Growth & Strategy
Personas
SaaS & Startup
Time to ROI
Medium-term (3-6 months)
Last year, I watched two startups launch similar products on the same day. One had better features, smoother UX, and more funding. The other had a scrappy founder who understood distribution. Guess which one hit six figures first?
The well-funded team spent months perfecting their product while the scrappy founder spent those same months building relationships with newsletter writers, getting featured in directories, and creating content that actually got shared. By month six, they were pulling in 10x more customers despite having an objectively inferior product.
This isn't a feel-good underdog story. It's the fundamental reality that most founders refuse to accept: distribution beats product quality every time. Yet 90% of startups still follow the "build it and they will come" playbook.
Here's what you'll learn from my experience helping B2B SaaS clients escape this trap:
Why founder-led content outperformed paid ads by 300% for my client
The exact framework we used to find untapped distribution channels
How to build distribution before you build product features
Why treating your website as a marketing laboratory changes everything
The counter-intuitive strategy that turned anonymous visitors into advocates
This isn't about abandoning product quality. It's about understanding that the best product in the world is worthless if nobody knows it exists. Let me show you how to fix that.
Industry Reality
What every SaaS founder has already heard
Walk into any startup accelerator and you'll hear the same advice repeated like a mantra: "Focus on product-market fit first, then think about growth." The conventional wisdom follows a predictable pattern:
Build the perfect MVP - Spend months polishing features until everything works flawlessly
Get early user feedback - Iterate based on a small group of early adopters
Achieve product-market fit - Wait for that magical moment when users can't live without your product
Then scale with paid ads - Throw money at Facebook and Google once you've "proven" demand
Optimize conversion funnels - A/B test your way to better conversion rates
This advice isn't wrong, but it's dangerously incomplete. It assumes that great products naturally find their audience, that word-of-mouth will magically kick in, and that paid ads are a reliable distribution channel for every business.
The reality? Most products die in obscurity not because they're bad, but because their founders never figured out distribution. Y Combinator data shows that poor distribution kills more startups than poor product. Yet 80% of founder time still goes to product development.
Here's what this traditional approach misses: distribution isn't something you add after building a great product. Distribution needs to be built from day one, often before you even have a complete product. The companies that understand this don't just win - they completely dominate their markets.
Consider me as your business complice.
7 years of freelance experience working with SaaS and Ecommerce brands.
I learned this lesson the hard way while working with a B2B SaaS client who was convinced their growth problem was a product problem. They had a solid tool, decent traffic from their blog, and trial signups coming in regularly. But conversion rates were stuck at 0.8%, and they couldn't figure out why.
The CEO was obsessed with adding more features. "Once we build X, Y, and Z, people will finally see the value," he'd say. Meanwhile, I was looking at their analytics and seeing something completely different. Their traffic was coming from generic SEO keywords, their trial users weren't engaging past day one, and their "direct" traffic - which they celebrated as organic growth - was actually unattributed visits that we couldn't track back to any source.
Here's what really caught my attention: the handful of users who did convert to paid plans weren't coming from their carefully crafted product pages or feature demos. They were coming from the founder's personal LinkedIn posts about industry trends. Not product posts. Not promotional content. Just the founder sharing his thoughts on where the industry was headed.
That's when I realized we'd been looking at this completely backwards. The problem wasn't that the product needed more features. The problem was that nobody trusted them enough to stick around long enough to experience the value. They were treating their SaaS like an e-commerce product - something people could evaluate and buy immediately. But SaaS is fundamentally different. You're not selling a one-time purchase; you're asking someone to integrate your solution into their daily workflow.
That requires trust. And trust requires time and multiple touchpoints. But they were trying to convert cold traffic on the first visit. No wonder their conversion rates were terrible.
Here's my playbook
What I ended up doing and the results.
Once I understood the real problem, the solution became clear. Instead of optimizing the product or the conversion funnel, we needed to build trust before people ever hit their website. We needed to flip their entire approach from product-first to distribution-first.
Here's the exact framework we implemented:
Step 1: Audit Your Real Distribution Sources
First, we stopped trusting "direct" traffic as a metric. I dug into their actual customer acquisition data and found that their best customers weren't coming from their website at all. They were coming from:
The founder's LinkedIn content (but only his industry insights, not product posts)
Mentions in industry newsletters they'd never heard of
Referrals from current customers who'd been using the product for 6+ months
Step 2: Build Distribution Before Building Features
Instead of adding more product features, we focused the founder's time on content creation. But not generic content - highly specific, opinionated takes on industry trends that only someone with deep expertise could write. The goal wasn't to promote the product but to build authority and trust.
Step 3: Create Multiple Touchpoints
We built a system where potential customers would encounter the founder's thinking multiple times before ever seeing a product demo:
LinkedIn posts 3x per week sharing contrarian industry takes
Educational content that demonstrated expertise without pitching
Partnerships with newsletter writers to get featured in relevant publications
Customer success stories that focused on business outcomes, not product features
Step 4: Treat Your Website as a Second Date, Not a First
We completely restructured their website strategy. Instead of trying to convert visitors on their first visit, we treated the website as a second touchpoint for people who were already familiar with the founder's thinking. This meant:
Removing aggressive conversion tactics for first-time visitors
Adding content that demonstrated deep industry knowledge
Creating resources that provided value before asking for anything in return
Step 5: Measure Real Engagement, Not Just Conversions
We stopped obsessing over immediate conversion rates and started tracking longer-term engagement metrics. How many touchpoints did someone have before converting? How long was their consideration cycle? What content actually built trust vs. what content just drove traffic?
Trust Building
Focus on demonstrating expertise through valuable content rather than promotional material. Trust takes time to build but dramatically improves conversion quality.
Multiple Touchpoints
Create a system where prospects encounter your thinking 3-5 times before seeing your product. Each touchpoint should add value independently.
Founder Authority
Personal branding often outperforms company marketing in B2B. Your founder's voice and expertise become your biggest distribution assets.
Attribution Reality
Most "direct" traffic is actually unattributed from other sources. Dig deeper to understand your real distribution channels and double down on what works.
The results spoke for themselves, but not in the way most people expect. Instead of seeing immediate conversion rate improvements, we saw something more valuable: dramatically better user engagement and longer customer lifetime value.
Within six months of shifting to distribution-first thinking:
Trial-to-paid conversion increased from 0.8% to 3.2%
Average customer lifetime value doubled (better qualified leads led to better retention)
Customer acquisition cost through "organic" channels dropped by 60%
Support tickets decreased despite growing user base (better-educated customers)
But here's what really changed: the quality of their pipeline transformed completely. Instead of price-shopping trial users, they were getting demo requests from people who already understood the value and were ready to buy. The founder went from explaining what the product did to discussing implementation timelines.
The most surprising result? Competitors started copying their content strategy within months. That's when we knew we'd found something that worked. When your competitors start trying to replicate your distribution instead of your features, you know you've built a sustainable advantage.
What I've learned and the mistakes I've made.
Sharing so you don't make them.
Here are the key insights that completely changed how I think about SaaS growth:
Distribution compounds, features don't - A new feature might improve retention by 10%. A new distribution channel can 10x your reach.
Trust beats features every time - People buy from people they trust, not from companies with the best feature list.
"Direct" traffic is a lie - Most attribution tools miss the real customer journey. Dig deeper to understand how people actually find you.
Cold traffic needs warm-up - SaaS buyers need multiple touchpoints before they're ready to commit. Plan for this from day one.
Founder expertise is your best distribution channel - In B2B, people buy from experts, not companies. Your founder's knowledge is often your biggest competitive advantage.
Content should educate, not promote - The best marketing doesn't feel like marketing. Focus on being helpful, not persuasive.
Distribution timing matters - Start building distribution channels while you're building features, not after. By the time your product is "ready," it might be too late.
The biggest lesson? Most SaaS companies fail not because they build bad products, but because they never solve the distribution puzzle. The companies that win understand that building great distribution is just as important as building great products - and often more important in the early stages.
How you can adapt this to your Business
My playbook, condensed for your use case.
For your SaaS / Startup
For SaaS startups, implementing distribution-led growth means:
Start with founder-led content before building complex features
Track real attribution beyond "direct" traffic metrics
Build trust through education, not promotion
Create multiple touchpoints in your customer journey
For your Ecommerce store
For e-commerce stores, distribution-first thinking involves:
Focus on platform expansion over product expansion initially
Build relationships with influencers and content creators early
Prioritize channels where trust and social proof matter most
Test distribution strategies before scaling inventory