Do you agree or disagree?
WHY?
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If vertically integrated, they must go hand in hand or brand will suffer.
In my industry, no one can afford to make a bad product because the competition is too great.
Yaa no matter how good is your product. It will be nothing without distribution. You need to make you product available worldwide
Interesting
Gotta create the opportunities to win. A successful product without distribution is like a dog who speaks Norwegian. Very rare.
It’s a cycle. You need a product to sell. You need sales and supply chain to create customers. And you need customers to provide feedback so you can make a better product. Of course Marketing and sales makes the cycle flow. So the product can be complete shit, but if your sales you’ll be successful…. Perhaps not for long or ever again.
I’ve seen so many people get stuck at the ‘distribution’ part of their tech business over the years that I usually tell most first time founder friends to not start their business until they figure out distribution.
That being said a lot of tech founders have had a lot of luck focusing less on distribution and more on just building world class PLG teams and have had immense success with it.
This is currently my “problem” right now. I’m developing a SaaS that I believe has demand but the biggest problem after I’ve finished the product will be distribution because I have no connections to the market I’m looking to sell too.
I’m only a software engineer by trade and I have no other experience or communities I’m connected to so technically no matter what I’d be stuck only building SaaS for devs/founders. I honestly don’t want to be yet another founder building for other founders. But I understand why saas founders tend to only build saas for other devs, because it’s the only community they’re familiar with and comfortable distributing to. I think I’m willing to take the risk and try to distribute organically. I’m sure I’ll learn a bunch from it.
idk, I think you need both, but without a quality product I dont know how youd be successful.
thats why I personally hate marketing and advertising, as well as sales. I just want to know if its a good quality product that fills my needs at an appropriate price.
What you said you want to know is what marketing is… marketing is placing a product in the right place at the right price with the right promotion… the product doesn’t matter, it’s the distribution that matters… China makes a ton of garbage products and they sell… I forgot where I read this statement but it said something like this “a lot of the New York best selling books are best sellers because they have better distributors than more quality books lacking good distributors “
im saying to me, the product absolutely matters. I dont want cheap chinese shit that doesnt work
Agreed.
And I have experienced it both as one without distribution and with it selling eight figures of physical products per year.
An inferior product will win if they have distribution and you don’t.
Disagree,
Without product there is nothing to distribute
also please upvote me, I need 10 comment karma here to make my post.
Agreed. Idk if I’d say more “important” but at the start, yes it weighs more heavily but honestly once the brand is established and there’s a consistent reputation of the brand & the product, then the product quality is more important once at that point.
It can be. Being strong in both areas gives you the best chance at success. Being strong in either still gives you hope though with a lesser chance. Years ago I developed a simple product (phone accessory) that I had designed and manufactured overseas. Due to its simplicity, I didn’t seek IP protection on its components. The product I believed at the time was trending in its category and so I shipped several thousand pieces and had a run at organic sales. Eventually I determined that the product was not as strong as I initially anticipated due to continued market entrants. About a year later I saw my product in stores and kiosks, in the same packaging and designs, but under a different name. The manufacturer, who had greater distribution channels, just ran with my products and got a much wider consumer audience. Same product, different result. Strength of your distribution network can sometimes overcome a “meh” product. This is why it can be valuable to test the market with a product and develop distribution contacts, even if you fail. Then if you have the intestinal fortitude to try again, your follow-on products will have a better shot at success.
Distribution is way more important. Shitty products sell with proper distribution