Key Terms
The Traction Canvas gives you a way to describe what you're doing, not just do it. Here's what each term means and how to put it to work — jump to any term, or scroll through from A to Z.
27-Stranger Rule
Your gut alone is worth about 8% confidence.
Talk to 27 total strangers — people who don't already know you or know of you — about your problem, your ICP, and your pitch, and you can trust the pattern you're hearing at about 90% confidence. Stop at the usual 3-5 conversations, and what you're really hearing is your own optimism talking back to you, not the market. So set a floor of at least 10 (ideally all 27) real strangers in your Initial Client Profile before you trust any conclusion, and ask each one for their perspective — not for a sale.
See it in action: Box 5 — Enrolling →AVI Framework
Aspirations, Values, Interests.
AVI stands for Aspirations, Values, and Interests — three categories of genuine common ground that build closeness with a prospect fast, without leaning on product expertise you may not have yet. You can't outspend a bigger competitor on marketing, but you can out-relate them, and shared AVI is what turns a vendor relationship into a personal one. So find and document at least 3 shared Aspirations, Values, or Interests with each active prospect — personal ones, not company facts.
See it in action: Box 8 — Emotional Favourite →ICP — Initial Client Profile
Not Ideal Client Profile. Not Ideal Client Persona.
ICP stands for Initial Client Profile — the one specific person who will buy from you before you have any proof. The "Ideal" customer is actually the early majority, the wider market you only win after crossing the chasm, and confusing Initial with Ideal is why most startups pitch the right message to the wrong person too early. Use three either/or bifurcation questions to split the whole market in half three times, and you'll land on the 12.5% who are most motivated to buy right now.
See it in action: Box 2 — Bifurcation →Problem Bingo™
3+ marks = painkiller. 1-2 = vitamin.
Problem Bingo is a 6-mark test — Urgent, Popular, Growing, Frequent, Mandatory, Expensive — for whether a startup problem is actually worth solving. Score 3 or more marks and you've found a painkiller worth building a company around; score 1-2 and you've found a vitamin nobody urgently needs. List at least 3 candidate problems, score each one against all six marks, and build around the one that clears the bar — not the one you like best.
See it in action: Box 1 — Problems →Seven Second Sale
aka the 7 Second Sale.
A Seven Second Sale is a one-sentence value proposition built on a takeaway verb — reduce, avoid, prevent — instead of a vitamin verb like improve or optimize, aimed at earning the word "How?" from a stranger within seven seconds. Buyers are 10X more likely to act on removing a pain than on gaining a benefit, so a takeaway-verb pitch produces real curiosity where a vitamin-verb pitch only produces polite interest. Fill in "We help [ICP] [takeaway verb] [problem]," test it on 5 strangers, and count how many ask "How?"
See it in action: Box 4 — Seven Second Sale →Slingshotting
Going backwards a few steps so you can go forward faster.
Slingshotting means deliberately stepping back — to an earlier box, an earlier assumption, an earlier version of your pitch — instead of pushing forward from a position you already know is shaky. It's the way out of the Traction Trap: staying the course because you don't want to admit you were wrong means being right, not being successful, and those are not the same thing. Slingshotting trades a short step back for a much faster path forward.
See it in action: The Traction Trap →Traction Trap
Sometimes you have to believe even when you don't believe.
Once an idea sets a start-up's direction and it takes flight, it's very hard to turn back. This is why slingshotting — going backwards a few steps so you can go forward faster — matters so much. At some point you have to decide: do you want to be right and keep going on the path you're on, or do you want to be rich and successful? If it's the latter, slingshotting is the key.
See it in action: The Traction Canvas →Window of Dissatisfaction
aka the Dissatisfaction Zone, the Dissatisfaction Window, the Selling Window, the Zone of Dissatisfaction, the Window of Discontent, the Moment of Dissatisfaction, the Moment of Discontent, the Dissatisfaction Economy.
The Window of Dissatisfaction is the period after a decision maker realizes their current product or service no longer meets their needs, but before they've started shopping for alternatives. Reach a buyer inside that window and you're roughly five times more likely to win the sale (74% vs. 16%) than if you reach them after they've already started shopping, when you're just one more option. Track named trigger events from the ABC Model and time your outreach to land inside the window, before a competitor gets there first.
See it in action: Box 6 — Trigger Events →Won Sales Analysis
aka Won Sale Analysis, Won Customer Analysis, Win Sales Analysis, Win-Loss Analysis, Win Analysis, Won-Lost Analysis.
A Won Sales Analysis is a structured interview, conducted within 72 hours of every closed deal, asking 5 post-close questions to find out what actually triggered the purchase and why the customer chose you. Losses tell you what to avoid; wins tell you what to replicate — skip this step and you'll keep marketing the feature you think matters instead of the one your customers actually value. Interview every closed deal within 72 hours, name the trigger event that preceded it, and feed the customer's own words back into your Seven Second Sale.
See it in action: Box 9 — Won Sales Analysis →More key terms get added here as the Traction Canvas grows. From The Traction Trap — Brandy Old and Craig Elias · HelpAStartupOut.com