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Traversing the Traction Gap

The Bestselling Guide to Building Market Leaders

Written by Bruce Cleveland, this book transforms decades of real operator experience into an actionable system.

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The Traction Gap Framework

A stepwise, milestone-driven operating system for scaling B2B companies from idea to market leadership. The framework defines clear "value inflection points" with explicit criteria and deliverables at each stage.

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Critical
Milestones
Explained

Minimum Viable Category (MVC)

Define your market category before building—the foundation for future positioning.

Initial Product Release (IPR)

First user-facing version—measuring feedback and stage readiness.

Minimum Viable Product (MVP)

Prove market demand through willingness to buy and use.

Minimum Viable Repeatability (MVR)

Systematic customer acquisition—the signal you're ready to scale.

Minimum Viable Traction (MVT)

Consistent demand that unlocks funding and expansion.

Four Pillars of Scalable Growth

The Traction Gap Framework ensures all four pillars evolve together, aligned to each value inflection point.

Product Architecture

Building solutions that scale technically and meet evolving market needs without constant rebuilding.

Revenue Architecture

Designing pricing, packaging, sales, and marketing systems that enable predictable revenue capture and expansion.

Team Architecture

Structuring organizations, hiring strategically, and building culture that aligns with each value inflection point.

Systems Architecture

Creating operational infrastructure that enables real-time learning, uniform customer experience, and sustainable scaling.

A master of category creation  and market engineering

Pablo Corica

CEO & Cofounder, Critical Streams

Transform Your Market Strategy

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About the Author

Bruce Cleveland is the founder and CEO of Traction Gap Partners and author of Traversing the Traction Gap and new book titled, Market Engineering: Because Markets Don't Engineer Themselves.

He created the Traction Gap Framework from 30+ years of operating and investing experience—watching startups and mature companies fail despite great products and building systems to help them succeed. The framework has since been adopted by universities, accelerators, and venture firms worldwide as the standard for evaluating market progress and potential.

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