Introducing the teams to the concept of Traction, based on the Traction book

1. WORKSHOP: TRACTION

2. Agenda
• Intro
• The Bullseye Framework
• Traction Channels
• Next steps

3. Traction Trumps Everything
“A startup is a company designed to grow
fast. Being newly founded does not in itself
make a company a startup. Nor is it necessary
for a startup to work on technology, or take
venture funding, or have some sort of ‘exit.’
The only essential thing is growth. Everything
else we associate with startups follows from
growth.”
Paul Graham, Y Combinator

4. #1 Failure Reason
“Poor distribution— not product— is the
number one cause of failure. If you can get
even a single distribution channel to work, you
have great business. If you try for several but
don’t nail one, you’re finished. So it’s worth
thinking really hard about finding the single
best distribution channel.”
Peter Thiel, PayPal Founder / FB Early Investor

5. Traction Channels
Traction Channels
=
Distribution Channels
=
Customer Acquisition Channels

6. THE BULLSEYE FRAMEWORK

7. The Bullseye Framework
A framework to help you find your channel in a
five-step process:
1. Brainstorm
2. Rank
3. Prioritize
4. Test
5. Focus

8. WHY WE DO THIS!

9. Overcoming Your Biases
Why spend time and money on a channel you know little about, or
you think is irrelevant to your business?
This bias may be preventing you from getting traction.
• Get a competitive advantage by acquiring customers in ways
your competition isn’t.
• There are three reasons why founders ignore potentially
profitable traction channels:
• Out of sight, out of mind. (Speaking Engagements)
• Negative View (You hate Talking over phone)
• Bias against schlep – ( BizDev and TradeShows look time
consuming)
Be honest with yourself:
which traction channels are you currently biased for or against?

10. 10
EXERCISE

11. TRACTION CHANNELS

12. Traction Channel 1
VIRAL MARKETING: of growing your user base by
encouraging your users to refer other users.

13. Traction Channel 2
Public Relations (PR): the art of getting your name out
there via traditional media outlets like newspapers,
magazines and TV.

14. Traction Channel 3
Unconventional PR: doing something exceptional (like
publicity stunts) to draw media attention.

15. Traction Channel 4
Search Engine Marketing (SEM): allows companies to
advertise to consumers searching on Google and other
search engines

16. Traction Channel 5
Display Ads: Text and Banner Ads on popular ad networks
and social medias like reddit, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter to
target customers

17. Traction Channel 6
Offline Ads: TV spots, radio commercials, billboards,
infomercials, newspaper and magazine ads, as well as flyers
and other local advertisements,

18. Traction Channel 7
Search Engine Optimization (SEO): is the process of making
sure your website shows up for key search results.

19. Traction Channel 8
Email Marketing: one of the best ways to convert prospects
while retaining and monetizing existing ones.

20. Traction Channel 9
Content Marketing: Creating and publishing content on
your blog and other mediums to attract customers.

21. Traction Channel 10
Engineering as Marketing: Using engineering resources to
acquire customers is an underutilized way to get traction.
e.g Tools, widgets, toolbars, etc

22. Traction Channel 11
Targeting Blogs: Targeting related blogs to write about your
amazing product.

23. Traction Channel 12
Business development (BD): the process of creating
strategic relationships that benefit both your startup and
your partner.

24. Traction Channel 13
Sales: creating processes to directly exchange product for
money.

25. Traction Channel 14
Affiliate Programs: rewarding one or more affiliates for
bringing customers to your product

26. Traction Channel 15
Existing Platforms: Focusing your growth efforts on a mega-
platform like an App Store and getting some of their
millions users to use your product.

27. Traction Channel 16
Trade Shows: A chance for companies in specific industries
to show off their latest products.

28. Traction Channel 17
Offline Events: Sponsoring or running offline events – from
small meetups to large conferences.

29. Traction Channel 18
Speaking Engagement: Speaking at events to promote
yourself and the product associated with your startup

30. Traction Channel 19
Community Building: Forming passionate communities
around their products.

31. NEXT STEPS

32. STEP 1: BRAINSTORM
• Brainstorm at least two ideas for
each traction channel. Don’t leave
any out.
• Have in mind what worked/ did not
work for similar businesses

33. STEP 1: BRAINSTORM
• How could you quickly test this channel?
• How promising is this idea (1– 5)?
• How expensive is it to acquire customers
through this channel (1-5)?
• How many customers can you expect to
acquire through this channel?
• What is the timeframe needed to run
tests?

34. STEP 2: RANK
Rank each traction channel:
• A (Inner Circle): which traction channels seem
most promising right now?
• B (Potential): which traction channels seem like
they could possibly work?
• C (Long-shot): which traction channels seem like
long-shots?

35. STEP 3: PRIORITIZE
Now identify your inner circle: the three
traction channels that seem most promising.
If you already have three channels in Column A,
you’re done! If you have more than three, then you
need to get rid of some and vice-versa.
It is often the case that there are a few truly exciting
and promising channels that emerge from ranking,
but not a lot.

36. STEP 4: TEST
The goal of this step is to find out which of
the traction channel in your inner circle is
worth focusing on.

37. STEP 4: TEST
Questions:
• Roughly how much will it cost to acquire customers
through this channel?
• How many customers do you think are available
through this channel?
• Are the customers that you are getting through this
channel the ones that you want right now?

38. STEP 4: TEST
Make that decision based on results from a series of
relatively cheap tests.
When testing, you are replacing your educated
guesses with real answers.
When testing, you are not trying to get a lot of
traction with a channel just yet.
Your main consideration at this point is speed to get
data and prove out your assumptions.

39. STEP 5: FOCUS
At any stage in a startup’s lifecycle, one traction
channel dominates in terms of customer acquisition.
As you dive deeper into it, you will uncover effective
tactics and do everything you can to scale them until
they are no longer effective due to saturation or
rising costs.

40. REPEAT THE PROCESS when required
If, unfortunately, no channel
seems promising after testing,
the whole process should be
repeated.