I used to think startups die when nothing works. A bad product, from criticism, incomplete team.
Then a company started.
One day we got traction. A few strikes the press. DMS is full of “we must talk”, investors Sigma -Face do “I love what you adopt.” Just enough to verify health to get us out of panic.
This is when things went side. I will not waste time with playing, but we almost vanished in the emerging antiseptic process-which is remembered enough to properly forget.
As you see, panic was the best thing we had. We have made obsessed, nervous, slightly equal in a good way. We chased everything because staying alive did not leave dignity.
But with traction the most fatal start -up medicine came: they are safe. It turns out, Nothing kills momentum faster than thinking that you have some.
Here are 10 things that you still need to do after getting a traction – or not. He loves the Internet after the studied death.
1. The voice he says, “We have now passed.”
This little voice is the beginning of obituary, you know the voice – after your first address, which is the first dm internal investor, your team begins to say things like “Should we really be cold via email?” Or “we need to start acting as a real company. This is not a strategy. This ego is in a suit.
I got traction by doing desperate, insulting things, somewhat flawless. Now you think you won your way out of it? No, all I got is a longer tasks list.
Strange things can only die when their benefit exceeds. Not when you finance. Not when someone called you a genius on X.
2. Stop performing the founder theater
The traction can lead to a complete identity crisis. It becomes five different founders depending on the one who watches. Investor mode. LinkedIn mode. Podcast position. A team set all the hand.
Become cartoons. Brand exercise. And you stop making serious and necessary decisions – because those who do not experience well with your fictional audience.
Startial companies can survive a burning founder. But they die when the founder is divided into pieces – none of them appears to do the work.
3. Show the story you sold to investors
The surface of the stadium is a prophecy. And like all prophecies, they are often nonsense.
He wrote to look impressive. A sweeping vision. Global range. Class. I drew the future in a billion dollars brush strokes-this is what it takes. And when the traction strikes, it is easy to get besieged in your dedication. You are still trying to make the story true, and prepare for the stage for the third chapter, although I haven’t finished it. The team builds what the deck promised, and not what the market needs.
Treating this deck like the fan imagination. Fun to re -read, sometimes temptation, but completely useless to make a decision what to do after that. And if you are not able to put it? Delete.
4. Reserve the weekly Al -Anah (Al -Aina)
Once a week, sit, close the door, and suffer. The competitor is inhaled. Remember the broken whale that has never told you the reason. Emerging leg that raised only unless she could.
One hour. No phone. Just pain.
The traction indicates the founders. You start with the mistake of insight and thinking about a few Techcrunch signals means that you cannot be prejudiced.
This is your shrinkage room. Feel the disregard. The bowel punch behind you. Insulting someone’s investigation there to do so faster, cheaper and better. Then go back to work, like someone who has not yet done.
Because you did not.
5. Approval of tasks and denial of the means
The larger, the more requests. More time. More appointments. More money.
“Only one independent.”
“Only a few months.”
“Just a modest budget … from 80 thousand dollars.”
This is how startups become agencies – with beautiful chairs.
Just say: Certainly. Half that time. $ 500. I am likes. Building the initial model. Hate the intended page with artificial intelligence, Canva, and spitting.
If the idea only works with a team of six people, a five -digit runway and a brick treatment, it may not work at all. The restrictions are the truth of the truth, and your last motivation against the nonsense that wears good clothes.
6. Make the use of the plight of crushing the soul
The preposition does something dangerous: it makes you feel eligible. For help. For the number of contour. This company becomes developing with lunch meals on board and Slack Emojis for “#People’s Culture”.
So when there is something difficult, the reflex is: “.” Because it is clear that the problem is not the process or your priorities. It does not have enough bodies. Unfortunately, most appointments are obligations with LinkedIn profiles. Here is your antidote.
Step 1: Put it like a pre -seed tour
Want to rent a new? Sell it as if it’s your startup. What is the problem of combustion? Why now? What is the return on investment? It is better to have features, standards, major plans.
Also, if ChatGPT writes your job description, guess what Chatgpt can do for the task.
Step 2: Set pain
If this person is floundering, you are floundering.
Greetings your OKRS. Your reward goes Mia. Your address remains frozen in time. No more blame on ghosts who have not yet joined. Want headcount? Put the skin in the game. Otherwise, you only play the companies with real money.
Step 3: Silent treatment
Let them play. Slowly gesture. Smile warmly. Clearing tireless notes such as budget is just around the corner. Then it disappears like VC said “interesting” and never called. Wait 30 days. If they are still paying? It may be legitimate. If they solve them themselves? Even better. If they forget? 5 black hole numbers escape.
7. Assembling the humiliation board
Growth changes your surroundings. Investors get polite. Customers tolerate. The media was amazed. Suddenly, everything looks … encouraging. Inside your team internally to believe the experimental day’s propaganda.
Until fixing the anti -strength. Three people do not owe to start anything – except for the truth. Ideally, those who created you, exceeded you, or still think that your company is PDF with public expenditures. Their job? It appears once a month and blur. One hour of strategic humiliation, with your entire team getting.
Your road map? foolish.
Your numbers? Breaking.
I am excused? cheerful.
This is not cruel. It is a calibration. Because if the only comments your team gets are applause, the next product will be a praise.
8. Give each idea a snapshot on the throne
Success generates arrogance. MVPS is treated like masterpieces. Suddenly they deserve protection. practical. policy. Three layers of approval just to suggest something new. This is how startups from the pirate to the cruise ship.
So break the driving chain. Once a month, anyone – Engineer, trainee, OPS – put the founder (you) directly. New Product Line, Rogue Growth Hack, Batshit Brand Stunt.
But no half -donkey stadiums. Anyone needs to be treated like Shark Tank. If it is good, they lead it. If it is great, you may fall what you do and join. And if it is absorbed? I wasted about 7 minutes.
Most likely, your MVP is an eliminated scaffold. The next great idea may be besieged behind the job title of a person.
9. Promise the update before you have the plan
The traction gives you a new disease: Wait until you are “ready”.
I used to launch it on the weekend. You are now twelve tabs of a deep idea tab, the line weights and the road map corresponds to. Therefore, before you get the plan, choose an appointment – update the investment, launch features, expand the new city, and whatever it looks important. Put it in the calendar. Make it public. aloud. Write it with blood on the blackboard.
Now you have a real plan: Don’t embarrass yourself. Watch as the priorities sharpen, the feature of crawling dies, and people stop discussing and start delivery. Because no one wants to be the reason for turning your update into an apology round.
The illusion of traction buys you that you have more time, but in reality, all you have is to let more people let him down, and a larger stage to do so.
10. Start every month with a funeral
Before traction, everything was a crime – because there was nothing to defend it. You have been broken, unrelated, and sensitive to caution.
Then people noticed. Part of the money came. Suddenly, every decision comes with the imaginary negative side: What if we confuse investors? What if we bothered the first users? What if you touch the only thing that works somewhat?
The traction of your fear. You go from “What if we never do that?” To “What if we lose what we have?” This is the way the building turns into children’s sitting, maintaining the replacement of payment, and momentum becomes maintenance.
Even the movement of strength. Every month, kill something. Something a little meaningful, mysteriously beneficial, and may have an emotional aura. “He works Kinda,” “he doesn’t harm anyone,” it took us months of construction. “And so did Yahoo.
Funeral holding. Make the team watch. They mentioned that there is nothing permanent – not even success. Especially success.
Final ideas: The beginning of the end often looks like progress
The traction is equal fuel and anesthesia. Compliments, the capital, calmness – all of you are aware of the fact that you are still a single mistake from the lack of connection. Treat it like a gift that you did not gain – and fight like hell to prove that you deserve to be kept. Not with comprehensive floors and strategic circles, but with a kind of existential dread that wakes up at three in the morning, she wonders what you missed.
The only real trench at this stage is the madness of the productive bone. Now go frightening yourself. Then scare the market.
