Founders don’t need to choose between frameworks. Most popular startup models are good at one part of the journey, and each one maps onto the ten boxes of the Traction Canvas.
The pattern across every model
The Traction Canvas is a one-page sales playbook with ten boxes in three zones, completed in order: Learn (Boxes 1 to 5), Earn (Boxes 6 to 9) and Scale (Box 10). When you map the popular models onto it, a pattern appears. Nearly all of them cover the Learn zone: finding a problem, a customer and a value proposition. Fewer cover Scale. Almost none tell a founder how to sell through the Earn zone, the stretch from first customers to a repeatable $1M. That gap is where most founders get stuck, and it is what the Traction Canvas was built to close.
How each model covers the ten boxes
Each column shows how directly a model addresses each box of the Traction Canvas, plus three benefits of how the model is built. Look across the orange Earn rows (Boxes 6 to 9): that is the gap.
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| Traction Canvas | JTBD | Lean Canvas | Business Model Canvas | PSF & PMF | Customer Dev. | Startup Genome | Startup Commons | Chasm | Sean Ellis | AARRR | Bullseye | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Learn | 1 Problems | ||||||||||||
| 2 Bifurcation | |||||||||||||
| 3 Competition | |||||||||||||
| 4 Seven Second Sale | |||||||||||||
| 5 Enrolling | |||||||||||||
| Earn | 6 Trigger Events | ||||||||||||
| 7 Disqualifying | |||||||||||||
| 8 Emotional Favourite | |||||||||||||
| 9 Won Sales Analysis | |||||||||||||
| Scale | 10 Marketing Moat | ||||||||||||
| Benefits | Fits on one page | ||||||||||||
| Clear finish line | |||||||||||||
| Step-by-step order | |||||||||||||
Ratings are our own assessment of how directly each model addresses each area.
Compare the Traction Canvas with
- Jobs to Be Done vs. the Traction Canvas: Jobs to Be Done explains why customers switch to a new product.
- Lean Canvas vs. the Traction Canvas: The Lean Canvas describes your business model on one page.
- Business Model Canvas vs. the Traction Canvas: The Business Model Canvas describes how a business creates, delivers and captures value, on one page.
- Problem-Solution Fit and Product-Market Fit vs. the Traction Canvas: Problem-solution fit and product-market fit are milestones: they tell you where you are.
- Customer Development vs. the Traction Canvas: Customer Development tells founders to get out of the building and search for a repeatable business.
- Startup Genome vs. the Traction Canvas: Startup Genome describes four stages a startup moves through: Discovery, Validation, Efficiency and Scale.
- Startup Commons vs. the Traction Canvas: Startup Commons describes a startup's development phases, used by many accelerators and incubators.
- Crossing the Chasm vs. the Traction Canvas: Crossing the Chasm explains why startups stall between early adopters and the mainstream market.
- The Sean Ellis Test vs. the Traction Canvas: The Sean Ellis test measures whether you have product-market fit.
- AARRR Pirate Metrics vs. the Traction Canvas: AARRR Pirate Metrics measure a customer funnel: Acquisition, Activation, Retention, Referral and Revenue.
- The Bullseye Framework vs. the Traction Canvas: The Bullseye Framework helps founders test traction channels until one works.
- The Lean Startup vs. the Traction Canvas: The Lean Startup's Build-Measure-Learn loop is how founders learn fast.
Find out which box you’re stuck on
The free Traction Readiness Diagnostic shows which of the ten boxes is holding you back, and where to start.