{"id":33737,"date":"2014-10-28T09:00:43","date_gmt":"2014-10-28T13:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mixergy.com\/?p=33737"},"modified":"2016-06-24T14:07:40","modified_gmt":"2016-06-24T21:07:40","slug":"course-cheat-sheet-traction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixergy.com\/course-cheat-sheet-traction\/","title":{"rendered":"Master Class: How to get traction – with Gabriel Weinberg"},"content":{"rendered":"

If your product is really awesome, your startup might fail.<\/p>\n

Wait, what?<\/p>\n

Gabriel Weinberg says that\u2019s exactly what happened with one of his earlier startups, Groupomatic. \u201cI made a product that people were interested in,\u201d says Gabriel Weinberg, the founder of search engine DuckDuckGo<\/a> and author of Traction: A Startup Guide to Getting Customers. \u201cThere was clearly some need for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

So Gabriel worked hard to build a great product, but there was just one problem. \u201cI didn’t really focus on getting traction while I was building the product,\u201d he says. \u201cSo I launched it to basically no fanfare, had no idea what to do next, and that’s really a common story, unfortunately. And the sad part about it is that the products are often good.\u201d<\/p>\n

Today Gabriel knows how to start building traction from day one, which is how he grew DuckDuckGo to 150 million searches per month.<\/p>\n

And in his Mixergy course<\/a>, he shows you how to get traction for your own startup. Here are three highlights from the course.<\/p>\n

1. Go for the Bullseye<\/h2>\n

\"\"If you\u2019re already awesome at guest blogging or SEO, it seems logical to start with what you know.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut…what you know may just be the wrong channel for your business right now,\u201d says Gabriel.<\/p>\n

That was a mistake Gabriel made in the early days of DuckDuckGo. \u201cThe first [marketing] channel for DuckDuckGo was SEO, and the only reason for that was that my last business grew a lot through SEO, so I know SEO,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

But SEO wasn\u2019t working. \u201cI got a tiny bit of traction through SEO,\u201d he says, \u201cbut the volume was tiny.\u201d It was the wrong channel.<\/p>\n

So how do you find the right marketing channel?<\/p>\n

Test and focus<\/em><\/h3>\n

Use the bulls-eye framework to find a profitable channel.<\/p>\n

To do that, set a clear goal, and then brainstorm every possible marketing channel you can think of. \u201cSome of the channels won’t work,\u201d says Gabriel. \u201cAnd so you\u2019ve got to know what your goal is so you can measure what you’re doing against that goal.\u201d<\/p>\n

After you\u2019ve listed the channels, put rough numbers to them. \u201cHow many people do I think will convert?\u201d says Gabriel. \u201cHow much will it cost to convert them, and are these customers that I want?\u201d Then, narrow your list down to a few promising channels, test them, and focus on the channel that works best.<\/p>\n

With DuckDuckGo, Gabriel set an initial goal of 100 million searches per month. And one of the channels he wanted to test was getting press by doing something PR-worthy. So he bought a billboard in San Francisco that said, \u201cGoogle tracks you, we don’t. Search better at DuckDuckGo.com.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA Wired reporter made it the lead story for a day,\u201d says Gabriel. \u201cAnd then we leveraged that to get the same story in USA Today and a couple of other places. And it really did move the needle, and so we said let\u2019s double down on this and try to get press for the next year. That’s what we focused on.\u201d<\/p>\n

2. Don\u2019t Be So Fancy<\/h2>\n

\"\"\u201cDo things that scale.\u201d That advice makes sense, unless you\u2019re trying to get traction for your fledgling startup.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the earliest stage…your traction goal is usually small,\u201d says Gabriel. \u201cYou just need to get a little bit of traction to get to the next level. A lot of unscaleable things actually move the needle for that [initial] goal.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition, scalable things like automation can distance you from your target customer. \u201cWe’re talking about building the product while you’re building traction, he says. \u201cAnd you might change the product because of [customer feedback], right?\u201d<\/p>\n

So what should you do to get traction (and feedback) in the early stages?<\/p>\n

Reach out personally<\/em><\/h3>\n

Make personal connections.<\/p>\n

\u201cSpeaking at a conference and even going door-to-door…won’t move the needle later on in your business life,\u201d says Gabriel. \u201cBut that’s okay because right now they can. And if you know what your goal is, then you should be willing to do it if the numbers work out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another benefit is that you\u2019ll get a better response rate by making a personal connection. \u201cOne of the advantages founders have is that they’re authentic people,\u201d he says. \u201cSo the founder reaching out…is kind of surprising to people on the other end, and you’ll have much higher conversion rates.\u201d<\/p>\n

Finally, personal connections with customers are key to a successful launch. Gabriel points to the example of Noah Kagan, founder of AppSumo. When Noah was working on the Mint.com launch, he personally asked people to put Mint badges on their sites before Mint was live.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe premise is that you’re working on a product that people really want,\u201d says Gabriel. \u201cAnd if that wasn’t the case with Mint, then no one would have put these badges up no matter how persuasive Noah was. But people really did want it.\u201d As a result, Mint had 10,000 pre-registrations before they launched.<\/p>\n

3. Walk In Their Shoes<\/h2>\n

\"\"At some point, you have to ask for the sale. Ideally, you want to ask for the sale before the product is even built.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou’re thinking, \u2018I have this product,\u2019\u201d says Gabriel.\u201d\u2019I need to put up a pricing page, and I’m coming up with this price point, and they need to pay before they try it because I need money right now.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s the wrong way to design a sales funnel, he says, because it\u2019s all about you.<\/p>\n

So how should you design your sales funnel?<\/p>\n

See it from their perspective<\/em><\/h3>\n

Design your sales funnel from the customer\u2019s point of view.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe customer perspective is, they land on my website, who is the primary customer landing there?\u201d says Gabriel. \u201cWhat are they thinking? What do they really need?\u201d<\/p>\n

For instance, software development company JBoss was trying to convert users of their free software into paying customers. And they saw that a lot of freemium users wanted documentation. \u201cSo what JBoss decided to do was tie getting the documentation to getting an email address,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd once they got the email address then they would…see if [the user] needed more help, and if they needed more help, then they would go to their inside sales team.\u201d<\/p>\n

The process worked well because JBoss wasn\u2019t constantly marketing to free users, they were only stepping up interaction when a user asked for help.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor other businesses it may be totally different, but the general point is that you need to think from a customer perspective, and the easiest way to do that is to talk to customers,\u201d says Gabriel.<\/p>\n

Written by April Dykman.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Even if your product is really awesome, your startup might fail.<\/p>\n

But in his Mixergy course, Gabriel shows you how to get traction…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2370,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[293,295,245],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33737","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cheat-sheet","category-course-cheat-sheet","category-courses"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nMaster Class: How to get traction - with Gabriel Weinberg - Business Podcast for Startups<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Even if your product is really awesome, your startup might fail. 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