Bruce Cleveland is an investor and author of Traversing the Traction Gap. These insights are drawn from his book, his work at Wildcat Venture Partners, and various interviews.

On The Traction Gap Framework

  1. The Definition: "The Traction Gap is the period between a startup’s Initial Product Release (IPR) and Minimum Viable Traction (MVT).[1] It is where most startups fail."[2][3][4][5] Source: Traversing the Traction Gap
  2. The Death Zone: "The go-to-market phase is where companies die. They run out of time and capital before they can prove they have a scalable business model."[2] Source: Wildcat Venture Partners[5]
  3. The Three Phases: "Every startup must pass through three phases: Go-to-Product (idea to product), Go-to-Market (product to traction), and Go-to-Scale (traction to scale)."[6][7] Source: Connie Steele Interview
  4. Value Inflection Points: "Startups must hit specific value inflection points to reduce risk and justify higher valuations: IPR, MVP, MVR, and MVT." Source: Medium
  5. The 30-Month Clock: "Teams need to realize that if they want to be in the upper quartile of startups, they only have about two and a half years (30 months) to go from MVP to Minimum Viable Traction." Source: Medium
  6. MVT for SaaS: "For a SaaS company, Minimum Viable Traction (MVT) typically means reaching approximately $6 million in Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR)."[4] Source: Wildcat Venture Partners[4][5][8][9]
  7. MVT for B2C: "For a B2C company, MVT usually requires reaching around 1 million active users, depending on the specific business model."[4] Source: Wildcat Venture Partners[4][5][8][9]
  8. Initial Product Release (IPR): "IPR is not the MVP. IPR is just the first time you put the product in a customer's hands to see if it works. It validates the product, not the market." Source: Traversing the Traction Gap
  9. Minimum Viable Repeatability (MVR): "MVR is the most overlooked stage. It is when you prove you can repeatedly acquire customers and deliver value with a similar sales cycle and cost structure." Source: CEO Quest Insights
  10. Process over Product: "Traversing the Traction Gap is not just about building a product; it is about building a company. It requires a systematic approach to market engineering." Source: Wildcat Venture Partners[4][5][8][9]

On Market Engineering

  1. Product vs. Market: "Success is not based on product engineering, but on 'market engineering.' Without a market, there is no need for your product."[6] Source: Connie Steele Interview
  2. The 5 Pillars: "Market engineering consists of five tenets: Category creation, category definition, thought leadership, storytelling, and messaging/positioning." Source: YouTube Interview
  3. Don't Just Launch: "Most teams are terrible at market engineering.[10] They think launching a product is the same as taking it to market. It isn't." Source: The CUBE Interview
  4. Category Leaders Win: "Category leaders capture approximately 76% of the total market capitalization of their category. You play to win the category, or you lose." Source: Pipeline Visionaries
  5. Demand Gen Warning: "Never start demand generation until you have created a category and established yourself as a thought leader. If you do it too early, you will spend your company to death." Source: YouTube Interview
  6. No Market Need: "The number one reason startups fail—cited by 42% of post-mortems—is 'no market need.' This is a failure of market engineering, not product engineering." Source: Traversing the Traction Gap
  7. Thought Leadership: "You must teach the market to think differently about the problem before you sell them your solution. That is thought leadership." Source: Wildcat Venture Partners[4][5][8][9]
  8. Storytelling: "Great market engineers like Steve Jobs or Marc Benioff are master storytellers.[3] They frame the problem in a way that makes their product the only logical solution." Source: Traversing the Traction Gap
  9. Existing Categories: "If you launch into an existing category defined by an incumbent, you are fighting a losing battle.[10] You must redefine the category to suit your strengths." Source: Lochhead on Marketing
  10. Market IQ: "Founders must develop 'Market IQ'—an inherent understanding of the market dynamics, not just the technical specifications." Source: Connie Steele Interview

On Startups & Failure

  1. Failure Rates: "Roughly 80-85% of early-stage startups fail.[6] If you are a B2C startup, that number is closer to 94%."[3] Source: Connie Steele Interview
  2. The "Why": "I wrote Traversing the Traction Gap to answer the 'Why' behind the startling failure statistics. We had too many smart people failing."[9] Source: Traversing the Traction Gap
  3. False Positives: "Early traction can be a false positive. Just because early adopters buy your product doesn't mean the mainstream market will." Source: Wildcat Venture Partners[4][5][8][9]
  4. The Pivot: "A pivot is not a failure; it is a recognition that the current path leads to the Traction Gap graveyard. The best companies pivot early based on market feedback." Source: Medium
  5. Qualitative vs. Quantitative: "In the early stages, you have little data. You rely on qualitative feedback. As you traverse the gap, you must shift to quantitative metrics." Source: YouTube Interview
  6. Hiring Sales Too Early: "One of the fatal mistakes is hiring a VP of Sales before you have reached Minimum Viable Repeatability (MVR)." Source: MedTech Podcast
  7. Consumer vs. Enterprise: "B2C companies often die because they cannot lower their Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) fast enough. B2B companies die because they cannot shorten their sales cycles." Source: Wildcat Venture Partners[4][5][8][9]
  8. Feature Creep: "Adding more features rarely solves a 'no market need' problem. It usually just increases the burn rate." Source: Traversing the Traction Gap

On Venture Capital & Fundraising

  1. The Financial Product: "Entrepreneurs are building two products: a technical product for customers and a 'financial product' for investors. If the financial product doesn't work (ROI), you won't get funded." Source: YouTube Interview
  2. What VCs Look For: "Investors don't just fund good ideas. They fund teams that have reduced risk by hitting validated value inflection points." Source: Wildcat Venture Partners[4][5][8][9]
  3. The Role of Capital: "Capital is fuel. If you pour fuel into an engine that isn't tuned (product-market fit), you just burn it up faster." Source: Medium
  4. Pressure to Scale: "Founders often feel pressure from VCs to 'hurry up and scale.' You must resist this pressure until you have proven repeatability (MVR)." Source: CEO Quest Insights
  5. Due Diligence: "Most startups don't do enough market due diligence. They build what they want, not what the market is willing to pay for." Source: YouTube Interview
  6. The Series B Crunch: "The Traction Gap usually aligns with the Series B crunch. This is where companies have spent their Series A but haven't proven the metrics needed for Series B." Source: Traversing the Traction Gap
  7. Valuation: "Valuation is a proxy for risk reduction. The further you traverse the Traction Gap, the lower the risk, and the higher your valuation." Source: Wildcat Venture Partners[4][5][8][9]

On Leadership & Team

  1. The CEO's Job: "The CEO's primary job is not just to keep the lights on, but to assess honestly where the company is in the Traction Gap framework." Source: YouTube Interview
  2. Building the Team: "You need different team members for different stages. The team that gets you to MVP is rarely the team that gets you to Scale." Source: Traversing the Traction Gap
  3. Market-First Mindset: "The most successful founders I've worked with—at Oracle, Siebel, Marketo—had a market-first mindset, not just a product-first mindset." Source: Connie Steele Interview
  4. Imposter Syndrome: "Even the best leaders face doubt. The Framework provides a map so you don't feel lost in the wilderness." Source: Connie Steele Interview
  5. Engineering vs. Sales: "Aligning engineering and marketing is critical. If engineering builds what marketing cannot sell, the company fails." Source: Traversing the Traction Gap
  6. Resilience: "Success tastes sweeter when it requires us to give it a piece of ourselves.[4] The journey isn't easy, and that's why we're drawn to it." Source: CEO Quest Insights

On Revenue & Operations

  1. Revenue Architecture: "Revenue is not luck. It is an architecture. You must build a revenue engine that is predictable."[4] Source: Medium
  2. The 4 Core Competencies: "To reach MVT, startups must optimize four competencies: Product, Revenue, Team, and Systems."[1] Source: Medium
  3. Systems of Record: "You need systems that track your progress through the gap. If you can't measure it, you aren't managing it." Source: Traversing the Traction Gap
  4. Sales Efficiency: "It’s not just about top-line revenue. It’s about sales efficiency—how much does it cost you to earn that dollar?" Source: Wildcat Venture Partners[4][5][8][9]
  5. Cost Control: "You can't cost-control yourself to success. You must grow your way out of the Traction Gap." Source: The CUBE Interview

Future Outlook & AI

  1. AI & Humans: "Driving AI is going to be something where the human is in the loop. We can't just delegate everything to AI and expect quality." Source: The CUBE Interview
  2. Street Knowledge: "In the future, we will have 'book knowledge' from AI, but humans will provide the 'street knowledge'—the experiential skills."[10] Source: The CUBE Interview
  3. Productivity: "We are going to become a generation of far more productivity thanks to agentic systems, which is necessary to solve macro-economic issues." Source: The CUBE Interview
  4. The Guide: "The Traction Gap Framework is not a Bible; it is a prescriptive guide. Use your intelligence to adapt it to your specific market." Source: YouTube Interview

Sources

  1. medium.com
  2. radiusbookgroup.com
  3. youtube.com
  4. medium.com
  5. goodreads.com
  6. conniewsteele.com
  7. lochhead.com
  8. wildcat.vc
  9. youtube.com
  10. youtube.com