If I can’t distribute, I don’t build

Most founders start with the product. They have an idea, they get excited, they build. Then they look up and wonder why nobody is buying it. I used to do the same thing. But these days, I flip the order entirely. Before I write a single line of code, I ask myself one question: can I actually get this in front of the right people? If the answer is no, I don't build it.

The product isn't the hard part

Peter Thiel put it bluntly in Zero to One: "Poor distribution, not product, is the number one cause of failure." Most startups get zero distribution channels to work. Not because their product is bad, but because they never figured out how to reach customers in the first place. This hits differently when you've lived it. You can have the most elegant solution to a real problem, but if you can't get it into the hands of people who need it, it might as well not exist. A mediocre product with great distribution will almost always beat a great product with no distribution.

Start from the network, not the idea

So today, rather than starting from the idea and building, I start from the idea and figure out whether I can distribute it. Say I'm building an education platform and I'm a student myself. That's easy to distribute. I'm already in the community. I know the people, the pain points, the channels. I can get the first ten users without spending a dollar. But what if I want to build something for manufacturing, shipping logistics, or carbon management? If I don't have any connections in that space, how do I go from zero? I can't magically show up overnight in a community I've never been part of. That's a distribution problem, and no amount of product polish will solve it. The first thing I evaluate now is: how many connections do I have in this space, what are they doing, and how can I reach them? Only after answering that do I think about wider channels like cold outreach, content, or paid ads. And even those wider strategies depend on whether you're building a consumer app or a B2B tool, because the playbooks are completely different.

The niche paradox

Here's the part that blew my mind. The harder a space is to reach, the more money tends to be there. Agriculture, carbon credits, legal tech, these verticals are boring, niche, and difficult to break into. But that difficulty is exactly what creates the opportunity. Most builders avoid these spaces precisely because they can't distribute into them. Meanwhile, everyone else is going horizontal. They're building general-purpose tools aimed at capturing the widest possible audience. The net is so big it doesn't actually catch anything. When you compete in a crowded horizontal market, you're up against well-funded incumbents who can outspend you on every distribution channel. Vertical SaaS companies, on the other hand, enjoy some serious structural advantages. They can laser-focus their marketing on a defined segment, which drives down customer acquisition costs. Some data suggests vertical platforms achieve customer acquisition costs up to eight times cheaper than their horizontal counterparts. They also tend to see higher user adoption and stronger retention, because the product is built specifically for the way that industry works. The boring stuff is where the money is, but only if you can actually get in the door.

Distribution is about relationships

So what do you do if you want to build for a space where you don't have connections? You don't build first. You build relationships first. Say you want to sell to lawyers. You don't start by coding a legal tech platform. You start by talking to lawyers. You find consultants, agency partners, and people already embedded in that world. You get into the community. You understand their workflows, their frustrations, their buying patterns. And then, when you do build something, you already have a path to your first ten customers. Andrew Chen calls this having a "dual theory" on distribution and product/market fit. You need both. A great product without a distribution thesis is just a hobby project. And a distribution channel without product/market fit won't sustain. But if you had to pick which one to figure out first, I'd argue distribution wins every time, because you can iterate on a product. You can't iterate your way into a network that doesn't exist.

The filter I use now

Before I commit to any new project, I run it through a simple filter:

If I can't answer these confidently, I move on. It's not that the idea is bad. It's that I'm not the right person to build it, or it's not the right time.

Build what you can distribute

The instinct for most builders is to start with what excites them. That's natural. But excitement doesn't create customers. Distribution does. The most underrated skill in building products isn't coding or design. It's the ability to get something into the hands of people who will pay for it. And that ability is almost always rooted in relationships, community, and a clear-eyed understanding of how you'll reach your market. If I can't distribute it, I don't build it. That one filter has saved me more time and money than any framework, tool, or methodology ever has.

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