What is traction?

I’ve been doing a lot of information gathering lately. Talking to entrepreneurs who have sold their companies, talking to investors from angels to venture capitalists and talking to advisers. From every conversation, I have come away with 1 consistent word: traction. When I dug further that term seemed to fall apart into a million different pieces. Some said traction was having a million dollars in recurring revenue each month, others said traction was having letters of intent and contracts signed and others said traction was having 1000 of your first products in the hands of customers.

I don’t have a clear idea yet, but its starting to make sense. Traction is whatever you define it to be for your organization. It is the thing that indicates that you are moving in the right direction and building the right thing. It is at the climax of product market fit and at the start to series A funding or some other path toward more funding.

We have not hit this traction point yet, but are continuing to grow and working to hit our goals, milestones, and will eventually define traction on our own.