I’m worried about distribution. In consumer software distribution is king. No distribution, no network effects, no value. How does one begin to acquire customers? There’s loads of information online and in fact much of it is useless. It’s all quite generic and it appears that each successful consumer company used a combination of strategies. That seems obvious. There is no magic bullet. There is probably actually quite a bit of luck, or good timing, rather.
In one of the better pieces of generalization I found Lenny Rachitsky distills distribution down to 7 unique strategies. A note here; I consider distribution and acquisition pretty much the same. Your distribution channel is what allows you to acquire customers. In Lenny’s analysis these 7 strategies account for “every consumer apps growth.”
The strategies are self evident and don’t require me to go into them. I recommend you go read Lenny’s post if you haven’t. He gives some quotes from the founders at each of the company that are helpful.
I believe that the top two strategies are likely much better than the next five combined. You will never get better and faster feedback than by going directly to users. I also believe those strategies are the most psychologically painful. It would be much better to just have your product work and users love it, rather than have to go talk to them and find out potentially bad news. Being told your product sucks is not fun.
Throughout my career I have only used the first two strategies. It has served me well. I will write more about how I’ve managed growth at my previous companies in another post. I’ll end by saying that even though I’ve only used the first two strategies to success, the distribution strategy I will use for Boomering will be the same in name only. Yes I will go to users, but the way I access them and where I find them are completely different than anything I’ve ever done before. So I’m worried about it. Let’s see how it goes.