Traction: A Startup Guide to Getting Customers. A slideshare summary of this popular guide to getting customers for startups. Most startups end in failure. Almost every failed startup has a product. What failed startups don't have is traction -- real customer growth. This book introduces startup founders and employees to the "Bullseye Framework," a five-step process successful companies use to get traction. This framework helps founders find the marketing channel that will be key to unlocking the next stage of growth. Traction is a guide to getting customers, written for startup founders, marketers, and those interested in how today's startups grow and get traction. This book shows you how the founders of several of the biggest companies and organizations in the world like Jimmy Wales (Wikipedia), Alexis Ohanian (Reddit), Paul English (Kayak.com) and Alex Pachikov (Evernote) have built and grown their startups. We interviewed over forty successful founders and researched countless more growth stories to pull out the repeatable tactics and strategies they used to get traction. "Many entrepreneurs who build great products simply don't have a good distribution strategy." -- Mark Andreessen, venture capitalist Too often, startups spend months (or years) building a product only to struggle with traction once they launch. This struggle has startups trying random tactics - some ads, a blog post or two - in an unstructured way that leads to failure. Traction shows readers how to systematically approach marketing, and covers how successful businesses have grown through each of the following channels: Viral Marketing Public Relations (PR) Unconventional PR Search Engine Marketing (SEM) Social and Display Ads Offline Ads Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Content Marketing Email Marketing Engineering as Marketing Target Market Blogs Business Development (BD) Sales Affiliate Programs Existing Platforms Trade Shows Offline Events Speaking Engagements Community Building

1. “Traction is
basically
quantitative
evidence of
customer demand”
– Naval Ravikant,
founder of AngelList

2. Channels

3. 1. Brainstorm
2.Rank
3.Prioritize
4.Test
5.Focusing

4. Product Development & Traction
Simultaneously
Brainstorm
Rank
Prioritize
Test
Focusing

5. Make something people
want
3 Phases
Market something people
want
Scale your
business

6. • The Law of Shitty Click-
throughs
• Inner Circle Tests
• Optimization Through
A/B Testing
• Online Tools
• Quantify Your
Results

7. • Critical Path
• Traction Goal
• Milestones
• Department Critical Paths
• Traction Sub-Goals
• Mentors
• Overcome Biases
Traction Trumps Everything!

10. The Viral Coefficient tells you the number of additional
user you can get for each user you bring in.

12. Time for a viral
Strategy?

14. The best way to
figure out the
right kind of
loop to build
is simple:
copy those
who have
done it
before!

17. Public Relations = traffic +
fundraising

21. SEM Terminology

23. Social & Display Ads

24. • Large Ad Networks
• Niche Ad Networks
• Direct Ads

25. • LinkedIn
• Twitter
• Facebook
• StumbleUpon
• Foursquare
• Tumblr
• reddit
• YouTube

27. Demographics
Cost
Tracking

28. Fat-head vs. Long-Tail

32. • Finding
Customers
• Engaging
Customers
• Retaining
customer
• Revenue
• Referrals

34. Create useful tools like calculators, widgets, and educational
micro-sites to get your company in front of potential
customers. Its not physics, its engineering as marketing.

35. - Annual Promotions - Micro-Sites - Widgets

36. First you have to find them …
• Search Engines
• YouTube
• Delicious
• Twitter
• Social Mention
• Talk to People

37. VIP Access

38. Blog Sponsorship

39. • Standard
Partnership
• Joint Ventures
• Licensing
• Distribution Deals
• Supply Partners

40. Choose your partners wisely!

41. Build a pipeline of BD deals.

42. - API’s - Feeds
- Crawling Technology - Embed Codes

44. SPIN SELLING
S = Situation Questions
P = Problem Questions
I = Implication Questions
N = Need-Payoff Questions

45. Generating Leads
Qualifying Leads
Closing Leads
Sales Funnel

46. Common Affiliate
Programs
• Retail
• Coupon/Deal sites
• Loyalty programs
• Aggregators
• Email lists
• Vertical sites
• Information Products
• Lead Generation

47. Strategy & Tactics

48. Major Affiliate Networks:
• Commission Juntion
• ClickBank
• Affiliate.com
• Pepperjam
• ShareASale
• Adknowledge
• Linkshare
• MobAff
• Neverblue
• Clickbooth
• WhateSharek Media

49. Existing
Platforms
oApp Stores
oSocial
Platforms

56. • Build an Initial
Audience
• Establish Your Mission
• Foster Cross-
connections
• Communicate with
your Audience
• Be Transparent
• Ensure Quality

57. Benefits
• Building Assets
• Product Development
• Inbound Hiring

58. You just read how do you feel?