how startups gain and maintain traction- chris schelzi

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!

Marketer’s Book List?

chrisschelzi+books@gmail.com