Summary

<aside> 💡 The concept of traction refers to evidence of customer demand or growth in business startups.

• The 50 percent rule suggests dedicating equal time to product development and gaining traction, emphasizing their equal importance.
• The Bullseye framework is a three-step approach to gaining traction:
  • Brainstorming all possible traction channels (outer ring)
  • Testing the most promising ones (middle ring)
  • Focusing on the most effective channel (inner ring)
• The Law of Shitty Click-Throughs suggests that all marketing strategies will inevitably decline in effectiveness over time. To counter this, it's recommended to constantly brainstorm new strategies and conduct small experiments.
• Setting a traction goal for a company is crucial; this could be raising funding, becoming profitable, or another important milestone.
• Traction tests are vital at different stages of product development to optimize and uncover better channel strategies.
• The idea of pivoting in a startup context is highlighted, arguing that many startups give up too early and that success often hinges on choosing the right market at the right time. </aside>

Notes

traction trumps everything. (Location 73)

CHAPTER ONE Traction Channels (Location 114)

Traction is a sign that your company is taking off. It’s obvious in your core metrics: If you have a mobile app, your download rate is growing rapidly. If you’re running a subscription service, your monthly revenue is skyrocketing. If you’re an organic bakery, your number of transactions is increasing every week. (Location 115)

Traction is basically quantitative evidence of customer demand. (Location 119)

Traction is growth. The pursuit of traction is what defines a startup. (Location 126)

After interviewing more than forty successful founders and researching countless more, we discovered that startups get traction through nineteen different channels. Many successful startups experimented with multiple channels until they found one that worked. We call these customer acquisition channels traction channels. (Location 127)

We uncovered two broad themes through our research. First, most founders consider using only traction channels with which they’re already familiar, or those they think they should be using because of their type of product or company. This means that far too many startups focus on the same channels and ignore other promising ways to get traction. In fact, often the most underutilized channels in an industry are the most promising ones. (Location 130)

Second, it’s hard to predict the traction channel that will work best. You can make educated guesses, but until you start running tests, it’s difficult to tell which channel is the best one for you right now. (Location 133)