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Traction relates to financials - citation needed

You can argue about which kind of traction is better, revenue or traffic, but there is no doubt the traffic and users == traction.

Isn't that just a truism? Revenue growth=traction by definition.

No, that is not a truism. It is a falsism if it is any kind of ism.

Instagram has yet to make a single dollar, for an extreme example, and yet nobody would argue it has gained insane amounts of traction since in the mobile photo sharing space since launch. I would use Facebook as an example, but they had small revenue generating efforts early on so it doesn't make as clean of an example.

Let me rephrase then: Not all traction is revenue growth, but all revenue growth is traction(again, by definition).

Not necessarily, in fact that was was of the fallacies of the dot com bubble. Revenue is traction if it is gained at a reasonable cost. There are definitely unit economics that look like growth but come at an unsustainable cost.

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