Most startups end in failure.
Almost every failed startup has a product. What failed startups don't have are enough customers.
Founders and employees fail to spend time thinking about (and working on) traction in the same way they work on building a product. This shortsighted approach has startups trying random tactics - some ads, a blog post or two - in an unstructured way that's guaranteed to fail.
This book changes that. Traction Book provides startup founders and employees with the framework successful companies have used to get traction. It allows you to think about which marketing channels make sense for you, given your industry and company stage.
This framework has been used by founders like Jimmy Wales (Wikipedia), Alexis Ohanian (Reddit), Paul English (Kayak.com), and Alex Pachikov (Evernote) to build some of the biggest companies and organizations in the world. We interviewed each of the above founders - along with 35+ others - and pulled out the repeatable tactics and strategies they used to get traction.
We then cover every possible marketing channel you can use to get traction, and show you which channels will be your key to growth. This book shows you how to grow at a time when getting traction is more important than ever.
Below are the channels we cover in the book:
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
This book draws on interviews with the following individuals:
Jimmy Wales, Co-founder of Wikipedia
Alexis Ohanian, Co-founder of reddit
Eric Ries, Author of The Lean Startup
Rand Fishkin, Founder of SEOmoz
Noah Kagan, Founder of AppSumo
Patrick McKenzie, CEO of Bingo Card Creator
Sam Yagan, Co-founder of OkCupid
Andrew Chen, Investor at 500 Startups
Justin Kan, Founder of Justin.tv
Mark Cramer, CEO of SurfCanyon
Colin Nederkoorn, CEO of Customer.io
Jason Cohen, Founder of WP Engine
Chris Fralic, Partner at First Round
Paul English, CEO of Kayak.com
Rob Walling, Founder of MicroConf
Brian Riley, Co-founder of SlidePad
Steve Welch, Co-founder of DreamIt
Jason Kincaid, Blogger at TechCrunch
Nikhil Sethi, Founder of Adaptly
Rick Perreault, CEO of Unbounce
Alex Pachikov, Co-founder of Evernote
David Skok, Partner at Matrix
Ashish Kundra, CEO of myZamana
David Hauser, Founder of Grasshopper
Matt Monahan, CEO of Inflection
Jeff Atwood, Co-founder of Discourse
Dan Martell, CEO of Clarity.fm
Chris McCann, Founder of StartupDigest
Ryan Holiday, Exec at American Apparel
Todd Vollmer, Enterprise Sales Veteran
Sandi MacPherson, Founder of Quibb
Andrew Warner, Founder of Mixergy
Sean Murphy, Founder of SKMurphy
Satish Dharmaraj, Partner at Redpoint
Garry Tan, Partner at Y Combinator
Steve Barsh, CEO of Packlate
Michael Bodekaer, Co-founder of Smart Launch
Zack Linford, Founder of Optimozo