4 ms·

The Bullseye Framework for getting traction

38 points by revorad 14y ago

porter 14y ago
Really looking forward to this book. Couple of questions. 1) Do you have a public list of the 20 traction verticals? 2) When is getting traction not a power law problem?
- yegg 14y ago
  1) The best list is the list of chapters, which is currently at the bottom of http://tractionbook.com/ http://tractionbook.com/. It is a bit murky as a concept as some verticals clearly overlap, and there are thus other ways to delineate where one stops and one starts, but this is our current approach. We'd also love to know if people think we're missing ones. 2) There are some businesses that get similar amounts of meaningful customers from different channels, e.g. SEO and inbound marketing. Usually these cases are when they overlap in strategy, but sometimes they are legitimately independent. In those cases, one vertical clearly doesn't dominate in the pareto 80/20 sense, and it makes sense to focus on multiple verticals.
ivanhoe 14y ago
tl;dr: just a bunch of general, vague explanations, and for the real stuff you need to buy their book...
- revorad 14y ago
  Very unfair comment on a good post which links to a bunch of extremely valuable posts and resources. All the video interviews of their book are also available here for free - http://tractionbook.com/old/ http://tractionbook.com/old/ Gabriel is one of the best startup founders and bloggers, who always has a unique take on things and shares great data and resources. Please don't be so dismissive.
  - yegg 14y ago
    Thanks. In all honestly, I delayed writing and then struggled with writing this post for knowing that this very exchange would take place. You can't have a post too long or it will have less readers (learned that over the years). On the other side, you risk getting dismissed in this manner. I decided that introducing the concept would be useful, and that I could do follow-on posts based on feedback from this one. That said, I don't see what is so vague. The premises are very specific. The process is very specific. If you need more details to implement it, please let me know what they are. What is really missing is all the arguments around the nuances, which I referenced at the end. But those felt more like footnotes, which I generally jettison.
    - bokwalk1717 14y ago
      I can sympathize with the commenter's frustration. Many blog posts oftentimes present frameworks for app growth, but lack case studies with tactical insight to support. However, this isn't Gabe's style, and I think his intention is to provide such case studies, going forward and in his book. Introducing the concept initially is certainly useful.
    - kordless 14y ago
      Remember the Pareto principle! :) I owned an ISP in the 90s. A little under 10% of our customers chewed up 90% of our time spent doing support. A few handfuls weren't worth the time (or were abusive), and I took to 'firing' them as customers to help save our sanity. I read and reread your post. I think, like most things that matter, we have to spend a bit of time thinking about the problem and how you are proposing to solve it. More than a few of us here are addicted to the Internet and have very little bandwidth to dedicate to really understanding what we just read. It's my opinion you do a great job boiling this down to the basics, and it's enough for someone like me to do the work on my own. Thank you.
sudhanshua 14y ago
Looking forward to the book and hoping that it is short and to the point.

38 points by revorad 14y ago

Really looking forward to this book. Couple of questions. 1) Do you have a public list of the 20 traction verticals? 2) When is getting traction not a power law problem?

yegg 14y ago
1) The best list is the list of chapters, which is currently at the bottom of http://tractionbook.com/ http://tractionbook.com/. It is a bit murky as a concept as some verticals clearly overlap, and there are thus other ways to delineate where one stops and one starts, but this is our current approach. We'd also love to know if people think we're missing ones. 2) There are some businesses that get similar amounts of meaningful customers from different channels, e.g. SEO and inbound marketing. Usually these cases are when they overlap in strategy, but sometimes they are legitimately independent. In those cases, one vertical clearly doesn't dominate in the pareto 80/20 sense, and it makes sense to focus on multiple verticals.

ivanhoe 14y ago

tl;dr: just a bunch of general, vague explanations, and for the real stuff you need to buy their book...

revorad 14y ago
Very unfair comment on a good post which links to a bunch of extremely valuable posts and resources. All the video interviews of their book are also available here for free - http://tractionbook.com/old/ http://tractionbook.com/old/ Gabriel is one of the best startup founders and bloggers, who always has a unique take on things and shares great data and resources. Please don't be so dismissive.
- yegg 14y ago
  Thanks. In all honestly, I delayed writing and then struggled with writing this post for knowing that this very exchange would take place. You can't have a post too long or it will have less readers (learned that over the years). On the other side, you risk getting dismissed in this manner. I decided that introducing the concept would be useful, and that I could do follow-on posts based on feedback from this one. That said, I don't see what is so vague. The premises are very specific. The process is very specific. If you need more details to implement it, please let me know what they are. What is really missing is all the arguments around the nuances, which I referenced at the end. But those felt more like footnotes, which I generally jettison.
  - bokwalk1717 14y ago
    I can sympathize with the commenter's frustration. Many blog posts oftentimes present frameworks for app growth, but lack case studies with tactical insight to support. However, this isn't Gabe's style, and I think his intention is to provide such case studies, going forward and in his book. Introducing the concept initially is certainly useful.
  - kordless 14y ago
    Remember the Pareto principle! :) I owned an ISP in the 90s. A little under 10% of our customers chewed up 90% of our time spent doing support. A few handfuls weren't worth the time (or were abusive), and I took to 'firing' them as customers to help save our sanity. I read and reread your post. I think, like most things that matter, we have to spend a bit of time thinking about the problem and how you are proposing to solve it. More than a few of us here are addicted to the Internet and have very little bandwidth to dedicate to really understanding what we just read. It's my opinion you do a great job boiling this down to the basics, and it's enough for someone like me to do the work on my own. Thank you.

sudhanshua 14y ago

Looking forward to the book and hoping that it is short and to the point.