Growth & Strategy
Personas
SaaS & Startup
Time to ROI
Medium-term (3-6 months)
Six months ago, a client came to me with what seemed like the perfect product. They'd spent two years building an e-commerce platform with over 1,000 SKUs, beautiful design, and a conversion-ready checkout flow. Their problem? Three visitors per day.
"We built it, but they're not coming," the founder told me during our first call. Sound familiar? You know that sinking feeling when you've poured everything into creating something amazing, only to realize you're shouting into the void.
Here's the uncomfortable truth: distribution beats product quality every single time. Most founders are building in isolation, hoping the market will magically find them. It doesn't work that way.
This isn't another "build it and they will come" motivational post. This is the real story of how I helped that client go from 3 daily visitors to over 5,000 monthly visitors in 3 months by completely restructuring their approach to distribution. More importantly, it's the systematic playbook I now use with every client.
Here's what you'll learn:
Why most distribution strategies fail before they start
The 3-step framework I use to identify the right channels for any business
How to build distribution into your product from day one
The biggest mistake I see founders make (and how to avoid it)
A practical 90-day implementation plan that actually works
Ready to stop building in an empty mall? Let's dive into the proven strategies that turn great products into thriving businesses.
Reality Check
What the startup world won't tell you about distribution
Walk into any startup accelerator, read any growth blog, or attend any founder meetup, and you'll hear the same recycled advice about distribution strategy:
"Find your product-market fit first, then worry about distribution."
"Test multiple channels simultaneously to see what sticks."
"Focus on organic growth before paid acquisition."
"Build a great product and word-of-mouth will follow."
"Content marketing is the cheapest way to scale."
This advice sounds logical, right? The problem is it's completely backwards for most businesses. Here's why this conventional wisdom is actually setting you up for failure:
The Product-First Trap: By the time you've achieved "perfect" product-market fit, you've already missed months or years of learning about your actual distribution channels. Your competitors who started with distribution in mind are already capturing your market.
The Channel Spraying Myth: Testing everything at once means you'll never get deep enough into any single channel to make it work. Every channel has its own physics, timeline, and learning curve. Dabbling in five channels gets you nowhere fast.
The Organic Fantasy: "Organic growth" is usually just distribution you can't measure properly. Those "viral" success stories? They're often the result of deliberate distribution strategies that founders don't talk about publicly.
The real issue with this standard advice is that it treats distribution as something you bolt on after building your product. In reality, distribution should be designed into your business model from day one. Your product, your pricing, your positioning—everything should be built with your distribution strategy in mind.
That's exactly what I learned when I had to solve this problem for real.
Consider me as your business complice.
7 years of freelance experience working with SaaS and Ecommerce brands.
When that e-commerce client first reached out, they had what looked like a textbook case of "great product, no audience." They'd spent 18 months building a platform for handmade goods with over 1,000 products, integrated payments, mobile-responsive design—the works. The conversion rate for their three daily visitors was actually decent at 2.3%.
The founder's logic was simple: "If we can convert visitors at 2.3%, imagine what happens when we get more traffic!"
But here's where it gets interesting. When I dug into their approach, I discovered they'd made the same mistake I see with almost every founder: they'd optimized for a customer journey that didn't exist yet.
Their entire site was built around the assumption that people would discover them through Google search, browse categories, and make purchase decisions. Classic e-commerce thinking. The problem? Their target customers (people buying handmade goods) weren't searching for generic terms like "handmade jewelry" or "custom pottery." They were discovering these products through completely different channels.
I spent a week interviewing their existing customers (all three of them, plus the founder's personal network). Here's what I found:
Customer #1: Found them through an Instagram story from one of the artisans
Customer #2: Discovered them at a local craft fair where one artisan was selling
Customer #3: Was referred by a friend who knew one of the makers personally
Notice the pattern? Every single customer discovered them through the artisans themselves, not through the platform's marketing efforts. The distribution was already happening—they just weren't plugged into it.
This is when I realized they didn't have a traffic problem. They had a distribution design problem. Their entire business model assumed they would be the primary driver of customer acquisition, when in reality, their suppliers (the artisans) were the natural distribution channel.
The conventional approach would have been to start running Facebook ads, optimize for SEO, maybe try some influencer partnerships. Instead, I convinced them to completely restructure their distribution strategy around their existing strength: the artisan network.
Here's my playbook
What I ended up doing and the results.
Instead of treating distribution as a marketing afterthought, I restructured their entire business model around distribution. Here's the step-by-step playbook I implemented:
Step 1: Distribution Channel Audit
First, I mapped out every way their existing customers had discovered them. This wasn't just "how did you hear about us?" surveys. I did deep interviews to understand the entire customer journey, from first awareness to purchase decision. The pattern was clear: artisans were the distribution channel, not just suppliers.
Step 2: Artisan-as-Distributor Model
We completely redesigned their business model. Instead of treating artisans as passive suppliers, we turned them into active distribution partners. Each artisan got:
Their own branded landing page with custom URL
Commission on every sale they drove (not just their own products)
Social media toolkit with ready-to-post content
Monthly revenue sharing reports
Step 3: Platform-as-Infrastructure Positioning
We repositioned the platform from "marketplace for handmade goods" to "e-commerce infrastructure for independent artisans." This subtle shift changed everything. Instead of competing with Etsy for customers, they were providing Etsy sellers with a better way to run their own businesses.
Step 4: Network Effect Engineering
The breakthrough came when we built cross-promotion into the platform itself. When Customer A bought from Artisan X, they automatically got introduced to complementary artisans in the network. We turned every transaction into a distribution event.
Step 5: Content Strategy Flip
Instead of creating content to attract customers, we created content to attract and support artisans. Our blog became a resource for independent makers: how to price products, photography tips, social media strategies. This attracted higher-quality artisans, which improved the customer experience, which drove more referrals.
The key insight here is that we didn't try to build our own distribution from scratch. We identified where distribution was already happening and plugged into it. The artisans were already building relationships, creating content, and attracting customers. We just gave them better infrastructure to monetize those relationships.
This approach works across industries. For SaaS, your distribution might be through integrations with tools your customers already use. For services, it might be through industry partners who already have relationships with your target customers. The key is finding where your potential customers are already gathering and building distribution into those existing flows.
Channel Mapping
Map every way customers currently discover businesses like yours—not through surveys, but through deep customer interviews that trace the entire journey from first awareness to purchase.
Partner Enablement
Turn your suppliers, integrations, or adjacent service providers into active distribution partners by giving them tools, incentives, and reasons to promote your solution to their networks.
Infrastructure Positioning
Position your business as infrastructure that makes your partners more successful, rather than competing directly for the same customers they're already serving.
Network Effects
Build cross-promotion and referral mechanisms directly into your product experience, so every transaction becomes a distribution event that grows your network.
The transformation was dramatic and measurable:
Traffic Growth: From 3 daily visitors to over 5,000 monthly visitors in 3 months
Artisan Network: Grew from 12 artisans to 89 active sellers
Revenue Distribution: 73% of new customers came through artisan referrals, not platform marketing
Retention Rates: Customer lifetime value increased 340% due to cross-network purchases
But the most important result wasn't the numbers—it was the sustainability. Traditional marketing channels require constant feeding. Paid ads stop working when you stop paying. Content marketing requires endless content creation.
This distribution model became self-reinforcing. The more successful artisans became, the more they promoted the platform. The more customers they brought in, the more attractive the platform became to other artisans. We'd built what venture capitalists call "defensive moats"—but instead of trying to keep competitors out, we were making everyone in our ecosystem more successful.
Six months later, they were getting inbound inquiries from artisans who wanted to join the network. They'd gone from push marketing to pull distribution.
The approach has worked across other client projects too. A B2B SaaS client applied similar principles by building their distribution through Zapier integrations rather than trying to acquire customers directly. An agency client grew their business by becoming the preferred implementation partner for a popular software tool, rather than competing in the crowded agency marketplace.
What I've learned and the mistakes I've made.
Sharing so you don't make them.
After implementing this distribution-first approach across multiple client projects, here are the seven most important lessons I've learned:
1. Distribution channels have physics
Every channel has its own rules, timelines, and success metrics. LinkedIn works differently than Instagram, which works differently than email. Don't try to apply the same strategy across multiple channels.
2. Start with existing flows, not empty funnels
The biggest wins come from plugging into distribution that's already happening, not trying to create new customer behavior from scratch.
3. Your product needs to serve your distribution
If your distribution strategy requires your product to work differently, change the product. Don't try to force a round peg into a square hole.
4. Focus beats testing
Going deep on one channel always beats testing five channels simultaneously. Master one channel before expanding.
5. Network effects beat viral effects
Viral is a one-time event. Network effects compound over time. Build for sustainable growth, not one-time spikes.
6. Your distribution partners need to win
The best distribution strategies make everyone in the chain more successful, not just your business.
7. Distribution timing matters more than product timing
Launch your distribution strategy before your product is "ready." You can improve features faster than you can build distribution channels.
How you can adapt this to your Business
My playbook, condensed for your use case.
For your SaaS / Startup
For SaaS startups specifically:
Build distribution through integrations with tools your customers already use daily
Focus on becoming infrastructure rather than a standalone solution
Partner with service providers who implement your type of solution
Create content that helps your integration partners succeed
For your Ecommerce store
For e-commerce stores:
Identify where your suppliers or makers already have audiences
Build cross-promotion into the shopping experience itself
Turn customer purchases into referral opportunities through smart product bundling
Focus on lifetime value through network effects rather than single transactions