Distribution Eats Everything

You've spent eighteen months perfecting your product.

The interface gleams. The code runs flawlessly. The design would make Jony Ive weep.

And nobody cares.

Because while you obsessed over pixel-perfect shadows and pristine documentation, someone else built an audience of 50,000 rabid fans.

Their product? Mediocre.

Their marketing? Relentless.

Their success? Inevitable.

We're living through the great inversion of power. The distributor reigns.

AppSumo doesn't make software—they own the channel to reach millions of hungry entrepreneurs.

Morning Brew didn't revolutionize financial news—they built a distribution engine that prints money.

Substack didn't invent blogging—they captured the relationship between writers and readers. And then gave undue deference to the free speech of Nazis. But that's a topic for another day. 

This shift creates uncomfortable truths:

• A mediocre product with outstanding distribution will crush an outstanding product with mediocre distribution
• Audience ownership matters more than product ownership
• Distribution advantages compound exponentially, while product advantages decay linearly

The builders hate this reality. They rage against it. They insist that quality will prevail.

But the market doesn't reward the best product. It rewards the product that reaches the right people at the right moment with the right message.

Facebook bought Instagram for $1 billion when Instagram had 13 employees. They weren't buying filter technology. They were buying distribution.

Spotify owns Joe Rogan. Not because they paid him millions. But because they control his distribution.

The future belongs to those who control the pipes, not those who create the content that flows through them.

Build your distribution first.

Your audience is your moat.

Your reach is your leverage.

Your attention is your empire.

The product? That's just the souvenir they take home after experiencing your distribution magic.

Make something worth talking about, give a damn about the quality, refuse to compromise on your values—but spend 10x more energy building the machine that does the talking.

That's how you win in a world where distribution eats everything.