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Traction: A Startup Guide to Getting Customers

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

  • Format
  • hardcover
  • Pages
  • 288
  • Language
  • english
  • ISBN
  • 9780976339601
  • Genres
  • business, entrepreneurship, management, technology, leadership, buisness, reference, finance
  • Release date
  • 2014