David Cummings on Startups

Five Categories of Initial Traction Milestones for Startups

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David Cummings

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Results matter. I’d much rather hear from an entrepreneur about their traction metrics than an idea with no results yet. Once the team and product are in place, it’s time to focus on traction. TechCrunch has a piece up titled Want to Raise a Million Bucks? Here’s What You Need where the author provides five categories of initial traction milestones for startups:

  • B2B SaaS: 1,000 seats at $10/month (or the equivalent $10k/month revenue with a higher priced SaaS offering)
  • Enterprise Application: 2 paid pilot contracts for at least $100k combined
  • Social: 100,000 downloads/signups
  • Marketplace: $50k revenue/month
  • Ecommerce: $50k revenue/month

Here’s an idea: start a Traction Club for startups in your city that exceed these metrics. Make metrics a badge of honor and get more people talking about results, not ideas.

What else? What are your thoughts on these five categories and amounts as initial major milestones for startups?

Comments

2 responses to “Five Categories of Initial Traction Milestones for Startups”

  1. Sonny Avatar
    Sonny

    Hi david, great article to see actual figures not just the vague word ‘traction’.
    What about for an affiliate based site like kayak or hotels.com or comparison website for car insurance, home insurance like moneysupermarket.com here in the u.k
    Where you are the middle aggregator and take a commission not selling the end product like in ecommerce.

    Reply
  2. Eric Langley Avatar
    Eric Langley

    Traction, the biggest of the big three, Traction, Team, Market. Traction sounds like a great component to add to Founders’ Organization (www.foundersorganization.com) , possibly a tier in the group.

    Reply

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