
Traction mistakes - dwynings
http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2012/07/traction-mistakes.html
======
Gring
"Most startups don't fail at building a product. They fail at acquiring
customers ". I disagree, at least when it comes to me and duckduckgo (which
Gabriel founded). Here's why:

Three months ago, I started using ddg instead of Google. I'm quite
disappointed:

\- search speed is slow. Instead of <1s, it's often more like 2-3 seconds.

\- search quality is adequate to quite bad. Example: "amazing spiderman
rotten" (I was looking for the rotten tomatoes page for that movie that just
came out, entered a typo) gave the right page for google, while the right page
is not amongst the 20 top results in ddg.

\- while ddg says that they don't track me, the still insist in not using
direct links in their search results, but indirect results (via
duckduckgo.com/l/u?=...). Not only is this insincere, it also messes up my
browser history: when I visit a page through ddg, Safari lists that strange
ddg url in the browser history instead of the target page.

Now, Gabriel was succesful at "aquiring" me. I tried it out. For a long time.
And I'm on the verge of leaving. Why? because he failed at building a good
product.

But maybe that is exactly why he is failing. He is focusing very much on these
other "most likely cases of failing", while ignoring the very reason he is
failing in this instance.

\--edit: examples, conclusion.

~~~
epi0Bauqu
We did not really acquire you (at least not yet). Traction is about acquiring
real customers (who stick), and if you tried it and left or are thinking of
leaving then you are not a real customer yet. I would love to keep you,
however!

I'm sorry to hear about your disappointment, but all those things are things
we're of course actively working on. If you want to email me at
yegg@duckduckgo.com I'd love to get to the bottom of them.

\--Speed has improved a lot in the past three months. Where are you located?
I'd love to trace this down. 2-3sec is way outside the norm and our internal
metrics show much, much lower.

\--Same with search quality. We'd love specific examples if you remember any:
<https://duckduckgo.com/feedback.html> \-- that's the best way we improve. Are
you using a region setting?

\--We do not use indirect results by default on our main site. Check out our
privacy policy, specifically the section on search leakage:
<https://duckduckgo.com/privacy.html>. On HTML5 browsers we can do an internal
postMessage to strip the referrer header in-line. However, if you open in a
new tab/window, we cannot do that. Nevertheless, you can turn this behavior
off on the main site in the settings (under privacy):
<https://duckduckgo.com/settings.html>. If you're using a modern Safari
though, this shouldn't happen. Again, would love to figure this out.

~~~
stfu
My experience with the search quality are quite similar. While I like the idea
and personally would even accept some 5 sec+ delays if the results were at
least equal to Google, they are not. Even for relatively simple queries: For
example if I search Journal of Brand Management the right url is not even on
the whole first page, while at Google it is exactly the first result (
www.palgrave-journals.com/bm ).

Maybe you could add some special "dissatisfying results" button or something
like that where we just can enter the keyphrase and a short line what Google
did better. Or I wouldn't even mind activating some track-me option
occasionally if it would help you guys improve your results. Just let us know
how we can help making DDG better.

~~~
nl
_While I like the idea and personally would even accept some 5 sec+ delays if
the results were at least equal to Google, they are not._ .. _Or I wouldn't
even mind activating some track-me option occasionally if it would help you
guys improve your results._

So why, exactly, don't you like Google?

~~~
cookiecaper
Not everyone has to use DDG because they're worried about privacy. It offers
features that Google doesn't have (like that box at the top (though Google has
recently added something similar) and suggested additional terms on the side)
and there are political/non-product reasons to support a competing search
company (Google is practically a monopoly). I guess on rare occasions, the
search results may be better, too.

------
einhverfr
Actually I think the info in the article is on the mark. The most important
aspect is a systematic approach to obtaining customers.

The real tricky part though is figuring out how to use each traction approach
(the article calls them verticals) properly. For example, in my first three
years of business, I learned a bunch of hard lessons here. These include:

1) Most advertising doesn't work unless people already know of you. Push your
advertising later. Advertising that does work at that stage is that which has
a personal feel to it (like infomercials).

2) PR is golden. Go for it at every opportunity.

3) Your biggest friend is your competition. If you can reach out and build
good relationships with folks who are already in the field, that is support
that can't be underrated. I thought at first that this was specific to smaller
businesses but it turns out that the more I look into it, the more many
successful businesses of all size do it, and do well because of it.

4) Public service announcements are very good as well. If you are just doing
tech support, and the local radio station has an open hour or so, call up
every time there is a major virus outbreak and let folks know. Or buy
advertisement space in these cases, or the like.

~~~
nodemaker
>Your biggest friend is your competition.

I dont get this. For example how can Google gain anything by maintaining a
really good relationship with Bing.(which in fact they dont!)

Conversely,it seems like you can build traction by picking fights with your
competition.Ex Tesla vs Edison, Google vs Bing, Apple vs Microsoft.

~~~
einhverfr
Bing is a new-comer. But I bet when Google started up, they would have gained
a lot by having good relationships with Yahoo and Lycos. Moreover, I would be
surprised if Google is not pursuing a good relationship overall with Microsoft
even if it tense and filled with lawsuits around the edges.

~~~
dmor
Google did have a deal with Yahoo! early on and it was absolutely crucial
because they got Google's branded search box on the Yahoo site

------
benjaminwootton
I knew before I opened the thread there would be a bunch of detractors. Not
sure why Gabriel seems to attract the naysayers on here?

To me this and the traction verticals stuff on this blog are absolute gold.

I don't think I would be far off the mark if I suggested that 90% of the
people on HN would be capable of building a product, but 90% would also fail
to get something off the ground in terms of users. (Partly through lack of
skills, partly just because it's a hard problem in a competitive world.) It's
only where the skills intersect that they're even in the game.

Anything that breaks 'getting traction' down into an analytical approach is
great, and much more actionable than most of the fluff that passes through
here. Fantastic article.

------
marcamillion
I would love to see a framework developed - like Lean/Agile Startups - that
specifically deal with a scientific process for startups across all/most
verticals.

Just like I can use the principles of Agile Software Development to build my
product, I would love something similar for marketing.

I know there are many theories - AARRR from Dave McClure is one that jumps to
mind, along with the long-tail of SEO landing pages like BCC & Patio11....but
there isn't a coherent, or rather I don't know of one, framework that pulls it
altogether.

Anyone care to take a stab at this?

I am sure many founders would find this immensely useful.

~~~
justinmares
We're working on something like that with Traction Book -
<http://tractionbook.com/>. Would love your feedback!

~~~
marcamillion
That looks good Justin...but it looks more like a book of 'case
studies'...rather than an analytical take on the subject matter.

Not that I am saying your approach is not good, it sure is. It adds to the
body of knowledge on how people get traction.

But just like how someone sat down and came up with best practices like Test
Driven Development and the Agile Manifesto and Customer Development and
Building a Lean Startup.

I would like something similar for customer acquisition and growth hacking.

~~~
justinmares
It's a combination of both, but definitely more strategy and framework-centric
than case studies. We're still working on figuring out the positioning for it.

Thanks for the feedback!

------
dmbaggett
I thought this post was great, and I cringe when I read the comments in this
thread that are so negative about the product. Kudos to GW for tackling a
massive, difficult problem in the most competitive space in software.
Obviously there's still work to be done, but DDG has invested, what, 5 orders
of magnitude less into search than Google? This is about as hard as it gets in
startup land.

I imagine there's a GW post yet to be written [1] on the related point that
some problems are harder than others (e.g., search >>> picture-sharing-app),
and the complete lack of correlation between effort and value (DDG <<<
Instagram, at least so far) [2].

But line that I didn't fully understand was:

 _I believe distribution is equally important as product. That means quite
literally you should be spending 50% of your time on it. For tech people, you
should probably bias it to 75% so you end up getting to equal in the end._

What exactly does "distribution" mean in this context?

[1] or maybe there already is such a post.. [2] yes, I know there are many
reasons for this, search is valuable, etc.

~~~
shazow
> _"I believe distribution is equally important as product. That means quite
> literally you should be spending 50% of your time on it. For tech people,
> you should probably bias it to 75% so you end up getting to equal in the
> end."_ What exactly does "distribution" mean in this context?

Distribution means a method for getting your product to the customers who need
it.

Imagine slaving away for years, building the perfect solution to the biggest
problem, only to never have anyone discover it because you never put any
effort in figuring out how to reach your customers.

A distribution channel can be anything from the AppStore/Steam, to
advertising, to door-to-door sales, to engaging users in a niche news forum,
to referral/affiliate schemes, and so forth. Ideally, it's something that
closely and effectively targets your ideal customer with the exact problem
you're solving.

~~~
shazow
The parent post is a perfect example: An informative comment that nearly no
one will read because I posted it too late to catch the organic influx of
readers, and I didn't invest in other means of distributing it to an audience.

------
sunwooz
I commented on your blog but I thought I'd repeat it here to get more answers
:)

How do you determine if your product is something people don't really want?
I'm looking for my hypothetical early adopters(new and young restaurant
owners) and a lot of the older restaurant owners don't care too much about the
product. How do you determine whether your product is not ready for the
mainstream or whether people just don't care about the problem and/or
solution?

~~~
bootload
_"... How do you determine whether your product is not ready for the
mainstream or whether people just don't care about the problem and/or
solution? ..."_

Ask for payment. This will quickly sort out if a product solves a problem that
people care about.

~~~
sedev
One thing I will always remember from my college economics class was the
professor saying, on day one, that that's how you measure what people want.

"You want a lot of things. You want an A in this class. You want a trip to
Hawaii. You want a tasty lunch. And you want all of those things ... 'a lot.'
Well, I'm economist, I'm trying to be a scientist. I can't measure 'a lot.'
What I can measure is - _what are you willing to give up in order to get the
things you want?_ "

~~~
bootload
_"... One thing I will always remember from my college economics class was the
professor saying, on day one, that that's how you measure what people want.
..."_

I didn't take economics at Uni, but I certainly noticed a corollary of
'desire' for object and payment as a kid. The lack of money required you work
out some scheme to make money to buy or your hack your own.

------
tlogan
We are right now doing all these mistakes.

Currently, we have the problem that somehow majority of people signing up to
our service are not at all potential customers.

The main problem for us that majority of blogs and advices we got are actually
about how to acquire customers in consumer segment.

There is very little blogs on how to acquire customers which are small
businesses via internet.

------
kiba
_Most startups don't fail at building a product. They fail at acquiring
customers._

Citation needed.

~~~
stanleydrew
This is clearly his opinion, based on experience. There isn't really any good
way to collect data on why a company fails. So basically by definition, it is
impossible to do an analysis that would provide you with a citation.

