Get your first customers

Distribution & channel strategy

The channel is the strategy.

How do I figure out which distribution channel is right for my startup? Run experiments, don't guess. Use the Bullseye framework from 'Traction': brainstorm across all ~19 channels, pick 3 promising ones to cheaply test... Intermediate 2 resources → Why does everyone say 'distribution is more important than product'? Because a great product nobody can find dies quietly, while an average product with a strong channel wins the market. Most founders overspend on bu... Intermediate 2 resources → What are the actual distribution channels I can choose from? There are roughly 19 well-known ones, SEO, content, paid ads, viral/referral, email, sales, business development, PR, community, existing platforms... Beginner 1 resource → Should I focus on one channel or spread across many? Focus. Early on, pick one channel that shows real traction and pour your energy into mastering it before diversifying, spreading thin across five c... Intermediate 2 resources → How do the fastest-growing B2B companies find and scale their distribution? They start with high-trust channels, personal network and direct outreach, to land their first ten, then scale on a dominant engine, most often con... Advanced 2 resources → As an Indian founder, how do I think about distribution for a global product? The channel is still the strategy, but pick ones that don't require you to be physically in the buyer's market, content/SEO, product-led self-serve... Advanced 3 resources → I have zero marketing budget. What distribution can I actually do for free? Free distribution is not really free, it costs your time and often your face. The honest options for a broke founder are: showing up in communities... Beginner 3 resources → Should I build an audience first and then a product, or the other way around? If you can build an audience first, it is one of the biggest unfair advantages a solo founder can have, because launch day is no longer a cold star... Intermediate 3 resources → How do I know if a channel is actually working or I'm just fooling myself? A channel is working when you can spend a rupee (or an hour) on one end and reliably get a paying customer out the other, and you can do it again n... Intermediate 3 resources → Everyone says do cold email but my cold emails get ignored. What am I doing wrong? Ignored cold email is almost always a targeting and relevance problem, not a copy problem. If you are emailing people who do not have the pain you ... Intermediate 3 resources → My product spreads a bit by word of mouth. How do I make that intentional instead of luck? Word of mouth becomes a system when you figure out the exact moment a user gets value and design a nudge to share at that moment, not a generic ref... Advanced 3 resources → Should Indian founders selling in India lean on WhatsApp as a distribution channel? For selling into India, WhatsApp is often where your customer actually is, so ignoring it because it feels informal is a mistake many founders make... Intermediate 3 resources → When does it make sense to sell through resellers or partners instead of direct? Channel partners make sense when your buyer already trusts an intermediary more than they will trust an unknown startup, or when the sale needs loc... Advanced 3 resources → Is SEO still worth it for a new startup, or is it too slow and too late? SEO is slow, compounding, and still very much alive, but it is the wrong first channel if you need customers this quarter. It pays off for founders... Intermediate 3 resources → How much should I spend on paid ads before deciding they don't work for me? Set a kill budget before you start, usually enough to get a statistically real number of conversions (not three), and treat that spend as tuition, ... Advanced 3 resources → I'm a technical founder who hates selling. Can I distribute without doing sales? You can lean toward channels that fit an introvert (content, product-led growth, community, SEO) instead of cold calling, and many great technical ... Intermediate 3 resources → How do I get my first 100 users when nobody has heard of me? The first 100 come from doing unscalable things: reaching out to people you already know, going to where your users hang out and being useful there... Beginner 3 resources → Should I launch on Product Hunt, and does it even matter for an Indian startup? Product Hunt can give a real spike of early adopters, feedback, and a few backlinks, but it mostly reaches a Western, product-savvy crowd, so if yo... Intermediate 3 resources →
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