Traction
Traction is verifiable evidence that customers are pulling a product into the market — measured by quantitative metrics that demonstrate accelerating, durable demand.
From emerging regulation to deal mechanics, we write about the questions founders and investors actually ask — practical analysis you can put to work.
Traction is verifiable evidence that customers are pulling a product into the market — measured by quantitative metrics that demonstrate accelerating, durable demand.
SWOT analysis is a strategic-planning framework that organises a business’s situation into four quadrants: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. Strengths and weaknesses are internal (controllable); opportunities and threats are external (environmental).
The late majority is the fourth segment in Everett Rogers’ Diffusion of Innovations curve (1962) — the ~34% of a market that adopts a new technology only after it has become mainstream and the risk of choosing it has been substantially reduced.
Laggards are the final ~16% of a market in Rogers’ Diffusion of Innovations curve — the last segment to adopt a new product or technology, only doing so when the alternative becomes impossible (the previous solution is discontinued, regulation forces change, or social cost of non-adoption becomes…
Iteration is improving a product in short, repeated build-measure-learn cycles: ship, measure real user response, learn, ship again. How it differs from a pivot, what a good cycle looks like, and where it bites legally.
The sales pipeline is the structured view of all active prospects and deals moving through defined sales stages — from first qualified contact to closed-won or closed-lost.
Leads are individuals or organisations who have shown some interest in a product or service — making them potential customers worth engaging with. Leads are the input to the sales pipeline: they get qualified, progress through stages, and either close as customers or get disqualified.
Lead generation is the marketing and sales activity of identifying and engaging prospective customers — turning unknown audiences into qualified leads who can be progressed through the sales pipeline.
Stealth mode is the practice of building a company in deliberate public silence — no website beyond a holding page, no press, no public team page, no LinkedIn posts about the product.
A startup is a company in the early phase of operation — searching for a repeatable, scalable business model under conditions of high uncertainty.