traction.md

#Traction -- by Gabriel Weinberg and Justin Mares

This book provides a survey of startup growth (traction) channels, in the form of interviews or relevant stories. Each chapter revolves around an exemplary case of a company relevant to one traction strategy. Examples include viral marketing, public relations, content marketing, and so on.

The author's argument is that there are only limited ways to grow a company, and it's hard to predict which ones will work in each case. In practice, one strategy will work much better than others, and it is important to find it quickly. They propose a process (which they call the Bullseye Framework) to determine which channels to pursue, and to quickly test growth tactics until one works out. The author argues that the Bullseye Framework is complementary to the Lean Startup (a business process that advocates for quick product experimentation by trial and error to reduce the amount of time it takes to get a minimum viable product). They argue that founders should split their time between building their product and finding growth. Both are necessary parts of a successful business, but technical founders tend to focus on product alone and neglect growth.

Traction channels have a natural lifecycle. Strategies that work at a certain phase of the life of a company might stop working after a while. For example, DuckDuckGo found PR to be very useful in the beginning, but now that they have millions of users, a mention in The New York Times does not have a noticeable effect, so they started focusing on partnerships with device makers, ultimately closing a deal with Apple for Safari/iPhone.

Below is a summary of some of the most relevant chapters, perhaps biased from the point of view of Priority Matrix. The individual chanels start on chapter 6, once the general framework has been introduced.

Chapter 6 - Viral Marketing

(Read it a while back so I need to refresh my memory)

• Hot or not
• Viral coefficient (>1 -> viral; >.5 -> might help compound other growth channels)
• Does not saturate naturally, unlike other channels, because it grows with the size of the userbase

Chapter 7 - Public Relations (PR)

Public relations as a traction channel involves getting mentions in the media to put a product or service in front of an audience. In the past, PR agencies ruled this world because it used to be built on long term relationships with journalists who would respond to tips from trusted connections. This is an expensive approach for most startups, and in today's media landscape, one that is unlikely to work well.

Media outlets follow a loosely hierarchical structure. Blogs generate lots of content, feeding traffic and attention to each other. Specialized, local or less reputable news sites scout a myriad relevant blogs and occasionally report on interesting or buzzworthy content. Most outlets profit from ads, and more audience means more ads served, so content that's timely, controversial or otherwise noteworthy will be more likely picked up. Ultimately reputable sites (WSJ, NYT, network TV) will report on big stories from places like TechCrunch or re/code.

The best way to approach a PR campaign is not directly, but obliquely. Don't just reach out. Reporters get pitched all the time and you will be forgotten. Start by seeing what lower level sources they like to refer, and try to get mentioned there. Hopefully you'll be noticed and snowball up rather than aiming straight to the final goal.

• Timely exclusives are tempting for most reporters.
• Combine more than one announcement into one to make it more compelling. You need to rise above an attention threshold.
• Satisfaction is not viral. When you write your piece, keep your goal in mind and try to compel the reader to take action toward it
• Follow relevant reporters on Twitter and engage them. They usually don't have many followers, so you will be noticed. Build a seed of relationship.
• Offer to do the bulk of the work (i.e. offer a first draft roughly as long as their typical story)
• Ride the wave for as long as possible. Offer follow interviews to sites that mentioned your story. Giveaways are nice.
• Many reporters don't care for PR agencies but will listen to founders. Don't hire an agency too early.
• Keep it short and sweet (KISS!)

Unconventional PR http://tbook.us/upr

Unconventional PR is any unusual way to get word of mouth and attention. Examples include publicity stunts, unusually great customer service, customer appreciation, contests and giveaways.

• Companies that excel at this include: Grashopper.com, Hipmunk, Chargify, Zappos
• Grasshopper sent chocolate covered grasshoppers to 500 entrepreneurs instead of making a vanilla PR announcement
• Chargify placed a 600lb block of ice with dollar bills inside and a sign saying "Paypal freezes your accounts", in front of Paypal's own conference
• Hipmunk routinely runs mother/father's day with contests telling people to say why they love their mom/dad more than Hipmunk
• Grasshopper uses their own press attention to promote their users instead, creating goodwill
• Grasshopper has 2 full time people dedicated to customer appreciation, sending homemade cookies, flowers, books and more to their customers
• Half.com hired 2 residents of Halfway, OR and had them change the town's name for a year
• Ideas:
• Send dedicated books to our users to show appreciation (I like giving away books I enjoyed, instead of keeping them on a shelf, so this is the same)
• Do something that helps our users focus on what matters in life. Things like doing their laundry so they can spend time with family.
• Hold a prioritization marathon, helping people decide between different areas of focus on their lives.