Traction

Traction Plot Summary

Introduction

Every entrepreneur dreams of building a successful startup, but the harsh reality is that most fail because they can't get enough traction. While product development often takes center stage, gaining customers is frequently the real challenge that separates thriving startups from forgotten ones. Many founders pour their hearts into creating wonderful products, only to be left wondering why users aren't flocking to their doors. Imagine spending months perfecting your product, believing the world will discover its brilliance - only to launch to crickets. This common scenario isn't about product quality but about understanding how to systematically acquire customers. The most successful startups recognize early that traction deserves equal attention as product development. They test multiple customer acquisition channels, focus intensely on what works, and set clear traction goals to guide their journey. This methodical approach to finding and scaling your growth engine is what transforms promising ideas into market-changing companies.

Chapter 1: Find Your Bullseye Channel Through Systematic Testing

The Bullseye Framework provides a structured approach to discovering which traction channel will unlock your startup's growth. With nineteen different channels available - from content marketing to sales to community building - finding the right one feels overwhelming. Most founders gravitate toward familiar channels or what worked for other companies, potentially missing their ideal path to growth. Peter Thiel, billionaire PayPal founder and early Facebook investor, emphasizes this point perfectly: "You probably won't have a bunch of equally good distribution strategies... It is very likely that one channel is optimal. Most businesses actually get zero distribution channels to work. Poor distribution—not product—is the number one cause of failure." Noah Kagan demonstrated this principle at Mint, the personal finance platform that was acquired for $170 million. Before launching, Kagan created a marketing spreadsheet listing potential traction channels and ran small tests to measure performance. His experiments revealed that targeting blogs converted exceptionally well, leading the team to focus intensely on this strategy. They sponsored personal finance bloggers, created "I want Mint" badges for websites, and formed content partnerships with larger sites. This laser focus on one channel helped Mint acquire 40,000 users pre-launch and over a million within six months. The Bullseye approach transforms this success pattern into a repeatable process. First, brainstorm possible ways to use each traction channel for your startup. Next, rank these channels into three groups: most promising, possible contenders, and long shots. Then prioritize the top three most promising channels for testing. The fourth step involves running cheap, quick experiments with these channels to collect real data on customer acquisition cost, conversion rates, and quality. Finally, focus all resources on the single channel that shows the most promise. To implement this effectively, create a simple spreadsheet listing ideas for each traction channel. For each idea, estimate the probability of success, potential customer acquisition cost, and rough time to run meaningful tests. Don't dismiss any channel outright - often the channels founders are biased against (like sales or trade shows) can provide unexpected competitive advantages because fewer startups are utilizing them. Remember that Bullseye is not a one-time exercise. Successful startups repeatedly cycle through this process as they grow, adapting their traction strategy as each channel reaches its potential. The beauty of Bullseye is that it helps you systematically uncover hidden growth opportunities while efficiently directing your limited resources to what actually works.

Chapter 2: Balance Product and Traction Development 50/50

Most startups fall into what we call "The Product Trap" - the mistaken belief that building an excellent product is sufficient for success. This thinking leads founders to invest nearly all their time perfecting features while neglecting customer acquisition until launch. The painful result is often a well-built product that nobody knows about or uses. Marc Andreessen, founder of Netscape and venture capital firm Andreessen-Horowitz, describes this common failing: "The number one reason that we pass on entrepreneurs we'd otherwise like to back is their focusing on product to the exclusion of everything else. Many entrepreneurs who build great products simply don't have a good distribution strategy." This insight reveals why following the 50% rule is crucial - spend half your time on product development and half on traction development, from day one. While this balance feels counterintuitive and may slow initial product development, it significantly accelerates your path to market success. Dropbox exemplifies this parallel approach perfectly. While developing their file-sharing product, they tested search engine marketing and discovered it would cost $230 to acquire customers for their $99 product - clearly unsustainable. This early insight led them to pivot to viral marketing, building a referral program directly into their product where users earned free storage for inviting friends. This program became their primary growth driver. Had they waited until after launch to explore acquisition channels, they would have wasted precious resources on ineffective strategies before finding what worked. The benefits of this parallel approach extend beyond preventing wasted efforts. Traction development provides invaluable insights that improve your product. While standard product development gathers feedback from early users, traction experiments reveal which messaging resonates with potential customers, which niches are easiest to reach, and what distribution roadblocks you might face. Phil Fernandez, founder of Marketo (which went public in 2013), started blogging and developing SEO strategies before they even built their product. By launch, they had already built an audience of 14,000 interested potential buyers. You can think about startup development in three phases: making something people want (Phase I), marketing something people want (Phase II), and scaling your business (Phase III). The 50% rule applies across all phases, though your specific traction activities will evolve. In Phase I, you'll focus on non-scalable activities like direct outreach and small-scale experiments. As you establish product-market fit in Phase II, you'll refine your acquisition strategy. By Phase III, you're optimizing and scaling what works. When balancing traction and product development, always concentrate on activities that "move the needle" - making a measurable, significant impact on growth. What constitutes moving the needle changes as you grow: early on, getting ten new users daily might be significant, while later you might need thousands to notice an impact. This perspective helps prioritize your efforts at each stage of growth.

Chapter 3: Move the Needle with Clear Traction Goals

Setting the right traction goals fundamentally shapes your startup's direction and growth strategy. Without clear targets, you'll struggle to measure progress and prioritize efforts effectively. Traction goals aren't mere numbers - they represent significant milestones that transform your business when achieved. DuckDuckGo, the privacy-focused search engine founded by Gabriel Weinberg, illustrates how powerful well-defined traction goals can be. Their current goal is capturing one percent of the general search market. This target was carefully selected because achieving it would fundamentally change how the company is perceived - establishing them as an entrenched player that commands respect from partners and media. Previously, their traction goal was reaching 100 million monthly searches, which corresponded to breaking even financially. Before that, their goal was developing a product that would make people switch from their primary search engine and stick indefinitely. Each goal marked a significant company transition. The path to reaching your traction goal with the fewest steps is your Critical Path. Drawing this path out forces you to identify the intermediate milestones absolutely necessary to reach your goal. For DuckDuckGo, reaching 100 million monthly searches required milestones like building a faster site, creating a more compelling mobile offering, and securing more broadcast TV coverage. Interestingly, while users frequently requested features like images and auto-suggest, the team determined these weren't critical for reaching their specific goal. This ruthless prioritization allowed them to focus only on what would drive meaningful progress. When defining your Critical Path, order milestones by dependencies and always seek the shortest viable path. After completing each milestone, reassess your path based on what you've learned. Your original plan will likely need adjustment as you gain market feedback. For example, you might discover after building feature A that you should skip B entirely and focus on C and D instead. The power of Critical Path thinking is that it provides a clear framework for deciding what not to do - anything not on the path should be avoided. This approach scales throughout your organization. Teams and individuals should have their own critical paths that contribute to the company's overall traction goal. For mobile teams at DuckDuckGo, their critical path involved updating their iOS app to match the desktop experience. This clarity ensures everyone works toward the right goals in the most efficient way possible. Traction sub-goals further enhance focus by setting clear, quantitative, time-based targets like reaching 1,000 customers by next quarter or hitting 20% monthly growth. These benchmarks help you measure progress objectively and evaluate what will move the needle within specific timeframes. They also create accountability by placing traction activities on the same calendar as product development and other company milestones. Remember, traction trumps everything. Building product, securing funding, and all other company activities ultimately serve the pursuit of traction. A well-defined Critical Path keeps your organization laser-focused on what truly matters for growth.

Chapter 4: Test Channels Strategically Before Scaling

Effective traction channel testing requires a structured approach that maximizes learning while minimizing time and money spent. Andrew Chen, a startup advisor on growth, describes what he calls "The Law of Shitty Click-Throughs": over time, all marketing strategies result in declining response rates as channels become saturated and expensive. To combat this reality, you need a consistent testing methodology to discover untapped opportunities before competitors. When testing potential traction channels in your inner circle from the Bullseye Framework, focus on validating specific assumptions rather than optimizing performance. For example, you want to answer: How much does it cost to acquire customers through this channel? How many customers are available? How well do they convert? Running cheap, limited tests helps qualify or disqualify these assumptions without major investment. For search engine marketing, spending just $250 on AdWords can give you a rough idea of how well the channel might work for your business. Matthew Monahan, co-founder of Archives.com (which was acquired by Ancestry.com for $100 million), demonstrates this approach perfectly. Before building their genealogy product, his team used AdWords to drive traffic to different landing pages testing various product concepts. One page tested "get access to census data" while another tested "get access to your family genealogy." By measuring click-through rates and conversions, they determined which aspects of the product were most compelling to potential users. "We were able to get statistical significance about what people want," Matthew explained. This parallel development of traction and product gave them confidence they were building something customers would actually pay for. The key difference between testing and optimization is scope and intent. With testing, you're running several small experiments across different channels to identify which ones have potential. You might run two social ads with two landing pages rather than ten ads with multiple variables. The goal is quick data collection to qualify or disqualify a channel, not maximizing performance. Sean Ellis, growth advisor to Dropbox and Eventbrite, emphasizes this point: "The faster you run high quality experiments, the more likely you'll find scalable, effective growth tactics." Once you've identified a promising channel, optimization through A/B testing becomes critical. This scientific approach involves creating control (A) and experimental (B) groups to measure how changes affect performance. You might test button colors, ad images, messaging, or landing page layouts. Tools like Optimizely and Visual Website Optimizer make these tests simple to implement. Making A/B testing a weekly habit can improve channel efficiency by 2-3x over time. When evaluating test results, quantify everything possible in a spreadsheet. At minimum, track cost to acquire a customer and customer lifetime value across channels. This data allows direct comparison between different strategies. Additionally, always assess whether a channel strategy could realistically deliver enough customers to move the needle within your budget. If there's no reasonable chance a channel could yield sufficient results, it's probably not worth exploring further. Remember that the best startups consistently run small traction tests to stay ahead of competitors and market saturation. Even seemingly small improvements can have outsized impacts over time due to compounding growth effects. By maintaining a disciplined testing approach, you position yourself to discover high-potential channels before they become overcrowded.

Chapter 5: Overcome Channel Biases for Maximum Growth

Every founder has natural biases toward certain traction channels and against others. Perhaps you're drawn to content marketing because you enjoy writing, or you avoid cold calling because it makes you uncomfortable. These preferences, while understandable, can severely limit your startup's growth potential by causing you to overlook your most effective acquisition channels. Jason Cohen, founder of WP Engine, discovered this truth firsthand with his previous company, Smart Bear Software. "One thing I learned at Smart Bear is that I have zero ability to predict what's going to work," he admits. "There'd be a magazine where I thought 'this is just some piddly magazine, surely no one reads this,' and sure enough it was cheap (due to small circulation) and it'd do terrifically!" Jason found that his ROI on these unexpected channels was incredible, while channels he expected to perform well often disappointed. This unpredictability is precisely why the systematic Bullseye approach is so valuable - it forces you to consider all options rather than following your intuition alone. Many founders ignore promising channels for three primary reasons. First, some channels simply don't cross your mind - speaking engagements or trade shows might be outside your field of vision. Second, many founders have negative views toward certain channels like sales or affiliate marketing - "just because you hate talking on the phone doesn't mean your customers do." Third, founders often avoid what Jason Cohen calls "schlep" - things that seem annoying and time-consuming, like business development or trade shows. This bias against unfamiliar or uncomfortable channels creates a significant competitive opportunity. As Jason explains: "I'll bet you a lot of your competition will refuse to even try these channels. And if that's true, that's even more reason to go try those channels! It can almost be a competitive advantage (at least a temporary one) if you can acquire customers in channels that others cannot, or refuse to try." Consider how DuckDuckGo capitalized on a channel most search startups ignore - offline advertising. They strategically placed a billboard in Google's backyard highlighting their privacy focus. This unconventional approach generated national press coverage in USA Today, Wired, and other outlets, doubling their user base. Similarly, Mint found success by directly reaching out to personal finance bloggers and offering to pay $500 to place banner ads on their sites. This direct approach became one of their strongest traffic sources, leading to thousands of signups before and after launch. To overcome your biases, first acknowledge them. Which channels are you naturally drawn to? Which do you avoid? Then, approach each channel with genuine curiosity during the Bullseye process. Force yourself to brainstorm at least one idea for every channel, even those that initially seem irrelevant to your business. Good mentors can help here by challenging your assumptions and suggesting approaches you hadn't considered. Remember that many of today's dominant companies succeeded by mastering channels their competitors overlooked. Facebook grew through college email lists when other social networks focused on traditional marketing. Airbnb used Craigslist integration when competitors relied on SEO. The most valuable traction channel for your startup might be the one you're most tempted to ignore.

Chapter 6: Master Multiple Channels as You Evolve

Startup growth happens in spurts, not along a smooth curve. Initially, growth is often slow. Then it spikes dramatically as you unlock an effective traction channel. Eventually, growth flattens as that channel becomes saturated or less effective. Then, you discover another channel and experience another growth spike. This pattern repeats throughout a startup's evolution, with different channels driving growth at different stages. Understanding this reality is crucial because what worked to get your first 1,000 users rarely works to get your next 10,000 or 100,000. As your company grows, you'll need to continually revisit the Bullseye Framework to find new channels that can move the needle at your current scale. OkCupid, the popular dating site acquired by Match.com for $50 million, demonstrates this evolution perfectly. In their early days, they focused on viral marketing and SEO to drive growth. When these channels plateaued, they pivoted to content marketing, creating data-driven blog posts that analyzed user behavior. Posts like "How Your Race Affects the Messages You Get" generated controversy, conversation, and significant traffic. This channel shift reignited their growth curve, helping them secure major media coverage and improve their search rankings. Traction channels also vary in effectiveness depending on your product phase. In Phase I, when you're seeking initial users, channels that don't scale can be extremely effective - giving talks, writing guest posts, emailing people you know, attending conferences. As Paul Graham advises, "You can't wait for users to come to you. You have to go out and get them." In Phase II, when you've established product-market fit, you need channels that can reach larger audiences consistently. By Phase III, you need massive scale, making channels like community building and viral marketing particularly valuable as they grow proportionally with your userbase. The concept of "moving the needle" changes dramatically as you grow. Early on, a single tweet from an influencer might bring a meaningful jump in users. Later, that same tweet would barely register in your analytics. This changing landscape means you must continually reassess which channels deserve your focus. A channel that seemed like a long shot before might become your primary growth driver as your company evolves. Think of your early traction efforts as pouring water into a leaky bucket. In Phase I, your product isn't yet a complete solution, so many customers won't stick around - water leaks out. There's no reason to scale acquisition efforts yet because you're throwing money away. As you improve your product in Phase II, you plug these leaks. Once customers are sticking around, it's time to scale up traction efforts. This feedback loop between traction and product development helps ensure you're on the right track. Naval Ravikant, founder of AngelList, notes that traction requirements for funding also evolve: "The definition of traction keeps changing as the environment gets competitive." A few years ago, 10,000 mobile app downloads might have impressed investors. Today, it might take hundreds of thousands with strong adoption rates. This moving target makes it essential to check what similar companies recently raised funding to gauge current expectations. The most successful startups master multiple traction channels over time, systematically testing new approaches as they outgrow existing ones. By continuously applying the Bullseye Framework, you ensure your growth engine never stalls and your startup continues its upward trajectory.

Summary

Traction truly does trump everything in the startup world. Throughout this book, we've seen how systematically finding and optimizing the right customer acquisition channel can transform a struggling startup into a market leader. From Mint's strategic targeting of financial blogs to Dropbox's viral referral program to DuckDuckGo's unconventional billboard, the pattern is clear: companies that methodically pursue traction alongside product development dramatically increase their chances of success. The most powerful insight may be what Peter Thiel emphasized: "If you can get even a single distribution channel to work, you have a great business." This truth contradicts the common approach of trying a little bit of everything without excelling at anything. Instead, the Bullseye Framework guides you to test multiple channels efficiently, then focus intensely on the one that shows the most promise for your specific business and stage of growth. Your immediate action step is clear: dedicate 50% of your time to traction starting today. Create a spreadsheet listing all nineteen traction channels with ideas for testing each one. Identify your three most promising channels, design small experiments to validate your assumptions, and prepare to focus all your resources on the channel that demonstrates the best results. Remember that the path to startup success isn't about building a perfect product in isolation - it's about systematically finding the most effective way to reach your customers and letting that insight guide everything you do.

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Gabriel Weinberg and Justin Mares

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