Traction Experiments Overview

At this point you should have found a problem, a solution and validated that an early adopter is going to buy it. The next kind of experiment you want to run is to achieve market traction. These are the 19 marketing channels that you could use to find people who have the problem you are solving.

Watch this 2 minute video to understand why the traction step is so vital for every kind of business.

This book is the basis for this stage, read it, do what it says and teach someone else how to do it inorder to be a master at it.

78 Takeaways from Traction Book

The second edition of is now out, published by Penguin Random House (the first edition was self-published). I mention that because the change gave us the opportunity over the past nine months to make a much more high-quality book, reacting to the tens of thousands of first-edition readers, adding sections that we discovered were missing, addressing the more counter-intuitive aspects of getting traction.

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If you want to read a good summary of the book

But I'm not ready!?

Watch this to understand why you need to get traction earlier than you think.

Correct! You're not, but that is the whole point, you need to be out there finding and talking to more early adopters to continue to deepen your understanding of the problem, the solution, the market and to do that you need to be putting lots of people into your marketing funnel and seeing what happens. This is a scary thought, I know, but the second you stop listening to new people who have the problem you are solving, you are potentially heading in the wrong direction.

Goal 0 - What level of traction are you trying to reach?

Usually 1 of 3 things

Raise money

What proof will investors need before investing?

Be sustainable

What level of revenue do we need to hit inorder to survive?

Should I spend my time on this?

Is this market opportunity big enough to be worth my time?

Watch this 2 minute video to get a quick overview of traction experiments and understand goal 0

Three step traction process

Watch this 2 minute video to further understand the traction process and the common pitfalls

The Bullseye Framework for Getting Traction

With nineteen traction channels to consider, figuring out which one to focus on is tough. That's why we've created a simple framework called Bullseye that will help you find the channel that will get you traction. As billionaire PayPal founder and early Facebook investor Peter Thiel put it: [You] probably won't have a bunch of equally good distribution strategies.

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The Bullseye Framework for Getting Traction

For a deep dive into the Bullseye Framework read this

Brainstorm

You need to take all 19 channels seriously, don't let your bias or the lack of existing success get in the way, it is just about testing at this stage. You don't know what will work until you have tested it.

Testing

You should be aiming to get answers to critical questions quickly and cheaply so make sure you are very clear on what outcome you would need to see for that channel to be a success. What is the easiest, cheapest way to get proof?

Focus

You have some good evidence so focus on that one channel, kill everything else. You don't have enough money or time to focus on all channels at once.