Babak Bagheri

Traction, be it sales or just attention or “eyeballs,” is a must-have in the entrepreneurial pursuit. Gaining enough interest in each step to be able to take the next one is essential.

So how do we get traction? For the answer we need to go back to psychology and the street savvy we’ve talked about. We should scan the social environment, with our “itch X-Rays,” routinely to detect itches that can be scratched. We should then use our social imagination to guess if solutions we find will stick. We should then do inexpensive experiments to see which of these guesses pan out.

Being able to do all this well is a challenge to say the least. So a good deal of mythology surrounds these abilities. We hear about the “guys with golden guts” whose every guess is right and can pick exactly the right people to get it all done. It would be nice if there were such heros, but in real life it’s usually persistence that wins. Some have even tried to quantify these abilities and claim to be able to tell you if you’ll succeed by comparing your background with historical data. There’s even a startup to do this kind of evaluation online! How’s that for itch scratching? Give us a little data and we’ll tell you if you’ll make it; yeah right.

Male Peacock (by Laurence Shan)

A lesson from the animal kingdom is worth keeping in mind. Evolution is the quintessential traction detector. What is the main lesson from evolution? Lots and lots and … lots of trials. Another important lesson is: call attention to yourself and what you’re doing. Don’t think that helps? Take a look at the male peacock.