Minimum Viable Traction (MVT) marks the final value inflection point, the end of the Traction GapTM. Once you arrive there, congratulations! You have successfully traversed the Traction Gap, the most challenging period of time in an early stage startup’s journey to business success. You are now a member of a tiny group of startups that  Continue Reading »

An Interview with Bruce Cleveland, Founding Partner at Wildcat Venture Partners. Recently, David Baeza, CEO at Buttered Toast, sat down with Bruce Cleveland, a Founding Partner at Wildcat Venture Partners. Bruce is about to publish his new book, Traversing the Traction Gap, which introduces an entirely new framework for startups to think about how to take their startup from  Continue Reading »

Early stage venture capital firms specialize in incubating start-ups and taking them to scale. This entails working through a series of deep changes in both strategy and operating model over a very short period of time. Many an entrepreneur, and many an investor, have lost their way during this era of “pivots.” Crossing the Chasm and The Traction Gap provide playbooks  Continue Reading »

Okay, so you’ve declared Minimum Viable Product (MVP). You’ve nailed your value propositions and your pricing and terms, and you are confident that your category positioning is on point. Your team is now marketing and selling your product. This means your next challenge is to reach the Traction GapTM value inflection point called Minimum Viable  Continue Reading »

Over the last few years, you would have been hard pressed to have missed the hue and cry claiming digital transformation will require the preponderance of the American workforce to transform. We are told that the digital economy requires people who can code, with deep technical skills, and desire a career in a STEM-related (Science,  Continue Reading »

Marketers have an opportunity to proactively help board of directors understand marketing — but most are missing out. I’ve sat in many board meetings over the past few years where the CMO presented slides full of detailed metrics on conversion, reach, mindshare and more without putting the information, which is essentially Greek to most of  Continue Reading »

With most of his business coming the way of carry-out orders, it’s little surprise that Chicago Freshii franchisee David Grossman has leaned heavily on new technology to better serve ever-busy consumers. He’s signed up with two third-party delivery services, partnered with the office lunch service Fooda to cater workplace meals, and in early 2016 signed  Continue Reading »

By the time your startup has reached a Minimum Viable Product (MVP), it’s already come a long way. What was once simply an idea now has a team behind it, has market validation, and is picking up steam. The team has defined (or redefined) a Minimum Viable Category (MVC), performed statistically valid research, and has  Continue Reading »

Every successful startup begins with an idea for a new product or service. In the go-to-product phase, significant market research is required to ensure that the idea is intelligently framed and validated. And, while the product and its initial feature set are being validated, successful startup teams must also invest in market engineering exercises to  Continue Reading »