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Traction = evidence of customer demand

= Growth

Can always increase traction

Traction Channels

Types

• Blogs
• Publicity
• Unconventional PR
• Search Engine Marketing
• Social and Display Ads
• Offline Ads
• SEO
• Content Marketing
• Email marketing
• Engineering as marketing
• Viral marketing
• Business Development
• Sales
• Affiliate programs
• Existing platforms/social media
• Offline events like:
  • Trade shows
  • Speaking Engagements
  • Meetups, etc
• Community building

Traction Thinking

Spend 50% of time working on product and 50% of time on traction

Nail the product - talk to your customers, build the best soultion you can.

Talking to your customers gives you data; your messaging, niche, use cases, what kinds of customers will be quickest to buy, major distribution road blocks.

Get traction. If you do this first, you can figure out if you are on the right path quickly.

Set a growth goal. Must be something tangible. This will help you focus only on strategies that “move the needle.” (achieve growth) Examples: A certain number of downloads in a period.

Traction is a key signal to investors. The amount of traction varies. Look up recent invesment deals to get an idea what’s going on in the market right now.

###3 business phases

1. Make something people want Product-focused. May pursure traction in ways that don’t scale
2. Market something people want
3. Scale the business

###Reasons businesses fail, even when it’s something people want

1. There is no viable business model; people don’t pay or costs can’t be covered
2. Not enough customers to get to profitability
3. Reaching your customers is cost-prohibitive
4. Hypercompetition

##Bullseye Method

The Bullseye method is his way to hone in on the most effective traction channel and strategies for your business.

###Outer Ring: What’s Possible?

Brainstorm each traction channel. Where would you do each, who is your ideal audience. For every channel, come up with at least one traction strategy and define ‘success.‘

Middle Ring: What’s Probable

Evaluate your ideas from your outer ring and pick your best traction channels to go to the middle ring.

You can conduct your tests in parallel, in fact, you absolutely should to get the answers faster.

Create a cheap traction test for each of the channels. The tests should help answer these questions:

1. How much will it cost to acquire customers through this channel?
2. How many customers are available through this channel?
3. Are the customers the kind of customers you want right now?

Test Ideas

Keep it small-scale, low cost and effort. You should be able to determine if you are getting traction with less than $1,000 and a month’s time. When your company is in phase II and III your tests may become longer and more expensive so you can achieve bigger numbers.

Test Design

Should answer these questions:

1. How much does it cost to aquire each customer through this channel strategy?
2. How many customers are available through this channel strategy?
3. Are the customers you are getting through this channel the ones you want right now?

Bullseye

Evaluate your tests and the results. Then pick just one traction channel that moves the needle for your business’ growth.

Everything else is a distraction. The one exception is when there is synergy between channels, like content & email marketing.

If no channel seemed promising after testing, repeat the process, tweak your product, or find a new market and problem to solve.

Define a Traction Goal

Could be, 1000 paying customers, 100 new daily customers, or 10% of the market share