A Preview of Traction – A Startup Guide To Getting Customers with Justin Mares

Wade Danielson — Thu, 28 Aug 2014 12:59:49 +0000

A summary of things you should know about Traction according to Justin Mares

Introduction

In this episode Justin Mares shares his book Traction which is a guide for entrepreneurs and business owners who need help getting customers. The purpose of this book is to place business founders ahead of the competition no matter what kind of business they are running. If you are starting a business and do not have a ton of budget, this book is for you.

The Book’s Unique Quality

Our book, unlike any others out there, provides you with what we call the bull’s-eye framework which is a five step framework that helps companies determine what traction channels can work for them to acquire customers.

The Best Way To Engage

We provide the framework and the approach in the beginning of the book and then we do a deep dive on every potential channel that a startup could use to get traction, in the remaining 19 chapters of the book.

The Reader’s Takeaway

If you’re starting a company and don’t have a ton of budget, what you need to do is try and find a new platform or a new way to acquire users, that is not already saturated and really expensive.

A Deep Dive Into The Book

In The first chapter we introduce to you that traction is now the most important thing that startups need to focus on. The next four chapters take you through the bulls-eye framework; a framework that helps founders, marketers and entrepreneurs figure out what channels makes sense for them and shows you how to run quick tests in each of the channels. We also talk about something that we call the traction split. Early stage companies fall into this trap where they think if they build a great product, people will naturally flock to them. We explain to you that early stage founders and companies should be spending half of their time on product development and the other half on traction.

After the introduction we take you through a deep dive into Viral Marketing, Public Relations, Unconventional PR, Search Engine Marketing, Social & Display Advertising, Offline Ads, Search Engine Optimization, Content Marketing, Email Marketing, Engineering as Marketing, Targeting Blogs, Business Development, Sales, Affiliate Programs, Existing Platforms, Trade Shows, Offline Events, Speaking Engagements and Community Building. After covering all of these channels we wrap with a conclusion with how to think about it, we provide more resources and give founders a cheat sheet for how they can think about, approach and get traction through whatever channel works best for them.

The purpose of the book is for this to be a must read for startup founders so that no matter what kind of company you’re starting, you pick this book up, you’re automatically ahead of most individuals and then you can find the type of business/traction channel that works for what you’re doing.

Notable Quotes From The Book

“The number one reason that they pass on entrepreneurs that they would otherwise like to back is that they don’t have a good distribution strategy.” –Marc Andreessen

“Most companies don’t fail to build a product, they fail to get traction.” – Justin Mares

The Credibility/Inspiration Of The Author

I co-founded two companies, one was acquired and the other a bust. Most recently I was director of revenues at a company called Exceptional Cloud Services who got acquired by Rackspace about a year and a half ago now. I recently left Rackspace and now I’m launching Traction Book which is a startup guide to getting customers and that will be coming out August 26, 2014.

My co-author Gabriel Weinberg and I both noticed that today the challenge is not so much in building a product but that companies are struggling to get traction. The inspiration in writing the book was to provide startups with the framework and tools to focus on and get traction so that they can build successful companies.