Traction is not enough. What’s your momentum?

One of the most important slides on a pitch deck is the one that shares your Traction. It’s a question investors always ask, and it’s one of the most important stories you can tell.

It’s easy to equate traction to just sales. It’s one important measure, but it’s not the only one, and if you are only focusing on that, you are losing opportunities to tell your story.

Often founders think that they do indeed have a lot of traction. They might have a prototype, or even an MVP. They might have a patent. They might have a functional prototype, and maybe in the market and getting some sales. Things are going in the right direction.

In light of that, investors will sometimes tell you that you need more traction even when you think you have a lot. What they are really saying is “You need more momentum!”

Here’s the difference. Traction is what you have accomplished, momentum is where you are going. Momentum signals growth.

Your job is to tell your story, and this is where founders often drop the ball. They have a great traction slide that’s clean with visualizations. And once the pitch deck is polished and out the door, they think they have finished telling their story.

Instead, that should be the beginning of your story. Investors are bombarded with opportunities. You must stand out from the background noise, and by giving your potential investors regular updates with positive news, you start building trust and conveying a sense of progress and momentum.

And it’s not just about investors. A lot of founders think that wooing investors and landing a round is the key to their success. It’s not. Funding is critical of course, but it’s not the only measure. If you are waiting for your investors to come through before you get things rolling, it will never happen.

Instead, you should be measuring your momentum for yourself. Measure your traction and momentum continually. Every day you should ask yourself what you can do to move the ball down the field a bit more.

For pre-revenue startups this can be a bit daunting. How do you talk about traction when you seemingly have none?

Remember, every startup was pre-revenue at some point. If your MRR is going through the roof, that’s great news. But when you have no revenue, talking about your progress is all the more important.

Some ideas:

• Talk about your development roadmap. If you have a prototype or demo, share the results of your testing, and your plans for incorporating feedback from your users. And when you get that feedback, share it.
• Maybe you discovered an opportunity that you didn’t see before, and you are pivoting to target that market. Be careful here because you don’t want to appear to have shiny object syndrome.
• If you are a solopreneur, that can be a challenge. Everyone needs a team, and adding board members or advisors is a great story to tell, especially if they are influentials. Often advisors and mentors are not looking for compensation, at least at the early stages.
• If your business model supports it, try getting pre-orders. Some people will pay upfront to be early adopters, and even be terrific beta testers.
• Create a place on your website that shows a timeline of your progress. If someone discovers you a year into your journey, they will see what you have been working on.

As founders, it’s your job to create a sense of excitement and demonstrate continual improvement. If you are struggling to find good stories to tell, maybe you are not doing enough to keep up your momentum.