Traction

Evidence that people want what you built — revenue, usage, retention, growth rate.

Example

$14k MRR growing 20% month over month with 90% logo retention.

Important

Traction is relative to stage and time. 'We launched six weeks ago and have 40 paying customers' is far stronger than a bigger absolute number over three years.

Related terms

• Pitch deck — A short presentation covering problem, solution, product, market, traction, model, competition, go-to-market, team and the ask.
• Product-market fit (PMF) — The point at which you have built something a specific group of people genuinely want, evidenced by their behaviour rather than their compliments.
• MRR (Monthly Recurring Revenue) — Predictable revenue that repeats every month from subscriptions or contracts.

Lessons that explain it

• Why companies acquire startups — Advanced. Understanding the buyer's motive tells you what your company is worth to them, and to whom. (12 min)
• What investors are actually assessing — Team, market, traction, insight, and whether the outcome can be large enough. In roughly that order, and mostly in the first ten minutes. (10 min)
• The pitch deck — Ten to twelve slides whose only job is to get the next meeting. Not to close the round. (12 min)
• Investor updates — A short monthly email that turns passive shareholders into people who actually help — and makes your next round dramatically easier. (10 min)
• The map of the whole journey — Problem → idea → customer discovery → validation → MVP → first users → product-market fit → revenue → growth → funding → scale. Where you are decides what you should be learning. (10 min)

All 176 terms in the Founder glossary