Traction: A Startup Guide to Getting Customers

The reasoning for why these particular features weren’t necessary initially was that even at 100 million/searches month their userbase was motivated enough by other features to be forgiving of missing these particular ones.

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.

“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. Even worse is when they insist that

founders build something people want by following a sound product development strategy. They spend their time building new features based on what early users say they want. Then, when they think they are ready, they launch, take stabs at getting more users, only to become frustrated when customers don’t flock to them.

Everything you do should be assessed against your Critical Path. Every activity is either on path or not. If it is not on the path, don’t do it!

traction is growth. The pursuit of traction is what defines a startup.

However, to get to the next traction goal they had to get more mainstream adoption and this next set of users is much less forgiving.

We strongly believe that many startups give up way too early. A lot of startup success hinges on choosing a great market at the right time

Having a product your early customers love but no clear way to get more traction is frustrating. To address this frustration, spend your time building product and testing traction channels – in parallel