Customer stage A customer is a person or organization that is valuable to your business model. Customers either pay to use the product or they contribute something that is valuable to other users. In a two-sided market and in the freemium economy of the Web, this could be content, a listing, or request. For TradeYa, a Customer is a user who engages in and completes a successful trade. This means that after bidding, she wins the trade and successfully completes the transaction, or vice versa. Repeat User stage Repeat users are customers who “regularly” use your product or service. For TradeYa, a Repeat User is somebody who is involved in multiple transactions. He trades something and then continues to offer or bid on items or services to trade. Reference User stage A reference user is somebody who refers others to the site based purely on her initial or continued experience. She brings other suspects to your product by spreading the word. This is called virality and feeds that engine of growth (refer to Figure 9-5). The reference user can refer people to your product regardless of what stage she is in the funnel. References are crucial to improving your sales funnel because they bring new users to the site through their own personal recommendations. You must love these people and work diligently at making them insanely happy with your product. For TradeYa, a Reference User is somebody who shares a TradeYa page, whether it is one that she was promoting or just a page she found interesting. The Horizontal Axis User’s Process The User’s Process (see Figure 9-8) describes the types of activities that users will be engaging in at each stage as they experience your product. Where are they exactly? What task are they trying to complete? For the UX designer on your team, the User’s Process is probably going to be the easiest step in the Funnel Matrix to articulate.