Traction: A Startup Guide to Getting Customers is a comprehensive guide to marketing and acquiring customers written by Justin Mares, CEO of Product-Led and former Director of Growth at Exceptional. The book is designed specifically for entrepreneurs and startup founders and outlines the 19 most successful marketing and customer growth tactics, as well as 10 traits that all successful startups need.By introducing a framework to test each marketing and customer acquisition tactic, Mares helps you figure out which ones are best suited to your business. He also reveals how to create and manage a testing budget and prioritize the strategies that will generate the most traction. In addition, he breaks down each tactic in detail and provides real-world examples of how companies have used them to effectively acquire customers.The book covers techniques such as content marketing, SEO, direct sales, online and offline advertising, affiliate programs, and more. In each section, Mares explains how to set up and deploy each fresh idea and how to measure the success of each one to maximize the growth of your business. He also reveals key tips from his own experience in growth strategy, including psychological principles, pricing tactics, and targeted outreach.Traction: A Startup Guide to Getting Customers is the book that every startup founder needs to have on their shelf. With clear advice and actionable strategies, this is essential reading for any aspiring entrepreneur.
Add missing EndorsementCory Zue (Software Developer & Entrepreneur) The business book I find myself recommending the most often is Traction, which is an excellent practical and high-level take on strategies for getting traction for your products. I found it particularly helpful because it prevents a framework and strategies you can actually execute and follow yourself instead of just pontificating about ideas.
Dave Child (Founder/Readable.io) Recently, I've been reading Traction by Gabriel Weinberg. Readable.io has been growing well, and we've been exploring new marketing avenues and ideas. Traction is a really useful book to read in that regard - it explores a variety of different approaches to marketing, each paired with some direct experiences from someone who has achieved success with that approach. We're a small team, with limited resources, and the approach of Traction is working well for us so far. Seeing ideas explored and balanced with some real-world experiences is a nice way to get yourself to think about marketing possibilities, and less dry than some of the other books I've tried.
Gunhee Park (Co-Founder/Populum) This book lays out a framework to help any startup brainstorm ways to gain more customer traction.
I can recommend this book to any new startup trying to get traction, or existing startups trying to reach new levels of traction. The book helped to give us a nudge to try some new traction channels again.
Kevan Lee (Marketing Director/Buffer) The bullseye framework for finding the best traction channels: Get it here.
Marc Montagne (Co-Founder/Toolwatch.io) I've enjoyed reading Traction by Gabriel Weinberg and Justin Mares at the time I was starting Toolwatch.io. The very precise approach to customer acquisition helped us a lot in the first stages of Toolwatch and gave us a great framework to acquire new users which we are still using today!
Ola Olusoga (Co-founder/Populum) There was a moment where I was on a quest for self-discovery. I felt lost and wasn't sure if I was who I was because I made the decision to be me, or if my identity was programmed by culture, society and setting. Because of that, I started reading self-help books to reconstruct identity and mold who I wanted to be. This book helped me.