I have the impression that the importance of traction heavily outweights all others. So much that it is not even worth reading about these small victories like introductions and other tactics if you don't have traction yet.<p>The only substitute for traction is past traction (on previous startups) or a very big credential (as being on YC or being early employee on a big hit - Facebook, Google, etc). And this narrows the audience to only a few individuals for whom these tactics might apply.<p>Not by chance Paul Graham recent essays are aimed at this YC batch aproaching Demo Day. And, as interesting as is to us, regular folks, reading this; it sounds like reading advices from a pro driver on how to drive a Ferrari. They may be somehow useful, specific tips that you must know if you want to drive a Ferrari. But you first must own a Ferrari. Before you do it, they are just fiction.<p>And if you do have traction, I guess all these tips will have just a marginal influence on the outcome. Posts from VCs and succesfull fundraisers always seems like hindsight rationalization about why it worked. Forgetting that traction was the single most important reason by far.<p>I mean, traction is 99,9% if you are a regular founder, not a star. So wondering about the 0,1% is more of a Maseratti problem.
While we are getting more and more advice about "how to raise money?", the startup community really needs to raise the prominence of another question: "should I raise money?". If properly addressed, I think the latter would be a good filter for companies that aren't impressive or committed enough.<p>The worst outcome isn't failing to raise money; it's raising money and wishing you hadn't (wrong team, wrong idea/market, etc).
How to raise money as a first-time founder? Start a company at a time when a first-time founder can write a <i>serious</i> blog post entitled "How to Raise Money as a First Time Founder" that contains the following two sentences back-to-back:<p>1. "When we went out to raise money, we raised with only a couple thousand dollars in monthly recurring revenue."<p>2. "But we had a solid product, strong weekly revenue growth (10% week over week), and two distribution/marketing channels that were already paying dividends."
Traction doesn't apply to a hardware startup. Quite simply, it's impossible to get any sort of "traction" when you don't have the cash required to commercialize hardware and release it to customers. Not to mention the manufacturing fiasco.<p>And not all startups are app-driven. Most are, since hardware is hard and a lot of startups like to ride the app-wave but this post only takes those into account.<p>Sure, social startups and other "apps" playing the users + page views + engagement numbers game can easily make an app, grow an audience and have their "traction" but this blog post applies only to those types of companies.<p>MANY factors are taken into consideration when raising money - not just traction. Where you went school matters, who you are, your team, your product, your business model, your ability to start and run a business, your past experiences with running a business, and etc.<p>It's not just traction.<p>VC's aren't stupid.
It's funny. I _just_ got back from seeing a VC earlier today on Sandhill Road, and when I told them we were working on building out a product, they told me I shouldn't focus on that and should come back instead with a business plan. I'm fairly convinced that if I'd gone in with a business plan they would have told me to come back with a product.<p>Ultimately I think PG is correct. Focus on building out the business. If you spend all of your time planning instead of shipping, you're going to fail.