“Traction and product development are of equal importance and should each get about half of your attention.”

Why it was said

Gabriel Weinberg and Justin Mares state this in Traction (2015) and name it the 50 percent rule. It belongs to their argument that start-ups should test ways of reaching customers while the product is still being built, not after it is finished.

What it actually means

Technical founders tend to treat distribution as a later stage: build the product until it is ready, then find customers. Weinberg and Mares argue that this sequence wastes time in two ways. Testing channels early shows which ones can reach customers at all, and at what cost, so the company does not discover too late that its market cannot be reached profitably. It also brings real customers into contact with the product sooner, and their behaviour shapes what gets built. The authors accept that splitting time evenly will slow product development; they argue the trade is worth it. The figure of half is a rule of thumb rather than a measured optimum, and the right balance will shift with the stage of the company.

How to use it

1. 1Look at your calendar for the past two weeks and mark the hours spent on product and the hours spent on reaching customers; if the second number is far smaller, schedule a channel test this week.
2. 2Pick one way of reaching customers you have not tried, run a small test with a fixed budget and a single metric, and record the cost per customer it produced.