Stop building in the dark-find your fans before you burn out.
I needed guidance to get our first users to engage with the platform and start getting some real feedback. Through a cycle of small iterations we found what was our best way to land users faster and that really connected with us. Usage of Skedr has grown to over 15,000 photo shares in 6 weeks.
Enric Bisbe GilMaker of Skedr.io
Early traction isn’t just a milestone-it’s your first real payout. It boosts your confidence, keeps your motivation bar full, and yeah, it can even start bringing in some cash.
Early traction is your startup’s reality check-proof your code isn’t just a neat hack, but something real users actually want. It validates your hustle and powers you up to keep building.
Traction is the ultimate magnet for cash and collabs. Show solid user growth or engagement, and investors will actually want to throw money your way-plus, partners will see you as the real deal.
Early traction is your real-world debugger-it shows what’s working, what’s crashing, and where to pivot. Skip the guesswork, tweak your code, and focus on growth hacks that actually move the needle.
Let’s be real-being a founder is like debugging while juggling flaming torches! You’re coding, shipping, handling support, and maybe even hustling on side gigs. With all that chaos, it’s tough to focus on the traction moves that actually push your project forward. But mastering those moves is what turns your side project from just code into something that truly takes off.
Most developers don’t start out with an entrepreneurial mindset-it takes time to shift from just shipping code to seeing the bigger picture. The real unlock is learning to connect user pain points, market signals, and your product’s strengths, then staying curious and experimenting your way to traction. It’s a skill you build, not something you’re born with-and it’s the cheat code for making smarter moves that last.
If marketing feels like an alien language, you’re not alone-most devs prefer shipping features over writing outreach emails or decoding customer pain points. Basics like customer discovery, messaging, and outreach can feel overwhelming when you’d rather be deep in code. But skipping these steps means missing what users need and how to talk about your product-leaving your project stuck in stealth mode while you build.
We’ve helped tons of devs and founders turn side projects into traction machines, racking up active users and building projects that actually make a dent. Ready to join the ranks and level up your impact?
We handle the marketing grind and outreach hustle, so you can keep your hands dirty building awesome stuff.
With the number of things on my plate, it's necessary to outsource as much as possible. TractionMate has been invaluable to the growth of my SaaS product. We needed to get people for a beta test and TractionMate went out and got them, even when there was no product yet. We will partner with them for the launch of all our SaaS products.
Adaryl "Bob" WakefieldMaker & Founder of Simplesupport.co
We cut out the guesswork with tried-and-true tactics, custom-fit strategies, and a solid game plan-so you can ship marketing that actually clicks and gets results.
Traction mate is like a virtual co-founder that handles marketing and sales. They help you a lot with finding product-market fit. The process is smooth and well setup. They helped me to define message, narrow down market, conduct initial communication and get on board my first 40 signups!
Yura Kriachko(Maker of Painlesstracker.com)
You’re never flying solo on your startup grind. With built-in accountability, hype squads, and regular brain dumps, you’ll get the boost and vibes you need to crush it.
I was trying to find a way to propel my business, reach more customers and make sales. With TractionMate, we have been able to gain a community around our brand. The best part about working with them was the interesting and relevant ideas that were brought up.
Joelle Dzorgenu(Co-Founder of Defirstwears)
Dig deep to uncover what makes your side project unique and where it fits in the market.
Sketch out a clear roadmap-think of it as your project's README-so you know exactly where you're headed.
Reach out to real people, gather feedback, and start building a community around your project.
Roll out features and updates like code pushes-fast, focused, and ready for feedback.
Tweak and improve your project based on real-world data and what your users are saying.
Collaborate with other makers, join communities, or find a co-founder to boost your project’s power.
Be ready to pivot or tweak your approach as you learn more-keep your project flexible.
Craft a value prop that makes your side project pop and gets people excited.
Run mini-experiments, validate your assumptions, and let data guide your next sprint.
If something’s not working, don’t be afraid to switch gears and try a new direction.
Tailor features and messages for different user types to make everyone feel at home.
Leverage social sharing, digital channels, and word-of-mouth to spread your project far and wide.
Think beyond launch-set up systems to keep users coming back and your project growing.
The early-stage signifies significant work in customer discovery and validation and therefore it doesn't justify a 100% commission-based fee structure. Additionally, in the current setup, an equity tie-up is too not feasible for now.
We help entrepreneurs and businesses uncover their compelling business model through a mix of customer discovery, lean startup principles, and the business model canvas. We provide a structured approach to drive traction.
Absolutely! We can step in to execute your strategy while enhancing it with tactical insights and market feedback. Our aim is to deliver results while aligning with your vision.
We start with a discovery session to understand your objectives and define a measurable traction goal. This is then broken into achievable 2-week sprints, allowing us to focus, review, and adjust for maximum impact.
Yes, our engagement is designed to be adaptive. We can pivot and refine goals based on market feedback, progress, or evolving business needs. Flexibility is key to ensuring we stay aligned with your priorities.
Our 2-week sprint goals are designed as incremental milestones that strategically build towards our comprehensive 3-month objective. Each sprint allows us to measure progress, adjust strategies, and ensure we're consistently moving closer to your overarching business goals.
We guide you through a process of reaching out to the target audience, conducting experiments, and collecting feedback to validate assumptions and uncover key insights. We utilize a mix of principles from customer discovery, lean startups, startup engineering, and the business model canvas to uncover your compelling business model.
The customer discovery process is a systematic approach to understanding your target customers, their needs, pain points, and preferences. It involves conducting experiments, conversations, and observations to gather valuable insights directly from potential customers.
We support you in reaching out to your "ideal" users by employing un-scalable methods to connect with them. This may involve personalized outreach leveraging online communities and more.
Our solutions are designed to benefit both startups and established businesses. Whether you are in the early stages of launching a new venture or seeking to pivot and drive growth for an existing business, we provide valuable tools and guidance to uncover your compelling business model and achieve sustainable traction.
We work with all kinds of new businesses in search of product-market fit. They may be B2C or B2B; entirely online or partly online; from any geography. The projects that we work on can be from a diverse stage of product development—from a stage when you just have an idea to a stage where you have a landing page or an MVP or some functional product ready.
If you already have 50 or 100 or 200 or more users signed up and if they are engaging with the product actively, you probably do not need us. But, if the users who are already signed up are not actively engaging with the product, we can add value in two ways - (1) work on understanding the reasons for the underuse and work on increasing the product engagement; and (2) target more prospects who can potentially use the product actively.
The answer to this question is simple. Why does a user invest in your product—in terms of money, or time? The user does it only when what you are trying to do resonates with the pain point that he or she has. The search to find a solution for the pain point or an expression of frustration about not being able to find it, are the keys to identify ideal users.
When you launch a new product, it is important that you get a bunch of early users who are as much super excited about your product as you are. Because only then, they use the product frequently and tell you what more can be done and how. We call these users who use the product actively as ideal users.
We locate them in places where they either are searching for solutions or where they are sharing their frustrations about not being able to find solutions.
We experiment with a few traction channels and discover what works to reach them in the most efficient and effective way. At any point in time, we could be working on 4 to 5 channels.
We search for and get to the persons (or businesses) that are in search of a pain point that you are trying to resolve, individually and manually. We strike a conversation with them about the context of their pain point and when relevant, invite them to sign up.
In early startup building, quality is more important than quantity. We bring on a few (10, 20, 30, or 100 or more, depending on the context of your startup's business model) users who would use the product actively rather than bringing in thousands who will remain inactive after signups.
At TractionMate, we’re your launchpad: bringing dev smarts, tailored support, and proven playbooks to help you ship, scale, and make your mark. Let’s build something epic together.
🔥 SPECIAL OFFER:
$1199 (₹102,895) $899 (₹ 77,150)
for 12 Month
Only 6 SEATS REMAINING - Early Traction Building - 12 Monthly Special Offer