Six months ago I shipped Read Recall. It’s one of my first vibe coded apps and honestly, it works pretty well (which is basically a way to save url links from articles so that they’re easy to recall). The uncomfortable truth though? It’s been sitting there quietly with under ten users.

That gap between “shipped” and “used” taught me something I keep bumping into everywhere right now: AI made building ridiculously fast. What it didn’t change is the part that actually matters. People don’t know your app exists. And even if they do, they don’t trust new things by default.

This is about distribution being the real moat.

Building Got Fast. Everything After That Didn’t.

Here’s what changed: AI dropped the cost of creation. A solo builder can go from idea to deployed app in a weekend. I’m doing it all the time now. Vibe coding works because Claude handles the code, I handle the thinking, and we ship.

But here’s what didn’t change: people have limited attention. And they don’t trust new things.

So we’re seeing a new pattern emerge. The supply of pretty good apps is exploding. The number of users willing to try a brand new tool is absolutely not exploding.

This is why so many projects hit a wall right after launch. It’s not because the code is bad. It’s because the builder never planned for the part after shipping.

Marc Andreessen has a blunt way of saying this: companies often become distribution-centric, not product-centric, and a better distribution channel can beat a better product. (Source)

When Everyone Can Build, Everything Gets Noisy

When the barrier to building drops, the first thing you get is volume. Tons of new tools. Tons of similar features. Tons of launches happening every single day.

In that environment, having a better feature doesn’t win anymore. It decays fast. Users stick with what they know, or what they saw first, or what someone they trust recommended.

So you’ll see this happening more and more: a tool with a worse product wins because it had better reach. The winner isn’t always best. It’s often most visible.

That’s what a distribution moat actually is. It’s the repeatable advantage that beats a better product.

What Distribution Actually Means

A distribution moat is a repeatable way to reach the right people with the right message without starting from zero every time.

It has three parts.

First is the channel. Somewhere you can reliably show up. Search. Email. Social. Communities. Partnerships. The place where your people already are.

Second is consistency. You can do it again next week, not just once and hope.

Third is trust. People believe you enough to click, try, subscribe, or buy.

When you have all three, growth compounds. You’re not grinding for attention every single day. You’re building something that works for you while you sleep.

Five Ways Builders Can Actually Win at Distribution

The uncomfortable truth: there’s no one-size-fits-all distribution strategy. Some work beautifully for certain builders and products. Others are traps disguised as opportunities.

1. The content engine: SEO done like an operator.

Start a separate blog on WordPress, Substack, or Medium and write about the problem your app solves, not about your app itself. Build topic clusters where a page explores your core concept and answer specific questions people search for. If you built a project management tool, a page example could be “How to Manage Remote Teams Asynchronously,” with articles around it like “Setting up async communication workflows” and “Common mistakes in distributed teams.”

Over time, Google ranks you as the authority. People searching these questions find your content. Some discover your app. This works beautifully if you can write consistently.

The catch is that SEO is slow and you’re competing against established sites with more authority. You need to actually finish the strategy instead of abandoning it after three posts. Can you commit for 6-12 months? I’ve been blogging for some few weeks now and i’m slowly seeing traction on one of the apps i built, Birdie

2. The community engine: Build a gathering place.

Host weekly office hours, monthly demos, or a Slack where people help each other solve problems. If you built an automation tool, you might host “automation wins” sessions where users demo what they’ve automated. Ten deeply engaged people beats a thousand lurkers. They become your advocates, your beta testers, your word-of-mouth engine.

This works if you have extroverted energy or genuine passion for teaching, especially if you’re in a community already hungry for solutions. But here’s the reality: it requires showing up consistently for months with no immediate payoff. Most builders quit after 4-6 weeks when there’s no obvious ROI. Can you sustain this for six months?

3. The ecosystem engine: Meet users where they already work.

Build integrations, plugins, or extensions for platforms your audience uses daily. If you built a data visualization tool, create a Notion plugin. People searching “How do I visualize data in Notion?” find you in the Notion marketplace. No convincing needed. You’re not competing for attention in a crowded feed. You’re meeting them in the tools they open every day.

This approach works if you have technical depth—you can code it yourself or afford developers. The challenge is that getting listed in official marketplaces takes weeks or months of back-and-forth. You’re also dependent on the platform’s success, which means you’re riding their wave rather than building your own.

4. The sharing engine: Make the product itself do the marketing.

Build features that get shared naturally because sharing helps the user or makes them look good. A quiz app with shareable results. A resume builder where people share the finished product. Twitter/X threads. GitHub profiles. These are shareable by default because the user’s success becomes your marketing.

This only works if your product creates shareable moments naturally. Social apps and entertainment do this. Most business tools don’t. A form builder isn’t shareable. An API tool isn’t shareable. You can’t force this—trying to add “share this!” buttons to a productivity tool won’t work.

5. The partnership engine: Borrow trust from people ahead of you.

Find creators or influencers whose audience needs what you built. Email YouTube productivity creators and offer a free license explore some collaboration with them. Ask technical newsletter writers to collaborate on a guide. You get credibility. They get content. Their readers discover you.

This works if you have a genuinely useful product and thick skin for rejection. Cold outreach has a 1-5% response rate. Most won’t reply. Most who reply won’t say yes. Partnerships also won’t fix a weak product—they’ll just expose your weakness to more people.

The Real Question: Which Engine Fits Your Situation?

For brand new builders shipping their first app, distribution doesn’t happen all at once. It happens in a specific order if you do it right.

First, you need to solve a real problem well enough that early users tell their friends. This means you spent more time building the right thing than the wrong thing. No distribution strategy can fix a weak product. They’ll just expose your weakness to more people.

Second, you pick ONE channel and commit to it for 30 days. Content, community, ecosystem, sharing, or partnership. Whichever fits your product and your personality. Not all five. Not even two. One. Most builders fail because they try to do everything and burn out doing nothing.

Third, you measure what’s actually working (which is harder than it sounds) and double down on that channel for the next 30 days. See what actually moves the needle. Then repeat.

Before You Build Again, Answer These

If you only take one thing from this, take this. Answer these questions before you touch the code for the next version.

Who is it for, in one sentence?

What triggers the search? What moment makes someone go looking for a tool like yours? When do they realize they need this?

What’s the first proof artifact you can ship? A demo video. A screenshot thread. A case study. A landing page with examples. Something that shows it works.

What’s the one action you want them to take? If you’re growing an audience, it’s usually subscribe. If you’re selling, it’s usually demo or trial.

Where do those people already hang out?

Be honest. If it’s nowhere you currently post, that’s the work you need to do.

This is building with distribution in mind. You’re not just building software. You’re building the path to the user at the same time.

What Happens Next

If you’re building with AI and you want practical ideas you can actually execute, stick around. I’m documenting this whole thing in public as it happens. The wins, the failures, all of it. I’d also love to hear what you’re building or how you’re reaching your audience.