Traction: A Startup Guide to Getting Customers

Gabriel Weinberg and Justin Mares argue that startups fail not because they cannot build a product, but because they fail to acquire customers. They introduce the Bullseye Framework, a five-step process designed to identify which of nineteen specific distribution channels will drive growth. These nineteen channels include search engine marketing, viral loops, unconventional PR, and trade shows. The authors detail how to run cheap, parallel tests across different channels to find the one that offers the lowest acquisition cost before scaling efforts.

This book serves founders, marketing managers, and product leads who need to move beyond experimental guesswork toward a structured acquisition strategy. It is particularly useful for those in the pre-scale phase who have achieved product-market fit but lack a repeatable sales engine. Readers walk away with a specific methodology for prioritizing marketing experiments and a technical understanding of the various ways to reach a target audience. The text provides a practical template for balancing product development with the technical requirements of customer distribution.