Traction: How Any Startup can Achieve Explosive Customer Growth

Traction by Gabriel Weinberg and Justin Mares is one of those books that can turn a great idea into a successful business. While many startup books focus on vision, funding or company culture, Traction zooms in on one thing: growth. And it does so in a clear, structured, and actionable way.

Based on interviews with dozens of founders and growth experts, the authors don’t offer buzzwords – they offer a repeatable system. And that makes this book a must-read for anyone involved in building and launching digital products.

Why Traction Stands Out

At its core, Traction asks the most critical question for any startup: how do you get users? The book breaks down 19 different marketing channels – from PR to viral loops, from content marketing to partnerships. But it’s not about picking one at random. Instead, it teaches you to run structured experiments to see which channels show real promise for your product.

This mindset closely matches the thinking behind smart technical decision-making like refactoring vs rewriting. You don’t overinvest early. You explore, validate, and then scale – whether it’s marketing or your codebase.

The Bullseye Framework

The Bullseye Framework is the heart of the book. It helps you systematically test and prioritize growth channels by first mapping all possibilities, then testing the most promising, and finally focusing all your energy on what actually works.

This framework gives structure not just to marketing teams, but also to product owners and founders. If you’re building a platform or SaaS solution, it’s critical to learn early what drives growth. The Bullseye Framework lets you do just that, without wasting months of guesswork.

Practical Application in Digital Products

What makes Traction more than a marketing book is how deeply it ties into product development. Weinberg and Mares highlight that growth efforts must go hand in hand with product thinking. Your MVP isn’t just about core features – it’s also about being able to test growth potential.

At GlobalOrange, we see this daily. During our Product Discovery Workshops, we don’t just define product goals – we explore what traction might look like. And we do this with a clear framework, often drawing directly from the principles in this book. It’s actionable and easy to align with your roadmap.

The Connection to Refactoring and Tech Debt

One of the strongest lessons from Traction is that growth only works when your product is ready to handle it. That means not just scaling your users, but scaling your infrastructure, codebase, and team capacity. This connects directly to the importance of identifying technical debt early.

In fact, understanding when to refactor is critical to sustainable growth. Our article on how to identify code that needs refactoring offers practical guidance to complement what you’ll learn in Traction. Because attracting customers is great – but keeping them requires a product that won’t crack under pressure.