'We Want To See Some Traction'

Something you would commonly hear from an angel investor. So what is this traction they speak about?

Traction literally means the force used to create motion between a body and a surface. In the case of startups, we can assume the surface to be the market and the body to be the startup. Traction would imply the push we would need to give a startup to acquire customers. Since traction is assessed primarily at the initial stages of a startup, the customers referred to here would be the initial customers of the startup.

In analyzing an early stage startup, investors typically want to see the response the startup gets from it’s initial promotions, specifically metrics like customer acquisition, usage and feedback. Getting good traction shows that the concept has sufficiently proved itself and that there is evidence that a market exists.