TractionFind Your Growth Engine
“Quantitative evidence of customer demand”
- Naval Ravikant, AngelList
If You Build It,They Will Come…
Oh no, never mind…
Idea that the product will speak for itself…going on a date in your underwear
Build The Right Product For
The Right People
Determine Your Growth Engine
Test Your Assumptions…And
Have Assumptions
Collect data so you know what works and what doesn’t
Make it very simple, but have something you want to measure
Stop Being Scared of Your Customers
You need to talk to people. Don’t build in isolation. This can save you tons of time and help you narrow your focus.
Charlie on calls, fine tuning the pitch. Seeing where their eyes light up or go dead
The Bullseye Strategy
3 levels, what’s possible, whats probably, what’s proving
Look AcrossInvisible Walls
Movie Theatre. Not just competing with movie theaters but also with resturants, mini-golf, etc. How are those places attracting customers?
Also, what are the other pieces involved? Babysitters
Also, usually the traction method of your industry is oversaturated so by utilizing an underused method you can be much more effective. i.e. social media ads vs webinars
Don’t Aim For Scale
do non-scalable activities. Calling customers, doing speaking events, sending personalized emails,etc. Once you have a firm grasp, you can scale from there
Punctuated Equilibrium
rarely do strartups growing gradually, they grow in spurts. They’ll strike upon one growth engine that serves them very well, then it dies down, they they find another one etc.
Creativity Through Constraints
Don’t try out every method. At least at the same time. Set a time limit, an effort limit, and a cost limit. i.e. one month, 100 dollars, 2 hours a week.
Test but don’t overwhelm , otherwise data is irrelevant
Sexy Tactics…And Candy Too!
You May Want To Take Notes…
Strikingly
AdEspresso
Perfect Audience
Programming For Marketers
Code Academy
LeadPages
Pay With A Tweet
Stealth Seminar
KingSumo
Social Media Engagement
Meetups!
