How Any Startup Can Achieve Explosive Customer Growth

Traction

In Traction, serial entrepreneurs Gabriel Weinberg and Justin Mares give startups the tools for generating explosive customer growth 
 
'Anyone trying to break through to new customers can use this smart, ambitious book' 
Eric Ries, author of The Lean Startup 
 
Most startups don't fail because they can't build a product. Most startups fail because they can't get traction. 
 
Building a successful company is hard. Smart entrepreneurs know that the key to success isn't the originality of your offering, the brilliance of your team, or how much money you raise. It's how consistently you can grow and acquire new customers. 
 
Traction will teach you the nineteen channels you can use to build a customer base, and offers a three-step framework to figure out which ones will work best for your business. No matter how you apply them, the lessons and examples in Traction will help you create and sustain the growth your business desperately needs. 
 
'Here is the inside scoop, the latest, most specific tactics from the red-hot centre of the Internet marketing universe. From someone who has done it. Twice' 
Seth Godin, author of Linchpin

Anyone-founders, managers, and executives-trying to break through to new customers can use this smart, ambitious book

The question every founder asks after shipping is always: how do I get traction? This book actually answers it

The entrepreneurs who walk out of our offices with term sheets walk into them with Traction. It's a pragmatic guide to solving the entrepreneur's number one challenge

Traction is a critical guide for entrepreneurs looking to grow and scale their businesses

Patrick Vlaskovits, bestselling author of The Lean Entrepreneur

This is a must-have, essential book if you want to be good at growth

Traction is an absolute must. The Bullseye Framework Gabe and Justin layout is probably the greatest tool in my catalog over the past year. Whether you are a seasoned entrepreneur or just getting started, Traction offers a framework that creates efficiency, clarity, and focus. Traction is equal to and should be read alongside The Lean Startup

Traction belongs on every startup founder's bookshelf. I'm buying copies for the CEOs of my current angel investments

A common question I get is: 'How do I know if my business is getting traction, or how do I get traction for my business, or how do I get users?' Traction answers all of these questions and more

James Altucher, author of Choose Yourself.

Gabriel Weinberg (Author) Gabriel Weinberg is the founder and CEO of the multi-billion dollar internet privacy company, DuckDuckGo. He contributes to a number of publications including Medium and is the co-author of Traction. Justin Mares (Author) Justin Mares is the founder of two startups and former Director of Revenue at Exceptional, a software company that was acquired by Rackspace in 2013.

Why do so many startups fail? According to entrepreneurs Gabriel Weinberg and Justin Mares, most failed startups make the fatal mistake of putting all their effort into perfecting their product at the cost of reaching out to potential users. 
 
Instead, they should be putting half their resources into getting traction. Traction is the essential guide for any startup looking to stay ahead of the curve and start building a user base early in the game. The book offers no one-size-fits-all solution: every startup is unique, so no single method is guaranteed to generate traction. Instead, the authors identify nineteen different traction channels, from viral marketing to trade shows. They offer insights on how to exploit each one to its fullest potential, and provide a framework to test various channels and identify the best one for any startup.

Gabriel Weinberg

Lauren McCann

You can't really know anything if you just remember isolated facts. If the facts don't hang together on a latticework of theory, you don't have them in a usable form. You've got to have models in your head

investor, vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway

An intellectual playground that will have your brain doing mental reps and seeing the world differently

creator of the Farnam Street blog and host of The Knowledge Project podcast

An invaluable resource for making sense of the world, making good decisions, and placing smart bets. A fast-paced and fun read jam-packed with useful information on every page. I wish I'd had this book ages ago!

Internalizing these mental models will help you understand the world around you. Once you can spot them, you can change your own behavior to avoid common traps, adjust how you interact with people to get better results, and maybe even articulate new mental models of the world that have yet to be discovered

Upgrade Your Reasoning and Make Better Decisions with Mental Models

You want to make better decisions. You want to be right more of the time professionally and personally. However, being more right consistently is a hard problem because the world is such a complex, evolving place. How do you navigate this complexity? 
 
Mental models are decision-making tools that guide our perception of the world and our behaviour in it. They help us understand life, make decisions and solve problems. The best models help us make intelligent investments, develop ground-breaking technologies and even travel to outer space. 
 
Building on our knowledge of well-known models such as the Bandwagon Effect or Paradigm Shift and introducing us to the lesser known like the Eisenhower Matrix or the Boiling Frog Symbol, this indispensable book distils the most effective mental models into a single, digestible volume. It will make even the most complex models accessible and engaging to enable you to make better, more informed decisions in every part of your life.

Gabriel Weinberg

Praise for Super Thinking

You can't really know anything if you just remember isolated facts. If the facts don't hang together on a latticework of theory, you don't have them in a usable form. You've got to have models in your head

An intellectual playground that will have your brain doing mental reps and seeing the world differently

An invaluable resource for making sense of the world, making good decisions, and placing smart bets. A fast-paced and fun read jam-packed with useful information on every page. I wish I'd had this book ages ago!

You can't really know anything if you just remember isolated facts. If the facts don't hang together on a latticework of theory, you don't have them in a usable form. You've got to have models in your head

An intellectual playground that will have your brain doing mental reps and seeing the world differently

An invaluable resource for making sense of the world, making good decisions, and placing smart bets. A fast-paced and fun read jam-packed with useful information on every page. I wish I'd had this book ages ago!

You can't really know anything if you just remember isolated facts. If the facts don't hang together on a latticework of theory, you don't have them in a usable form. You've got to have models in your head

An intellectual playground that will have your brain doing mental reps and seeing the world differently

An invaluable resource for making sense of the world, making good decisions, and placing smart bets. A fast-paced and fun read jam-packed with useful information on every page. I wish I'd had this book ages ago!

Books by Gabriel Weinberg

Follow penguin

Follow ladybird

Follow puffin

Sign up to the Penguin newsletter