#33 Angelinvesting.it - From idea to Series A - Weekly Newsletter

Velocity Vs Traction

3 Minutes to reflect

In the newest Guardians of the Galaxy movie, the antagonist is called the High Evolutionary. He's a powerful scientist determined to create the perfect society at any cost.

In the film, there's an incredibly advanced machine he uses to accelerate evolution. In just a few seconds, animals undergo thousands of interactions. With this machine, he liberates animals from DNA constraints and the slow changes that can only occur over generations.

Co-founders, like the High Evolutionary, can control how rapidly their startup evolves. The speed of evolution (called velocity in the startup world) is crucial for the survival and success of their project. It's Darwinism at its finest.

Velocity is all about how quickly a startup can deliver, learn, and adapt to find product-market fit, enabling growth (traction in the startup world).

The confusion between traction and velocity, in my opinion, is not well grasped by many founders, especially those new to the game. Everyone in the startup world talks about speed, thinking about how fast users are growing. However, many fail to realize that traction is a result of velocity.

In simpler terms, the faster co-founders can bring the product to market, collect customer feedback, and refine the product, the more rapidly traction will materialise.

2 Resources to pro

No Velocity No party!

I would like to dedicate a minute of silence to all those projects that died before they even had a chance to be born. Those projects where dreams, energy, and money were wasted without a reason. I'm thinking especially of those founders structurally lacking velocity!

• Founders without tech skills, without a technical co-founder on the team, with a product made by an external agency they pay by the hour. #noBueno

• Founders capable to deliver fast, but afraid to approach customers, shy or simply incapable to listen to feedback #VerySad

I really recommend a great book to you that will help you understand the profound sense of Darwin's theory and how Darwin's theory is not limited to the biological world, but is actually a deep mechanism that practically governs every phenomenon in the life we live.

1 Reason to be happy

September has arrived, what good resolutions do you have for the end of this year? I'm as motivated as ever after a fantastic summer. I hope yours was enjoyable too!

Have a great weekend,

Simone

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