Over the years, I’ve come to see growth not just as a business function, but as a discipline with its own physics.

Every growth system — whether a startup funnel or a scaled go-to-market engine — operates under a set of forces that determine how efficiently it turns attention into adoption and adoption into revenue. Just as physical systems are governed by foundational laws, growth funnels follow their own physics, forces that determine whether momentum builds or dissipates.

At its foundation are three laws of the physics of growth: volume, velocity, and conversion. Together, they define not only how many prospects enter a funnel, but also how quickly and effectively those prospects move toward becoming customers or advocates. In other words, they define the throughput of a growth funnel and give leaders a way to diagnose, prioritize, and optimize.

When these forces — volume, velocity, and conversion — are understood and balanced, growth compounds.

Volume is the mass.

Volume is the starting point: the raw number of people and organizations entering your funnel. Like mass in physics, it provides the substance on which all other forces act.

For me, that means focusing on activities that build awareness and draw interest: the right story told in the right channels, partnerships that create mutual lift, events that convene communities. Every campaign or initiative at the top of the funnel is about generating that essential density.

Whether it's a thought-provoking article that gets shared widely on LinkedIn, a webinar series that brings in thousands of registrants, or a co-marketing initiative with a strategic partner — all of these add volume to the funnel, ensuring that there’s enough density of interest for growth to be possible.

Velocity is the acceleration.

Velocity is about speed: how quickly leads move through the funnel from awareness to activation, trial, or purchase. Friction slows momentum, while clarity, responsiveness, and personalization accelerate it.

I’ve seen too many teams lose momentum because prospects lingered in limbo: interested but not moving forward. To me, velocity is about designing systems and experiences that reduce friction and move people to the next step with clarity and speed. Whether it's a well-enabled sales call within minutes of receiving a lead, an onboarding flow that surfaces the “aha” moment quickly, or an automated nurture path that feels personal, the goal is the same: keep energy in motion and the prospect moving forward.

Conversion is the transformation.

Conversion is the third law of growth physics: the proportion of volume that successfully transforms into paying customers or retained users. Conversion is about respect for the decision-making process: making the path to commitment seamless, pricing intuitive, and the value unmistakable.

More tactically, activities like pricing strategy, tailored sales demos, product-led growth loops, conversion rate optimization (CRO) experiments, and free-to-paid upgrade prompts all live here. I’ve found that small tweaks here can unlock outsized impact. A data-driven pricing test that finds the sweet spot of willingness-to-pay (WTP), a sales engineer’s well-timed technical demo aligned to pain points, or a streamlined checkout flow that reduces drop-off — all directly increase conversion, amplifying the returns of both volume and velocity.

This is where the efficiency of the funnel comes into focus. Volume and velocity are ultimately meaningless if organizations or people don’t become customers, stay customers, and grow with you.

Closing Thoughts

When I look back on the organizations I’ve helped grow, the breakthroughs rarely came from chasing silver bullets. They came from returning to these fundamentals — volume, velocity, conversion — and asking how to align teams and activities around them. When volume, velocity, and conversion are thoughtfully designed and balanced, the physics of growth compound; growth, like physics, rewards those who respect the laws that govern it. More prospects enter, they move faster, and a greater share of them ultimately convert, creating a virtuous cycle that fuels scale.