Funnel teardown: Asana (Project management)
Founder(s): Dustin Moskovitz and Justin Rosenstein

Asana's funnel runs on cross-functional-PM-default positioning. The marketing sells coordination as the work itself — not as overhead.

TL;DR: Asana's funnel works because the marketing reframes cross-functional coordination as the work, not as overhead. The hero leads with goal hierarchy and timeline views; case studies feature marketing, design, ops, and engineering teams coordinating on the same projects. The lesson for indie founders: when your category buyer treats your product as overhead, the highest-leverage positioning move is to reframe the work itself so your product IS the work, not the cost of doing the work.

What they sell: A cross-functional project management platform with tasks, projects, portfolios, goals, timelines, and workload coordination.
Who it's for: Growing cross-functional teams (marketing, design, engineering, ops) that coordinate work across multiple departments and need structured project tracking.
Pricing: Free up to 10 users; Starter ~$11/user/mo; Advanced ~$25/user/mo; Enterprise custom (verified 2026-05-18).

Hook pattern: Coordination-as-the-work positioning
The hero reframes cross-functional coordination from overhead to value-add. This works because the canonical buyer (ops leaders, PMs, leadership) has already lived through the alternative — chaos across Slack, email, and spreadsheets — and recognizes structured coordination as the actual work. The hook compresses category evaluation by tapping the felt pain of unstructured cross-functional work.

Story pattern: Multi-function case study breadth
Story is told through case studies featuring marketing, design, engineering, ops, finance, and HR teams using Asana to coordinate cross-functionally. The breadth of use cases doubles as proof — a platform that claims cross-functional coordination must show all functions in action. The marketing site reads as 'this works for your specific function' regardless of which function the visitor is in.

Offer pattern: Free tier acquisition plus enterprise upsell ladder
Free tier captures up to 10 users, which fits early-stage teams; paid tiers (Starter, Advanced) scale into team and cross-functional features (timeline, custom fields, advanced workflows, Goals); Enterprise handles procurement and security. The free tier is calibrated to allow real adoption but not production for larger teams — the structural upgrade trigger is team growth past 10 users, which is mechanically predictable.

What's working:
Reframing cross-functional coordination as the work converts ops leaders who feel coordination pain daily.|Multi-function case study breadth makes the marketing site feel relevant to every visitor regardless of their role.|Free-tier 10-user cap is a predictable structural upgrade trigger that fires as teams grow.|Native Goals product is the canonical differentiator from PM tools that lack OKR hierarchy.|Timeline view appeals to PM-led teams who think in dependencies and milestones.|Mature integration ecosystem (Slack, Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Salesforce) locks in cross-functional teams already on those platforms.

What to adapt:
If your category buyer treats your product as overhead, reframe the work itself so your product IS the work — not the cost of doing the work.|Multi-function case study breadth lets cross-functional platforms be relevant to every visitor without diluting the value proposition.|User-count caps on free tiers are predictable structural upgrade triggers that map to team-growth events.

What to avoid:
Do not reframe coordination as the work if your product genuinely IS overhead. The reframing must be honest — the cross-functional teams using Asana believe coordination matters because they have lived without it.|Do not pursue cross-functional breadth before you have depth in any single function. The breadth claim is fragile when buyers discover the product is generic across all use cases.

Brunson lens:
Hook: New Opportunity hook (Brunson Expert Secrets) — buyers are not buying a better PM tool, they are stepping into the 'coordination IS the work' category.
Story: Multi-Dream-Customer story serving marketing, design, engineering, ops, finance simultaneously — only viable for a platform with genuine cross-functional depth.
Offer: Free tier acquisition (10-user cap) plus structured per-user upsell ladder with Enterprise back-end.
Value ladder tier: Front-end lead funnel (free up to 10 users) plus per-user subscription core (Starter, Advanced) plus enterprise back-end.