My First Traction Channel: Using A Glue Stick

As I have spoke about the Traction book just released by Gabriel Weinberg and Justin Mares in a few of my recent post. This book is packed full of skills us treps need to know about, but more importantly, we need to DO THEM!

I have not finished reading the book as something super important has opened up for Passdown, my new startup. I some how fell into a deep pit of luck. As much as we work towards making our companies successful, luck is often talked about as a factor to many of the successful startups we know about. 

As this luck presented itself to me, I could not turn it down. I was chosen to be one of the eight presenters at the upcoming Denver Startup Week's Insight Night event. 

Okay so here is the problem. Public Speaking is a traction channel that presented itself to me. Ahhh, geeez, why couldn't the first traction channel I use be a bus stop ad? Why, why, why does it have to be public speaking? I could have said no, but that would not be a wise move for a trep seeking to build a great company. 

I've always known that public speaking would be a part of my job as a founder, yet I had always escaped it in all my other startups. Not this one. Not Passdown. 

It took me two days just to get the script of my presentation somewhat memorized. (and that's 12 hours a day working on it) Today I set up a fake stage in my living room. There I was with my glue stick as the mic, running through the 20 slide pitch, when out of nowhere, the mailman walked up. He saw me through the window, and that fucked up my pitch. All I could think of was what the mailman was seeing: a crazy woman holding a glue stick up to her mouth, speaking into it like I was some rock star. There was no way in hell I could hold my thoughts and stay focused on the task to deliver the message. I'm sure his delivery thoughts were, well, wondering.....What else does she do with that glue stick? 

I must have hit two or three hundred times, that I practiced what I must deliver to an audience coming up on Tuesday. I don't want to screw up, because every word I say is so important for the entrepreneurs in the audience to be inspired to keep building startups. If I screw up, I let them down. They might not understand the message if I screw up just one slide. 

I will practice it over and over for three and a half more days and I hope, there will be no mailmen walking down the aisle in the audience, because surely then I will start laughing so hard, I wont be able to speak!

This is a surprise traction channel. It's one the book speaks about, yet, I do not recall if the book had said anything about: Jump on traction if it presents itself! I was planning on finishing the book and then re-reading it and plotting out my strategy to use these nineteen traction channels and do what they say to do. But this surprise speaking event came out of nowhere and I must focus on doing that first, then return to the book. 

Yeah, public speaking to me has to be the hardest traction channel. So maybe if I get the hardest one out of the way, the rest will be like cake. : - ) Love building startups!

P.S. I also used the glue stick to make my index card script layout. The wonders of a glue stick!