Traction is the act of drawing or pulling something over to you. It is the extent to which an idea, product, etc. gains popularity, publicity or acceptance with other people. According to Naval Ravikant, Traction is the quantitative evidence of customer demand.
Traction is the rate at which your product acceptance grows.
The pursuit of traction is what defines a startup. Traction is the holy grail for all startups. It is the required evidence that something is working and the best way to improve your chances of startup success. Traction means customers are buying and if your product is free it means it is growing a user base. Traction is very important for every startup. Typically, within the first 2 to 3 years, the goal for startups is to keep increasing their user base. This is because traction determines if a product will fail or be successful. In fact, a product can be great and fail if there is no traction.
A lot of investment without ROI goes into the early stage of a start-up and it is very important that the product gets traction as soon as possible before funding runs out. You can make educated guesses on the best way to get traction, but until you try them out, it’s difficult to tell which channel is the best for your startup. This is why it is important to know all the possible ways to get traction in the quickest time possible.
The common Traction Channels are search engine optimization and viral marketing. Though they are well worn out, they still work. However, there are other ways one can gain traction that would prove useful to your startup.
Here are 15 ways to gain traction for your startup.
- Speaking engagements
- Community Building
- Offline Events
- Trade Shows
- Affiliate Programs
- Sales
- Business Development
- Viral Marketing
- Email Marketing
- Content Marketing
- Offline Ads
- Search Engine Optimization
- Billboards- Social and display ads
- Targeting niche Blogs
- Publicity.
