Book

Traction: How Any Startup Can Achieve Explosive Customer Growth

Gabriel Weinberg and Justin Mares · Portfolio (Penguin Random House) Paid Beginner

When you have no budget, the worst move is to pour your limited time into a channel that was never going to work for your product. Traction gives you all nineteen ways a startup can reach customers and a simple way (the Bullseye framework) to bet on two or three worth testing first. Treat it as a menu and a method, not a verdict: your free channels will come from this list, you just have to find the ones that fit you.

  • Most startups die from no distribution, not a weak product, so give traction real time, not leftover time.
  • There are nineteen channels (content, SEO, communities, PR, sales, and more), and most founders ignore the ones that would actually work for them.
  • Bullseye: brainstorm across all channels, rank them, then run cheap tests on your top few instead of guessing.
Open on penguinrandomhouse.com ↗

It answers 22 questions

  1. How do I actually get my first 10 customers when nobody has heard of me?
  2. How do I figure out which distribution channel is right for my startup?
  3. Why does everyone say 'distribution is more important than product'?
  4. Where do I find the very first people to even talk to about my product?
  5. What are the actual distribution channels I can choose from?
  6. How do I know if I'm targeting the wrong customer?
  7. What's the best channel to launch on, Product Hunt, Reddit, Hacker News, or LinkedIn?
  8. Should I focus on one channel or spread across many?
  9. How do I pick which paid channel to start with?
  10. How do I get my first users for the MVP?
  11. How did real successful startups actually land their first customers?
  12. How do I build a targeted list of the right people to cold email?

And 10 more across the hub.

Read with it

  1. The permission slip to recruit users by hand, do things manually, and deliver 'insanely great' experiences to your first few... paulgraham.com Essay · ~15 min read Do Things That Don't Scale Paul Graham
  2. The single best thing ever written on customer conversations. It teaches you to ask about the customer's life and past... momtestbook.com Book · ~130 pages The Mom Test Rob Fitzpatrick
  3. A tactical follow-on covering the channels and motions top B2B startups scale after the first ten. Grounds distribution... Lenny's Newsletter Article · ~15 min read How to win your first 10 B2B customers Lenny Rachitsky
  4. A blunt, practical guide from Demand Curve's founder on which paid and organic channels fit which business, and why most... julian.com Article · Long-form guide Startup Handbook: Customer Acquisition Channels Julian Shapiro
  5. An Indian founder story where the early demand test was manual, cold emails and direct outreach to find the first customers... Prime Venture Partners Podcast Podcast · ~50 min How Khadim Batti Built Whatfix Into a Global SaaS Leader Prime Venture Partners
  6. When your first ten will come from cold outreach, this guide gives you the full mechanics: building a target list, qualifying,... Close Article · Multi-chapter guide The Ultimate Startup Guide to Outbound Sales Steli Efti
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