How to build a Distribution Engine?

Building a distribution system is critical to a successful product—thoughts on building a distribution system for a budget team.

Build one, sell 100 times.

James Clear was famous for his best-selling book Atomic Habit. He has sold more than 1 million copies in multiple languages.

Little did people know, that James was also known for his relentless promotion of his materials. 6 months before the publication of his book, James went on a tour and appeared on 60 podcasts.

James built one and sold it at least 60 times.

I once thought a good product was enough but I changed my mind when looking at the distribution graph of Microsoft Teams vs. Slack. Despite a superior product, Slack is far behind in the number of users.

Public Relations as a Cheap Tool of Distribution

The most famous indie hacker – Pieter Level made 30 million dollars from this single piece of media.

“I launched 12 startups in 12 months”. He spun this one into multiple pieces generating hundred thousands of visitors the first assets of his empire: nomadlist.com and remoteok.io.

The most extreme piece of startup media I once saw is the Australian influencer, Annie Knight. She talked about sleeping with 300 men a year and plans to double this number the next year.

This kind of sensational media makes many founders think they need to do something epic or outrageous to make the news, hence the hesitance to use PR.

Not to mention the common cost of PR pieces. It could come up to $10,000 per piece not to mention the cost of the PR specialist.

Here is the good news. You can be a normal person and make the news too. You do not have to outdo Pieter Levels, launching 24 startups per year. Or making a newsworthy piece like Annie Knight.

There are so many indie publications that are willing to work with your personal stories. The key thing is to tailor your messages to fit with their content strategy. This is also the most consuming part. Comb through the internet, find the editor’s contacts, tailor your messages, and deliver. You can cut down your grunt work by using Virtual Assistants and Chat GPT.

But the future is bright, there are so many infopreneurs, podcast hosts, bloggers, Youtubers you can collab with.

Think of a Distribution Game like Golf

Start Early, Start Often

If tomorrow I wake up with dementia, and there is only one marketing principle I want to remember. It would be “Start as soon as possible”.

We tend to overthink, we buy tons of marketing books before we launch anything. Please keep it simple. Keep talking about your customer’s problems and how you would solve them.

Keep talking about that for months, for years before expecting any big wins.

In our age of information overload, customers need time to love your brands. You probably do not have a billion-dollar marketing budget to throw around. Then your best bet is time, patience, and action.

A Vietnamese proverb describes this phenomenon perfectly. “Mưa dầm thấm lâu”. With enough drizzles, the rain will wet you thoroughly.

Budget marketing is no different from tiny rain. With enough time, you can wet your customers’ minds with your offer.

Please be Scrappy When You Can

I remember getting a quote from a professional photographer. You need 20,000 dollars for this campaign. I gasped in disbelief. And this conversation kept me from producing visual content for a long time.

What a waste of time!

The multi-millionaire blogger, Tim Ferris did his vlogs with only one simple device, his iPhone.

He said this important note.

The relationship you cultivate with your followers by posting daily is more important than the quality of your video production.

The earlier you start, the sooner you will see your one million followers.

Guest Posting and Collaboration

This is essentially a PR tactic but I think it deserves its section because of the story of Martha Steward and Snoop Dog.

When they first collaborated, this was such an unexpected duo. Nobody would expect an All-American debutante who lived in the Upper Westside would team up with an American rapper from the hood. Their demographics seem not to align. But this partnership created so much buzz and excitement and strengthened both brands.

The audience of Snoop Dog knows more now about Martha Stewart and vice versa.

Embrace the unexpected.

I have people who come in from Hospitality, from Healthcare. They are interested in my job. The truth is any verticals would need innovation and service design. There is an app for anything in this world.

Hint, hint - dear reader of the blog. If you are interested in any collaboration, I am happy to chat.

Build an Army of Distributors

The biggest naivety in startups is a good product will sell itself. Growth hacking is an important strategy for building traction.

Is it a coincidence that the father of Growth Hacking - Sean Ellis lived in Eastern Europe for a while?

I believe Sean Ellis used the cheap labor of the countries to build an army of distributors and seeders.

An experienced marketer once shared his case study of nurturing and growing 100 Facebook accounts to increase engagement for his content. This human method is much safer than relying on bots to grow your account.

I realize that I am in a perfect spot to employ a similar tactic. Da Nang marketing executives would accept a salary between 17,000 VND - and 25,000 VND per hour for this kind of job.

I am running several growth hacking experiments and will tell you how that turns out for you.

That is it for this Saturday. Anything to boost the distribution of a product that you would like to talk about?

We would be happy to hear from you.