Traction Viral Engineering

Use this skill for growth loops and useful engineered assets: referral systems, viral sharing, free tools, calculators, widgets, microsites, and product-led lead magnets.

For landing-page audits, pricing-page polish, social previews, or broad shareability reviews, use make-product-viral instead. This skill is for designing measurable traction experiments around loops and engineered assets.

Source Traceability

Primary source: Traction, chapters 15-16 and the appendix. Authoring notes: converted lines 1997-2286 and 3349-3352.

Strategy Options

• Viral loop: users invite or expose the product to more users as part of

normal use.

• Referral loop: customers are prompted and rewarded to bring in similar

customers.

• Engineering as marketing: a useful free tool attracts prospects and leads

them back to the core product.

Workflow

1. Choose loop or tool.
2. Define the target user and the moment of motivation.
3. Map each step from exposure to signup to share or lead capture.
4. Identify the weakest step.
5. Design small tests to improve that step.
6. Measure coefficient, cycle time, conversion quality, and follow-up value.

Output Format

markdown
# Viral/Engineering Growth Plan

## Growth Mechanism
- Type:
- Target user:
- Core motivation:

## Loop Or Tool Map
| Step | User Action | Metric | Weakness |
|------|-------------|--------|----------|

## Tests
| Test | Step Improved | Expected Effect | Tracking |
|------|---------------|-----------------|----------|

## Follow-Up
- Lead capture:
- Product handoff:
- Retention/referral prompt:

## Decision Rules
- Double down:
- Iterate:
- Kill:

Quality Bar

• Do not call ordinary word-of-mouth a viral loop.
• Measure the weakest step before proposing a large build.
• Keep engineered tools useful without requiring a sales pitch.
• Ensure the asset attracts the same people the product wants as customers.