tier limits to 5 editors — predictable structural upgrade trigger as ops teams grow past the threshold. Team and Business tiers add Interfaces, Automations runs, more storage, advanced permissions. Enterprise handles procurement. The pricing scales with team adoption rather than with database volume, which matches how Airtable usage actually grows inside organizations.

What's working:
Magic-moment hero converts non-developers who recognize Excel limitations immediately.|Internal-tools-without-engineering narrative speaks to ops leaders' actual pain.|5-editor free tier cap is mechanical and predictable as ops teams grow.|Interfaces feature is the canonical differentiator for forms-to-database internal tools.|Automations runs price as the secondary upgrade trigger for teams scaling no-code workflows.|Massive template library shows the magic moment across hundreds of use cases — CRM, project tracker, inventory, content calendar.

What to adapt:
When democratizing an expert capability for non-experts, show the magic moment in the hero rather than explaining the technical primitive.|Internal-tools-without-engineering is a structural value proposition for ops-led teams; the narrative works when your product can actually deliver it.|Editor-count caps as upgrade triggers map to team-growth events and convert predictably.

What to avoid:
Do not claim no-code internal tools if your product requires non-trivial setup work. The magic-moment promise must be honest — ops leaders abandon platforms that promised easy and delivered hard.|Do not pursue Airtable's pricing model if your platform cost does not actually scale with team adoption. The per-editor model only works when value scales with editor count.

Brunson lens:
Hook: Magic-moment hook (Brunson 'show the result, not the process') executed as the hero.
Story: Hero's-Journey-via-case-studies — ops teams who solved internal-tools problems without engineering, inviting the reader to follow the same arc.
Offer: Free-editor-cap acquisition plus per-seat enterprise upsell ladder with Interfaces and Automations as feature triggers.
Value ladder tier: Front-end lead funnel (free 5-editor) plus per-seat subscription core (Team, Business) plus enterprise back-end.