Traction is everything

The theme for this week's lecture was about growth and getting traction. This week we also had a quest speaker Xiaochen. She is a Co-founder & the Chief Marketing Officer at Guide to Iceland. Xiaochen told the story of their company and at the end of her presentation we had a Q&A related to growth and HR issues. Afterwards we discussed the topic growth in more detail.

Growth is the engine of startup. If growth stops so will the startup. (Source)

Growth is the engine behind every startup and it should never be underestimated. This was made clear on the very first lecture with this course. On the first lecture I asked what is the most common mistake when starting a startup, and the answer was: the lack of traction. It is very common for founders the get too caught up in product development and focus too little on getting traction. If you fail to focus on getting traction while doing product development you will most likely end up with a product the customer won't even want. You have to always think about the customer and if you lose focus you will not succeed. This point brings us to a great tip from the Traction book:

"The biggest mistake startup make when trying to get traction is failing to pursue traction parallel with product development. Traction and product development are of equal importance and should each get about half of your attention. This is what we call the golden rule :

Spend 50% of your time on product 

and 50 % on traction"

-Traction book 

  

So how to get traction then? Well there are many ways. The Traction book  lists a total of 19 different solutions for this issue. These options range from viral marketing to PR stunt events. It is vital to get at lease one of these channels to work. Peter Thiel (co-founder of PayPal) has stated:

"If you can get even a single distribution channel to work, you have a great business.  

    

If you try several but don't nail one, you're finished. So it's worth thinking really hard about finding the best distribution channel"

It is also important to note that traction is not a function of money, although in some cases having money helps. But the point is that to get traction you don't need money and this is what many founders get wrong. Many think that getting money from investor for marketing purposes will magically solve everything. This is not the case. To be able to get funding you have to show traction and growth. Having statistics that your startup is growing is the best proof to show your concept works and this is what many investors are looking for in a startup. So never ever forget to focus on getting traction when starting a startup!

Here's all for now, until next time!