{
  "slug": "headless-customer-funnel",
  "title": "The Headless Customer Funnel",
  "description": "A framework for analyzing headless businesses through the machine-consumption funnel: discovery, selection, access, ongoing consumption, and LTV.",
  "section": "frameworks",
  "order": 3,
  "author": "get-headless",
  "url": "https://get-headless.ai/knowledge-base/headless-customer-funnel/",
  "apiUrl": "https://get-headless.ai/api/knowledge-base/headless-customer-funnel.json",
  "markdownUrl": "https://get-headless.ai/knowledge-base/headless-customer-funnel.md",
  "content": "## The machine-consumption funnel\n\nA useful framework for analyzing headless businesses is the machine-consumption funnel. Each stage describes how agent-driven usage differs from human-driven usage.\n\n## Discovery\n\nHow an agent becomes aware of a capability.\n\n- Registries\n- Search\n- Marketplaces\n- Embeddings\n- Recommendations\n- Protocol directories\n- Documentation hubs\n\n## Selection\n\nHow an agent determines whether a capability is fit for purpose.\n\nDecision variables may include:\n- Task fit\n- Price\n- Latency\n- Quality\n- Trust\n- Authorization requirements\n- Output format\n- Rate limits\n- Uptime\n- Policy constraints\n\n## Access and purchase\n\nHow the agent obtains the right to use the capability.\n\n- Open access\n- Token-based auth\n- Delegated auth\n- Enterprise provisioning\n- Subscription\n- Metered payment\n- On-demand settlement\n\n## Ongoing consumption\n\nHow repeated use happens over time.\n\n- Reliability\n- Quality consistency\n- Integration depth\n- Observability\n- Billing clarity\n- Memory and state retention\n- Ecosystem compatibility\n- Workflow dependence\n\n## LTV in the age of agents\n\nFor headless businesses, long-term value may be shaped by:\n\n- Repeated invocation\n- Incorporation into automated workflows\n- Low failure rates\n- Structured outputs\n- Strong documentation\n- Predictable billing\n- Accumulated context\n- Switching friction at the workflow level rather than the interface level"
}