Chapter 4 Traction Channels

This chapter is best done with a partner so you can come up with LOTS of ideas but you can do it solo if you need to. I like to work with a sharpy and sticky notes or just use a whiteboard.

We’re not re-inventing the wheel here. Jason Mares and Gabriel Weinberg wrote an amazing book called Traction that has extensive case studies on the 19 ways you can acquire customers both online and offline.

I shared this book with a friend on facebook and he wrote back “Thank you so much for sharing this book, I feel like I’ll never need to read another one on growth again!”

It’s so true. I’d been using this same mindset of running experiments to figure out how to acquire customers for years but Jason and Gabriel built a framework and case studies that will save you literally years of pain.

We’re going through their bull’s eye framework.

Take your stickies and try to come up with three ideas PER channel for ways you can get traction.

If you’re working in a small group or with a partner have each of you come up with 1 or 2 ideas per channel.

Once you have them all up on the board/wall, rank the ideas by which ones you think will get you customers fastest and/or with the lowest cost of acquisition.

Time yourselves and only allow for about 15 minutes of ideation and 5 minutes to rank them.

Now write all these ideas in the Growth Playbook for safe keeping.

Use the Second sheet of the traction section to prioritize your ideas and narrow them down to the three that you think should be your first experiments.

BOOM! In 20–30 minutes you should have some solid ideas that a ready to be turned into experiments.

As always, if you struggle here, reach out! We’ve got tons of people in our Facebook group that can help and I’m happy to answer any questions.

Challenge, Post your 3 channels and experiments to the group for feedback.