Distribution is a discipline, not a growth hack
Founders talk about channels the way they talk about diets — enthusiastically, briefly, and then never again.
Most distribution failures are not channel failures. They are attention failures. A channel is tried for three weeks, judged against an unrealistic bar, abandoned, and replaced with a new one that will receive the same treatment. The result is a company that has technically tried everything and learned nothing.
Depth beats breadth, painfully
The teams that win a channel usually run it long enough to get bored of it. They know their cost per outcome by segment, they know which creative or message fatigues first, and they know what the ceiling is before they go looking for a second channel.
You do not have a distribution strategy until you can name the number that would make you stop.
A workable sequence
- Pick one channel that matches how your buyer already behaves.
- Commit to a window long enough to produce signal, and write it down in advance.
- Instrument the outcome, not the activity. Impressions are not evidence.
- Only add a second channel once the first one is boring and predictable.
This is unglamorous work, and it is the reason it stays available. The founders who treat distribution as a craft rather than a campaign end up with an asset their competitors cannot replicate on a quarterly timeline.