As a founder, traction is very important in your journey of growth
Oftentimes, people find it tough to build traction when they are bootstrapping and it affects their possibilities of raising any funds
So what strategies do you use to build traction while bootstrapping:
Partnerships: Partnership can be a powerful weapon to use while bootstrapping. This powerful weapon can allow you spread your tentacles faster than you can imagine if used correctly. Partnerships can be used across expanding to new markets, mass acquisition of users, and even on human resources. Strategic partnerships also improve your brand persona especially when it’s the partner has great branding around themselves.
Product Development: A lot of time when bootstrapping, finding the right team to build out a product can be very difficult, however there are creative ways of solving this without actually breaking the bank. One of the ways is to offer a royalty deal in the product development, let’s assume it’s a subscription based app, you can pay maybe 20% of the development and incentives with royalties on subscription till a threshold is met with the development agency or team you are engaging. This is one way to build your MVP if you lack technical background or don’t have a solid CTO and you lack the resources to engage the best people.
Marketing and User Acquisition: This is another crucial part that can generate you a lot of traction. A lot of founders assume that until a product is ready, they can’t have paying users. This is actually not true, you can have early users paying and trying out your product even without your MVP and you can generate revenue even if the MVP isn’t fully ready. With community marketing as a system, anyone can build early customers even if the MVP isn’t ready yet.
Early stage funding raising: Many founders begin fund raising with no traction and chase the big cheques. It’s an effort that may never convert into result. The best way is to go for early stage investors and play royalty deals with them to get up to certain numbers. Whatever funds you get from them should be mostly dedicated into Marketing and User Acquisition, and a royalty deal can be structured per client till the investor is paid off. You can rinse and repeat until you have enough numbers to prove your marketing and user acquisition is working before seeking for the big cheques
As a founder, you have to be very focused on your traction. Even if you haven’t raised a big cheque yet, find creative strategies of building traction
Solid Traction not vanity metrics or futuristic evaluations is one of the biggest baits that attracts the big cheques
Stay intentional
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