The build-first or investor-first approach used to work at a time when building products was hard and expensive. Investors used to value intellectual property and funded teams that demonstrated that they could build stuff.

We live in a time when it’s easier and cheaper than ever to build products, which means that there are many more people “starting up” all over the world. ****This creates many more choices both for investors and customers. Investors today don’t value intellectual property, but traction.

• Traction isn’t about being first to market, but first to market adoption.
• Traction is early evidence of a working business model.

Build customers rather than solutions

How do you demonstrate traction without a product? Customers don’t care about your solution, but their problems. The initial battle is getting their attention. You don’t need a product to do that, but rather a ****compelling offer that can stand-in for your product.

You build a compelling offer piece-by-piece by first understanding:

• your customers
• their problems
• their existing alternatives

Once you have that down, defining a solution becomes a lot easier.