Traction by Gabiel Weinberg

Five years in the making, Traction book by DuckDuckGo founder Gabriel Weinberg is finally out (seemingly failing to get the traction it desrves).

Though, there’s nothing in the book you cannot find on the web scattered across numerous marketing blogs, it’s nice to have all those wisdom distilled in a 250 pages volume.

For the most part, Traction is a high-level overview of 19 traction channels Gabriel advises us to take into consideration (like content marketing, email marketing, affiliate programs, unconventional PR etc.), a chapter for each channel based on interviews with unquestionable authorities in the field (Sam Yagan of OkCupid, Rand Fishkin of SEOMoz and many other great guys we know and love).

Some takeaways:

• do more, faster ;)
• develop traction in parallel with the product
• you don’t know which traction channels are going to work, so identify those you are biased against and try them out
• great content can generate leads long after it was produced and is the cornerstone of many of the discussed strategies
• if you are a software shop, harnessing the power of youк programmers to market with code (giving away services that supplement your main product) is a good idea

Conclusion

Traction is a no-BS and full of actionable advice for getting your startup off the ground, go buy it.