Customer Centric LLC

Business Models as Loops (The Series)

John Gusiff

Managing Partner, Customer Centric LLC

Krzysztof Czubak

Founder UserMindful.Design and Behavior System Architect

Why funnels stall, exhaust resources, and never compound—while loops store value and get stronger every cycle.

Loops vs. Funnels

An overview of the 5 non-overlapping loop types (User, Content, Trust, Skill, Capital) and the assets they compound.

The Five Loop Types

How business-side compounding assets and customer-side retained value reinforce each other to drive growth.

How Compounding Assets and Retained Value Work Together

A model that shows how multiple business loops interconnect to drive growth or failure points that require intervention.

The Business Engine (How It All Works)

In Talk 2, we'll cover which Loops matter most based upon Stage of Growth: PSF, PMF, Growth, Scale, Expand/Optimize.

Coming Next in Series

You’ll learn the psychology of why people gather, and get tactical playbooks for ideation, design, member engagement, and creating impact.

February 2026

Growth exec & community architect

Pinterest

Maven

Compass Real Estate

Cameo

Mercury Bank

Mallory Contois

Community architect, founder, GTM leader & 6x high-growth startup operator.

January 2026

April

In a world increasingly saturated with AI-generated noise and surface-level interactions, brands and individuals who create real belonging and opportunities for identity signaling will win. People aren’t just looking for products or content - they’re craving connection, trust, and spaces that reflect their values and self-perceived identities.Community is no longer a “nice to have." It’s a competitive moat, a loyalty engine, and the most powerful driver of word-of-mouth growth. It's also really, really fun, and more important than ever.In this course you'll get:Lifetime access:<ul><li>20+ self-paced lessons, each with tactical exercises to guide you through best practices and new ways of thinking about community as a product, a growth tactic, or a passion project</li><li>Exclusive tools created by Mallory to fast-track your progress and spark new ideas</li><li>Membership to a virtual community of values-aligned community builders</li><li>Continued option attend to live discussion sessions</li></ul>During the 4 week course:<ul><li>2 optional live group sessions each week, focused on concept discussion, problem solving, and brainstorms, paced to match the lesson progression.</li><li>Async 1:1 access to Mallory for specific, personalized Q&amp;A</li></ul>

Build and scale impactful, human-led communities that cut through the AI noise.

Design a community blueprint aligned with your values and goals

Create onboarding flows that spark trust and early engagement

Build retention loops that turn members into loyal advocates

Apply growth tactics that fuel word of mouth and lasting impact

Stand out by designing spaces and experiences full of delight and magic

Growth Marketers &amp; Operators Design community-driven growth engines that turn users into advocates.

Founders &amp; Brand BuildersDifferentiate your brand with a loyal, high value, identity-aligned competitors can’t copy.

Aspiring Community LeadersTransform your passion into a thriving IRL or virtual community.

Learn how to stand out, get real responses, and turn investor interest into commitments.

ex-VC Partner | 50+Investments | 8 Exits

Bloomberg

Forbes

FORTUNE

TechCrunch

CNBC

Haris Khurshid, CFA, MBA

ex-VC Partner | ex-Startup CFO | 50+ Investments | 8+ Exits

 Cohort I (2026) 

2026 Cohort II 

❌ What I’ve seen repeatedly from the investor side:<ul><li>Founders treating fundraising as a series of pitches instead of a process.</li><li>Strong products failing to raise due to poorly structured, reactive fundraises.</li><li>Good founders losing leverage because of weak sequencing and timing.</li><li>Momentum fading quietly from confusion (not from rejection).</li></ul>✅ What This Course Gives You<ul><li>A repeatable investor narrative investors understand and can sell internally.</li><li>Intentional sequencing and outreach that builds momentum across meetings.</li><li>A clear, time-boxed fundraising process investors recognize.</li><li>Momentum that turns interest into real commitments (not the dreaded 'let's stay in touch').</li></ul>⚠️ Why This Program Exists<ul><li>Fundraising has fundamentally changed.</li><li>Capital is more selective and investor attention is scarce.</li><li>Old playbooks no longer work (and a revamped deck isn't the answer).</li><li>Founders need process and judgment, not more opinions.</li></ul>📌 Bottom Line<ul><li>If you need to raise capital, you don’t need generic advice.</li><li>You don’t need theories from people who’ve never run a fundraise.</li><li>You need a clear process that serious investors recognize and respond to.</li><li>That’s exactly what this program is designed to give you.</li></ul>

Fundraising Has Changed. Most Founders Haven’t Caught Up.

How Investors Actually Decide in 2026

Build Investor Relationships (Even Without a Warm Network)

Craft a Fundable Story Investors Repeat Internally

Build Investor FOMO (Without Faking It)

Build a High-Velocity Investor Pipeline

Run a Tight, Time-Boxed Fundraise

Founders actively raising or planning to raise who want a structured, investor-tested approach instead of trial and error.

Founders stuck in “interest but no commitments” mode who need to create momentum, urgency, and real investor movement.

Founders who want to run a tight, time-bound raise, attract multiple investors at once, and compress decision timelines.

Learn to spot weak value propositions early. So you build products users actually adopt, retain, and pay for, even in an AI-driven world

Product leader; Advisor, 

Amazon

Intuit

PayPal

PropertyGuru

Viveck P Kumar

Product leader with 20 years building and scaling consumer digital products

Cohort 1

Most products don’t fail because of poor execution. They fail because teams choose the wrong value to deliver.In my career, I’ve repeatedly seen smart teams:<ul><li>Solve real problems</li><li>Build well-designed products</li><li>Ship faster than ever</li><li>Still fail to gain adoption, retention, or pricing power</li></ul>The root cause is almost always the same: a weak or misaligned value proposition.AI has made this problem worse, not better.Today, teams can prototype in days, add intelligence to features, and ship at unprecedented speed. But AI doesn’t fix unclear value, it amplifies it. Products feel impressive in demos, yet confusing or unnecessary in real life.The deeper problem is that “value proposition” is taught as a slogan or a pitch, not as a thinking skill.There is no shared language or structured way to reason about:<ul><li>What value actually acquires users</li><li>What value retains them over time</li><li>What value helps users escape existing habits and lock-ins</li></ul>This course teaches a practical mental model : the OPEN framework to help you see, evaluate, and design value propositions with clarity and confidence across consumer products, including those that use AI.Not how to build faster. But how to build the right thing.

How to sense product failure by its value proposition (in an AI world)

Diagnose a product’s value proposition in 15 minutes

Pick acquisition vs retention value and stop mixing the two

Design 'apparent' value to users that drives first-time conversion

Create value that overcomes their current choice of product/service

Build  value that anchors brand and indexes on long term

Evaluate AI features by user value, not capability

The material is advanced so this is not for product people who have just joined the industry.

Must be a practising craft actively for at least 3+ years

Product Managers/Sr PMs PMs who shape product direction and need sharper judgment on what value will actually drive adoption and retention.

Founders Founders deciding what to build next and wanting early clarity on whether a product idea has real value or hidden flaws.

Design and engineering leaders Leaders influencing product decisions who care about product success, not just features or execution quality

A two-week sprint to rebuild your Personal OS, master the "Learning to Learn" loop, and turn your core expertise into a 5x force multiplier.

Product Leader and Super IC at Google

Google

Disney+ Hotstar

Zynga

Anshumani Ruddra

Cohort I

You're stuck in the coordination trap. Meetings, approvals, stakeholder alignment consume your weeks - but actual product work feels distant. Meanwhile, AI-empowered teams are shipping faster.This isn't your fault - the model itself is collapsing.Flattened orgs, smaller teams, and AI-driven workflows have created a new reality:The most valuable product leaders are not managers, they are high-output individuals who can take a problem from insight and strategy → functioning prototype → live productThe market is shifting toward the product Super IC - someone who can build momentum without waiting for permission, resources, or headcount.This course is not a tool tutorial. You can find those on YouTube. This is a system rebuild. Over two weeks, you will:Build a Personal Agentic OS 🤖<ul><li>⚙️ Automate meeting synthesis, PRDs, research, and stakeholder updates.</li><li>🤖 Deploy personal agents that triage signal, surface decisions, and keep your product narrative live.</li><li>🧠 Free up 10+ hours a week for real thinking.</li></ul>Master the Velocity Loop 🎯 (Learning to Learn)<ul><li>⚡ Adopt any new AI prototyping tool in hours, not weeks.</li><li>👁️ Spot signal vs hype early and act.</li><li>🚀 Move from static specs to functional prototypes.</li></ul>

Stop Trading Your Craft for Coordination. Start Multiplying Impact.

Rebuild Your Personal OS 

Master the "Velocity Loop" (Learning to Learn)

This course is not for new PMs who are still building their product muscle - strategy all the way to execution.

Your product management foundational skills are in place

This is not for people looking for a passive learning experience. This is intense and requires you to actually build things.

You are eager to learn actively

Product Leaders (VPs/ Directors) who are tired of being a "Coordinator" and want to return to building.

Founders &amp; Solopreneurs who need to act as a 10-person product team with zero headcount. You need speed and independence.

Staff Engineers &amp; Designers who want to move upstream into product strategy and ownership without leaving your technical edge.