Note - The first draft of this issue was written in Early December 2025

It’s been an interesting year.

Not because marketing suddenly stopped working, but because the conditions it works under have changed in very real ways. Marketing did not break. The environment shifted. And once you look at it honestly, it becomes clear that marketing was always going to get harder.

There are more products in the market than ever before. More startups. More SaaS tools. More creator products. More AI products. More companies chasing growth. At the same time, there are more marketers, more agencies, more freelancers, and more automated tools producing marketing at scale.

That alone creates pressure.

Attention has not increased. Time has not increased. People have not suddenly become more interested in buying new things. So what you get is density. Too many messages fighting for the same limited mental space.

When density increases, efficiency drops.

This is why many marketers felt like they were doing everything right this year, but results still softened. Campaigns that used to work felt weaker. Channels that felt reliable became unpredictable. Costs went up. Conversions felt harder to explain.

Then came the structural issues on top of that.

Tracking continued to deteriorate. Apple’s privacy changes weakened Meta’s attribution. Cookie-based targeting became unreliable. Last-click attribution told less of the story than it used to. Marketers were forced to make decisions with incomplete data, while being asked to justify performance more than ever.

At the same time, platforms made their incentives clear.

Organic reach declined across social platforms. This was not accidental. Platforms are businesses. Paid distribution is how they make money. Organic reach still exists, but it is no longer something you can depend on consistently. You can win moments, not systems, if organic is all you rely on.

Clicks also dropped in places people did not expect.

AI changed how people search and discover information. Instead of clicking ten links, users now ask one question and get one answer. That removes traffic from the open web and concentrates power elsewhere. Marketing did not disappear, but the path to discovery changed.

Old assumptions quietly stopped being true.

Another layer to this is geography and context.

Global marketing playbooks do not translate cleanly into local markets. In places like Nigeria, high inflation, low purchasing power, infrastructure gaps, and trust issues all shape how marketing actually performs. You cannot simply copy what works in the US or Europe and expect the same outcome.

One of the clearest lessons from this year is that offline and online channels work best together, especially in markets where trust and familiarity matter. Digital-only strategies can work, but they are rarely sufficient on their own. Real-world touchpoints, referrals, and physical presence still influence conversion in ways dashboards cannot fully capture.

Attribution struggles to account for this.

Someone might see a billboard, hear about a product from a friend, watch a video later, and finally convert through a paid ad. Most systems only record the last step. That does not mean the other steps did not matter. It just means they were invisible.

This is why attribution feels frustrating. Not because it is useless, but because it is incomplete.

Fraud also increased. Fake leads, low-quality traffic, inflated metrics. As pressure to show growth rises, so does noise inside the data. This further weakens trust in surface-level numbers and forces marketers to look deeper.

So when people say “marketing is harder now,” they are right. But not because marketers suddenly forgot how to do their jobs.

Marketing is harder because:

• The market is crowded

• Attention is fragmented

• Tracking is imperfect

• Platforms prioritize paid distribution

• AI is reshaping discovery

• Local realities complicate execution

And all of this is happening at the same time.

The marketers who performed best this year were not necessarily the ones who found new hacks. They were the ones who treated marketing as a system, not a collection of channels. They focused on first-party data. They built workflows. They combined automation with human judgment. They stopped expecting clean attribution and started designing around uncertainty.

That shift is the real story of this year.

From Channels to Systems: Engineering Marketing Again

Once you accept that marketing is getting harder for structural reasons, the next question becomes obvious.

How should marketers respond?

The mistake many people make at this point is looking for better tactics. A new channel. A new ad format. A new growth hack. But the shift that is happening is not tactical. It is foundational.

Marketing is quietly moving back toward its technical roots.

If you go far enough back in digital marketing, marketers were much closer to the product and the technology than they are today. They were setting up websites themselves. Installing analytics. Managing servers. Configuring email systems. Even when they were not writing code, they understood how the systems worked.

Over time, marketing became more abstracted.

Tools became easier. Platforms became more automated. Teams grew. Developers handled technical work. Marketers focused on copy, creatives, and channels. That division worked for a while.

It works less well now.

The current environment rewards marketers who understand systems, not just surfaces. Funnels, data flows, automations, attribution logic, APIs, tagging, workflows. These are no longer optional knowledge areas. They are leverage.

This does not mean every marketer needs to become an engineer. It does mean marketers need enough technical understanding to design systems, debug problems, and communicate clearly with developers or tools.

Waiting is expensive.

Waiting for a developer to set up a simple tracking event. Waiting for engineering to build a landing page test. Waiting for data teams to pull insights. In fast-moving markets, speed compounds. Teams that move slowly lose optionality.

This is why treating marketing like an engineering discipline matters.

Engineering thinking forces structure. Inputs, outputs, constraints, feedback loops. It asks how a system behaves over time, not just how a campaign performs in isolation. It encourages iteration, testing, and documentation.

When marketers think this way, automation becomes useful instead of shallow.

Automation is not about doing less work. It is about doing the same work faster and more consistently. Email flows. CRM logic. Lead scoring. Content distribution. Reporting. These are not exciting, but they remove friction and create capacity for higher-quality thinking.

AI fits here, too.

AI is an execution layer, not a strategy engine. It can help you write faster, analyze faster, and prototype faster. It cannot tell you what to build or who to serve. Marketers who confuse execution speed with strategic clarity end up shipping more noise, not better systems.

This is where many teams struggle.

They add AI on top of weak foundations. Poor data. No segmentation. No feedback loops. No clear customer understanding. AI amplifies whatever you already have. If the system is fragile, it breaks faster.

Another important shift is skill valuation.

Skills like copywriting, social media management, and basic content creation are still important. They are just no longer rare. The bar has moved. What used to be impressive is now expected.

This does not devalue creativity. It changes where creativity is applied.

The advantage now comes from creative system design. How channels connect. How users move between touchpoints. How data informs messaging. How offline and online efforts reinforce each other. How feedback loops are built into the workflow.

Marketing is becoming less about shipping campaigns and more about shipping infrastructure.

This also explains why new roles and labels are emerging. Technical marketing. Growth engineering. GTM engineering. Revenue operations. Different names, similar direction.

The common thread is systems ownership.

The marketers who stay ahead will be the ones who understand enough of the stack to build, adapt, and maintain these systems without waiting for permission or perfect conditions.

Winning in 2026: Precision, Data, and Product Thinking

If marketing is becoming more structural and more technical, then the way we operate has to change with it. 2026 will not reward louder marketing. It will reward clearer systems.

The first priority is data. Not more dashboards, but better data.

Third-party data is unreliable. Platform reporting is incomplete. Attribution will remain imperfect. The only durable advantage left is first-party data. Knowing who your users are, how they behave, what they respond to, and how they move through your ecosystem.

This means asking better questions. It means collecting information intentionally. It means designing flows where data is not an afterthought, but a core input into decision-making.

First-party data does not only improve targeting. It improves judgment.

When you understand your audience deeply, you make better creative decisions, better channel decisions, and better product decisions. Data becomes context, not just metrics.

The second priority is precision.

The era of broad, generic messaging is fading. Not because it never worked, but because it is increasingly inefficient. There are too many messages competing at once. Precision cuts through noise better than volume.

This applies to targeting, messaging, and distribution.

Reaching fewer people who care is more valuable than reaching many people who do not. This is especially true in markets where budgets are constrained and trust matters. Precision creates relevance. Relevance creates conversion.

Lead generation fits into this shift.

Leads are not about spam or endless nurture sequences. They are about optionality. If someone is not ready to convert today, can you keep the conversation open in a way that adds value over time?

Communities help, but they do not scale on their own. Social platforms are noisy. Group chats are personal but limited. Email, SMS, and messaging workflows sit in the middle. They allow scale with personalization when designed well.

The key is segmentation.

Not all leads are equal. Not all users need the same message. Systems that fail to recognize this end up wasting attention and trust. Systems that adapt become compounding assets.

Another major shift for 2026 is product thinking.

Marketing cycles are shortening. Channels change faster. Formats decay faster. What worked six months ago may already be stale. This requires marketers to think like product teams.

Ship. Observe. Learn. Iterate.

Instead of annual plans that lock teams into rigid strategies, shorter cycles create flexibility. Reviews every few months force honesty. What is working. What is not. What needs to be rebuilt.

Marketing systems should evolve the same way products do.

AI and automation support this, but they do not replace thinking. AI accelerates execution. It does not decide direction. Teams that rely on AI without clarity move faster in the wrong direction.

Creative thinking still matters, but it has shifted.

Creativity is no longer just about messaging. It is about system design. How offline and online touchpoints reinforce each other. How content ecosystems work together. How distribution, partnerships, and platforms interact.

Attribution will remain hard. This is not a reason to give up. It is a reason to design around reality.

Think of attribution as a system, not a metric. Use it to guide decisions, not to justify them. Accept that some influence will remain invisible, especially across offline and trust-based channels.

The marketers who win in 2026 will not be the ones running the most campaigns. They will be the ones building the most resilient systems.

Systems that learn. Systems that adapt. Systems that respect attention. Systems that compound over time.

Marketing is no longer about shipping campaigns.

It is about shipping marketing systems.

We’ve talked a lot about distribution—maybe more than I ever imagined. There’s the standard market distribution everyone knows, and then there’s embedded distribution, the kind that often flies under the radar.

I wanted to shine a light on this because, especially in our world, it’s a type of distribution we rarely take seriously. I’ve seen firsthand how embedding products into other platforms can work beautifully, and also how it can miss the mark if not executed thoughtfully. But the potential is enormous.

I’m not talking about creating a super app or trying to monopolize everything. Instead, think of it as collaboration over competition, understanding the loops your product lives in, and optimizing every smart hack. Knowing which channels work, understanding your audience, and experimenting thoughtfully can create real advantages.

One practical way to think about it: pick an app you use often and imagine how another product could fit seamlessly into it. What would make that integration meaningful? That simple exercise can uncover opportunities that aren’t immediately obvious.

I hope you’ve learned something useful and found this series interesting. It’s been challenging to produce, but I’ve loved every bit of it. I’m looking forward to doing more hack-focused explorations in the future, and I’d love to hear your thoughts or ideas for the next one.

Thank you for joining me on this journey.

Apart from the obvious cases where you pay directly, there are the internal costs that slip into the background. Engineers need to get paid. Marketers need to get paid. The team needs time. Time is one of the biggest costs in distribution. It takes time to build, to align, to review, to test, and to push things forward. Time also has its own hidden price. You could have been doing something else with that time.

There is a term in business that sits close to this, Opportunity Cost. The idea is simple. When you choose one direction, you are giving up another. It does not mean the decision is wrong or right. It only means you should weigh what you are losing against what you stand to gain. Distribution works the same way. The time you spend negotiating, planning, and integrating could have been spent on a different lever. That is part of the cost.

Then there are the invisible costs. The tiny things that never show up on a spreadsheet at first. You spend time getting approvals. You spend time getting technical alignment. You negotiate how visible you will be in the interface. You sometimes give up control over parts of the message or parts of the experience. You are depending on another team, another company, another road-map. If they slow down, you slow down. Their pace becomes your pace.

There are also costs that grow with scale. Maybe you pay for API calls or credits. As you grow, the volume increases. Scale does not always create savings. Sometimes scale becomes expensive. That is why you always keep an eye on marginal cost and how it shifts as your channel grows.

On the surface, it can feel like the marginal cost of reaching a new user is close to zero. The truth is that most of the work sits at the beginning. The negotiations, the integrations, the alignment, and the setup take the bulk of the effort. Later, the channel might become costly again if the partner changes pricing, tightens policies, or introduces limits that did not exist before.

All of these are part of the real cost of distribution. Some costs are loud. Some costs hide. Together, they shape the true price you pay to build through someone else’s platform.

That is all for day 29. I will see you tomorrow for the final edition.

But in reality, the people who see distribution opportunities the earliest are usually marketers. We are the ones who notice where users hang out, where they move, and where the product could plug itself in. So making a case often falls on us.

To explain this better, I want to start with something outside tech. Think about billboards. I am not sure if marketers still use the exact same formulas, but in civil engineering, we did a lot of work on traffic volume. We calculated how many people would pass a road at a given time, how many cars would park in a certain space, and even how many vehicles would cross a particular point during peak hours.

These calculations were never perfect. They were estimates. But they helped us predict flow. And when you think about billboards, it is the same idea. You place a board in an area with heavy movement because you understand the flow of people. That is why billboards in high-value areas cost more. It is not magic. It is traffic math.

This idea of estimating flow translates beautifully into distribution. When you want to embed your product somewhere, an excellent question is, how many people could potentially use it there? Not exact numbers. Just a reasonable estimate that helps you understand the magnitude of the opportunity.

I do something similar in my own work. Sometimes I estimate the impact of an ad or a feature by relating it to our GMV. I look at total merchants, total GMV, and calculate the average GMV per merchant. Once I find that number, it becomes a simple way to think about the potential value of the change.

This is not about accuracy. It is about direction. It is about giving your team a sense of the size of the opportunity if we show up in a certain channel.

Now, when you bring this into distribution, it becomes powerful. Because you are not just saying, let us embed here because it feels right. You are saying, here is the estimated number of people who might see this. Here is the possible conversion. Here is the possible revenue. And even if the numbers are rough, they help decision makers understand that this is not random. There is a path from visibility to value.

Beyond the numbers, there is another part that matters. You have to make it easy for everyone involved. You have to make it easy for the CEO to understand. You have to make it easy for product to implement. You have to make it easy for support to run with it. And you also have to make it easy for growth to communicate it.

Documentation helps here. You might have to read through the platform’s documents, summarise them, rewrite them into something simple, and create a small PRD that the team can adopt. Even if the idea is complex or expensive, the clearer the execution steps are, the better your chances of getting approval.

Because people do not only care about the reward. They also care about the effort. If you can show why the reward is meaningful, and you can reduce the perceived effort, your case becomes stronger.

Now, here are a few extra things you can use to strengthen any case you make.

You can link your estimate to a real user story. Not storytelling for drama, but for clarity. When people see the life of a user before and after a distribution feature, your numbers stop feeling theoretical.

You can include the cost of doing nothing. Sometimes the strongest part of a case is showing what the company loses by ignoring the opportunity. Markets move, channels decay, timing changes, and you either act or you pay for it later.

You can highlight the compounding nature of distribution. Many people inside a company think in single moves. Distribution works in stacked moves. When you show how a small integration today multiplies into organic growth later, you shift the frame entirely.

You can bring examples of similar companies. Not in the sense of copying them, but in the sense of showing that this type of distribution is a known path, not a wild experiment.

All of this makes your case sharper and easier to approve. Nothing guarantees a yes, but clarity increases your odds every time.

Tomorrow we will talk about something important, the cost of distribution.

Work has been crazy also, and honestly, my MBA deadlines took over. By the time I was done at night, I had nothing left in me.

I wanted to take today to talk about why distribution has always fascinated me.

It is one of those ideas that looks simple until you really sit with it. At its core, it is just the process of getting your product into people’s hands. But that one act can separate a quiet company from one that is everywhere.

Growing up, I used to wonder why some companies struggled even though their products looked fine. Others were making profits with products that did not even seem superior. Over time, it became clear that the difference often lies in how well they distribute. Some brands simply know how to show up where their customers already are. That presence alone becomes a form of power.

This is part of what always pulled me toward FMCG. I may be in tech, but FMCG brands understand how to reach people in ways that feel effortless. Their marketing may not always be exciting, but their reach is undeniable. Tech brands do the same thing in their own style. The methods are different, but the discipline behind it is very similar.

What makes distribution even more interesting is how it rewards presence over brilliance. You do not always need the smartest product. You just need to appear in the right places, at the right time, in the way your users prefer to meet you. Once you know your ICP well, once you understand their behaviour and patterns, you can shape your distribution in a way that feels natural to them. And that unlocks a lot.

Tomorrow I want to explore something that comes up a lot for marketers. How do you make the case for distribution inside your company? Because at some point, this is not just a marketing conversation. Product needs to be involved. Engineering needs to be involved. Budget decisions appear. And if the product is not built with distribution in mind, it becomes expensive or slow to move. So knowing how to advocate for it matters.

And distribution stretches beyond products. It touches content, ideas, channels and presence. Many brands forget how wide the options really are. Platforms like Reddit, Quora or even Pinterest can work if the audience aligns. Substack itself is a distribution channel, even though most people treat it like a pure publishing space.

Once you start thinking in this direction, you begin to see opportunities everywhere. One message can live across several places. One product can exist inside several ecosystems. That is the magic behind embedded distribution. It meets people in the exact place they already spend their time.

Pricing also plays its part. Think of ChatGPT and ChatGPT Go. The pricing structure clearly targets a segment that would not pay the higher amount. Pricing can become a silent distribution tool by making adoption easier.

All of these layers keep pulling me toward this topic. It changes how you plan, how you execute, and how you understand growth. And tomorrow we will talk about how to make that case internally, which is often where the real work begins.

Thanks for staying with me.

At this point, I don’t just want to keep talking to you; I want to hear from you, too. If there are things you think I haven’t touched on, or questions you’ve been holding, or even opinions that completely disagree with mine, I’d actually love to hear them. Even if you think your perspective is small or random, it might spark something we need to talk about before we wrap up.

So today is really just a call for those questions, topics you want me to dive into, comments about any of the days so far, or anything you feel needs clarity. I want the last few days to be shaped around what you’re thinking about, not just what I planned on my end.

That’s it for tonight. If something comes to mind, just send it in.

The funny thing is, it rarely starts with the dramatic signs. It’s not always the big growth drop or the sudden “oh, we’re not moving anymore.” It usually starts with something more subtle: your growth rate stalls. Not your growth itself — your rate.

You might still be getting users. You might still be adding numbers. But if every month you keep hitting the same ceiling — 2,000 users… then 2,000 again… then 2,000 again — something is off. That flat line means the channel has stopped compounding. It’s no longer feeding your momentum. And if you’re in a startup where growth is the heartbeat of the company, that matters a lot.

Then there are the other signs — the ecosystem signs, the platform signs.

Sometimes it’s small UI changes that suddenly push your integration or your listing further down the page. Sometimes it’s slower support. Sometimes it’s a quiet tightening of policies. And sometimes it’s the loudest one of all: the platform starts building features that look suspiciously like yours.
At that point, the writing is usually on the wall.

Pricing changes are another clue. When a platform starts nudging you into a new pricing plan or restricting how much access you have, it’s usually because your presence is no longer aligned with their incentives. They’re shifting. And when they shift, your distribution shifts with them.

The real skill is learning to detect patterns, not moments.
Because any one of these things can happen in isolation and be harmless.
But when they start stacking — growth rate flattening, UI deprioritization, slower support, policy tightening, native competitors — that’s no longer coincidence. That’s direction.

And this matters because you don’t want to overstay in a channel that’s already fading. You don’t want to keep building on a foundation that’s quietly sinking. You have to know when to start exploring new channels, when to diversify, and when to move before the cliff edge shows up.

So yes — distribution is powerful. But part of that power comes from your ability to read the room early.

That’s it for today. Day 26. Thank you.

So, something I just realized I haven’t really talked about — and it’s funny because I’ve spent this whole series preaching about how powerful distribution is — is the danger of it.

Distribution can be an incredible advantage, but it can also be a trap if you build entirely on someone else’s platform.

One of the clearest examples is what happened with Facebook years ago. Back then, Facebook allowed developers to build games and experiences directly inside the platform. People could play games, invite friends, and spend hours inside those apps — all powered by Facebook’s distribution.

Zynga built a massive business inside Facebook’s social-game ecosystem. Then Facebook changed the rules. Zynga lost some of its core discovery engine. That shift shows the danger of letting your growth depend entirely on one platform’s distribution channel.

That’s the dark side of platform-based distribution. When you depend too heavily on a single channel, you’re basically renting your growth. And landlords can change the rules anytime.

You’re starting to see similar things happen again today — especially in the AI age. A lot of AI agents are being built on top of existing platforms: WhatsApp, Instagram, Slack, or even X. But then, one API change later, boom — access gets restricted or pricing changes, and the entire product model collapses.

Even if the platform doesn’t actively cut you off, it might just stop working for your growth. Algorithms change. APIs tighten. Attention shifts elsewhere.

So, while distribution is powerful, you can’t depend on it completely. It’s essential to design for resilience — build a cushion, own part of your channel, and don’t let your entire product life depend on someone else’s gate.

Because when platforms change, it shouldn’t be your whole market that disappears with them.

It’s something that’s really, really important for B2B brands, and honestly, even B2C products can learn from it. When you think about distribution, you can’t just think about channels or partnerships; you have to think about where your users actually work, and how they work.

Let’s say you’re building for marketers. What tools do they open every day? Slack, Notion, Figma, Google Workspace, maybe Asana or ClickUp. The smartest thing you can do is to look at that workflow and ask: how can my product live inside that?

That’s why you see these platforms constantly embedding into each other. Notion connects to Slack. Figma integrates with Asana. Loom works inside Jira. They’re all thinking the same thing — distribution through workflow.

It’s not just about being seen; it’s about being useful in context. If your product naturally fits into someone’s daily flow, you don’t have to fight for their attention. You become part of the way they already get work done.

And that’s the key idea — the more invisible your product feels inside someone’s workflow, the more powerful your distribution becomes.

Today, I want to talk about targets and precision.

When it comes to distribution, precision isn’t just nice to have, it’s the whole thing.

AI has completely reshaped how we distribute and reach people. It’s removed friction, but it’s also created noise. Anyone can distribute now, which means it’s easier than ever to waste “distribution”. That’s why targeting has become a technical skill.

It’s no longer enough to say “our audience is marketers” or “our users are creators.” You have to map them technically, what platforms they use, what tools they rely on, what mode they prefer. You have to understand how they behave inside the systems you’re distributing through.

For example, if your audience uses ChatGPT heavily, maybe the distribution channel isn’t just X (Twitter) or email, maybe it’s a GPT-embedded workflow. If they’re on Notion all the time, maybe it’s a Notion integration. If they’re on iPhone more than Android, that tiny detail changes how you design your touchpoints, how you distribute, and even how you track.

That’s what I mean by precision the intersection of data, audience behavior, and systems thinking.

You also need to be open to accidental channels. Sometimes, people discover you through unexpected surfaces, a plugin, a template, or a small automation someone shared. Those moments are data, too. They’re signals showing where your distribution naturally flows.

And that’s the beauty of thinking technically about marketing; now every interaction produces data. Every piece of engagement tells you something. The more granular your data, the sharper your distribution.

So don’t just think of “targeting” as a campaign setup thing. Think of it as an engineering problem, defining variables, mapping systems, setting triggers, and refining based on feedback loops.

That’s how you stay precise. That’s how you distribute smart.

See you tomorrow.

It’s day 22, and honestly, it’s been quite a ride. There’s still so much to explore, but at this point, what really matters is what’s worth saying.

I’ve tried to keep this whole series grounded for marketers, but today something’s been sitting in my head, and it leans a bit into product thinking. I can’t ignore it.

Because here’s the thing: for distribution to really work, your product has to be built for it.

I remember reading an article that made a point I can’t stop thinking about: imagine if business leaders and marketers could make product-level adjustments as easily as they make campaign tweaks. Like, how we create landing pages, give out coupon codes, or customise onboarding flows on the fly. Imagine if product teams built with that same flexibility in mind.

Distribution becomes ten times easier when your product is built for distribution, when it’s modular, pluggable, API-ready, and easy to embed.

Because if your product is rigid, every integration becomes a project. You’ll need five developers, long timelines, and endless discussions. But if your product is flexible, if it’s designed like a platform that others can build on, distribution starts to happen almost naturally.

That’s the sweet spot: when marketers can execute distribution ideas without waiting on an entire dev sprint. Sometimes you may not even need a developer at all.

So if you work in product, build with distribution in mind. If you’re a marketer, push for it. The more flexible your product is, the easier it is to distribute and the easier your job becomes.

See you tomorrow.

So today, I want to talk about experience; something I’ve touched on a few times, but it really deserves its own day.

Experience is interesting because it’s deeply tied to expectations. You can’t separate the two. When people use your product, what they experience either meets, exceeds, or falls short of what they expect, and that difference can make or break your distribution.

Now, here’s what’s changed: the standard for experience has gone way up. We live in a time when tools are getting easier, faster, and smarter. There are platforms teaching people how to use complex tools, and that’s fine; some tools should require a bit of technical skill. But for most products, simplicity wins. The best tools feel effortless.

There’s this concept I came across called perceived simplicity, the idea that a product can do complex things, but still feel simple. Think about WhatsApp. It looks extremely basic: just chats and texts. But under the hood, it’s loaded with features: HD file sharing, group calls, backups, everything. It’s quietly powerful. That’s what persistent simplicity looks like.

And if you’re building for distribution today, that kind of experience is non-negotiable. Because distribution isn’t just about getting your product everywhere, it’s about how people experience it when they get there.

If someone integrates your product into an AI platform(and vice versa), and it takes 10 steps just to get started, that’s a no-no. The friction kills the flow. Your experience has to match the expectations people now have in an AI-powered world where speed, clarity, and ease are the norm.

The truth is, there’s no room for “below expectations” anymore. People are chatting with AI tools that respond instantly and anticipate their needs. They expect the same level of ease from you.

So when you think about distribution, whether your product lives inside another platform or others integrate into yours, ask: how smooth is the experience? How fast can someone go from “discovering” to “using”?

Because the easier it is to use, the faster it spreads. And when experience and expectations align, distribution becomes almost natural.

Thank you.

When you think about it, not that much has really changed at the core. What’s changed is the speed of everything. Things are just moving faster and that’s normal. But what’s really fascinating is how AI is reshaping the channels of distribution.

Think about it: ChatGPT is now a channel. Sora, Claude, Perplexity, these AI tools have become new kinds of distribution platforms. You can plug into them, and they distribute your product to their users, and at the same time, your product helps distribute them. It’s a two-way exchange of visibility.

But it’s not just the channels that are changing; it’s also the mode of usage. Before, people had to go through your app, your website, your interface; you had to pull them into your environment.

Now, someone can use your product without ever leaving a chat window. With a single prompt or a few words, they can experience your tool right inside an AI platform. That’s a huge shift because it means distribution now flows through usage itself. The experience and the entry point have become one.

And that’s where experience becomes critical. I talked about product experience in one of the earlier days, and it matters even more now. People’s expectations have changed because of AI. What used to be considered “good enough” now feels outdated. The bar has moved. People expect smoother, faster, more intuitive experiences, and that’s also what earns their respect.

So yes, the tools are changing. The channels are changing. The modes of usage are changing. But it still all revolves around people, how they discover, how they experience, and how they share.

That means you have to double down on experience, move fast, and build foresight. You’ve got to bet on where attention is heading. Look at where people are spending time, think about how they’ll reach you from there, and make it effortless for them to do so.

Because in this new wave of AI-driven distribution, reach alone isn’t enough; accessibility and experience are what drive growth.

That’s what to think about.

Thank you, see you tomorrow.

Anyway, what I want to talk about today is something that doesn’t always get the spotlight, but I think it’s really fascinating — wholesale distribution.

The first time I came across it was when I was working on a product a while ago. We needed hosting space, and a friend of mine had a startup that sold hosting. So naturally, we went through his platform, signed up, paid, and managed everything like it was any other hosting company.

Then I found out later that he wasn’t actually hosting anything himself. He was a reseller. His platform was sitting on top of another hosting company’s infrastructure.

That blew my mind a little. Because it wasn’t affiliate marketing. He wasn’t just referring people, he was reselling the product as his own, under his own brand. His customers didn’t even know who the original provider was.

And it’s not just hosting. White-labeling is one of the most popular examples, a company makes a product, another company buys the rights to rebrand it and sell it as their own.

Now, this kind of distribution model is even more powerful when you think about it in terms of infrastructure. There’s this concept called MVNOs, Mobile Virtual Network Operators. Essentially, these are companies that don’t own telecom infrastructure, such as masts or towers, but lease capacity from major telcos and then resell mobile plans to customers under their own brand name.

They’re like the middle layer between the giants and the end users, they make telecom accessible to niche markets or smaller regions that the big players don’t focus on directly.

And I think that’s one of the cool things about wholesale models ,they allow products or services to reach places the main brand might never have gone.

I once saw a startup that did something similar with Starlink. They figured out a way to take Starlink’s offering which was pretty expensive and break it down into smaller, more affordable units. So instead of paying for a full Starlink setup, you could buy a slice of the bandwidth, or use it through hostels and local hubs.

It was wild. And I’m not even sure Starlink officially knew about it, but it showed how creative people can get with distribution when there’s a barrier to access.

That’s really the power of wholesale distribution: it creates layers of accessibility.

Sometimes, it’s big companies enabling resellers. Other times, it’s small startups figuring out how to make something more reachable. But either way, it extends the reach of a product without the original company doing the heavy lifting.

And that’s what I find most interesting about it it’s not flashy. It’s not viral. But it’s smart. It’s scalable. It multiplies reach by letting others do the reselling work.

So yeah, that’s what I wanted to talk about today, wholesale distribution. One of those quiet but powerful ways large-scale products can find their way into more hands.

See you tomorrow.

I’ve been thinking about something I haven’t really talked about yet, a kind of hidden distribution I like to call Ghost Distribution.

It’s what happens when your product spreads, earns, and scales… but nobody outside the chain even knows it’s you behind the scenes.

The first time I saw this up close was back when I worked at a PropTech company. We helped people invest functionally in real estate, but at some point, we started experimenting with a different model. Instead of going directly to customers, we reached out to other companies that already offered investment products. The idea was simple: what if we powered their real estate investment option quietly, so they face the users, and we handle the engine?

The users would never know it was us. But every transaction still flowed through our system.

That’s ghost distribution.

You’re not the face of the product, you’re the infrastructure. You power the value while someone else carries the brand. It’s like a white-label arrangement, but not exactly. White-label is often about selling your product for someone to rebrand. Ghost distribution, on the other hand, is about building reach invisibly, as your service moves through other brands, silently collecting revenue and users.

That’s the beauty of ghost distribution: you’re not chasing attention; you’re chasing integration. You don’t need virality, you need volume.

It’s a quiet kind of domination.

I know it’s something everyone has heard before: “know your customer.” But I’ve realized that many of us myself included at some point still underestimate how deep that understanding needs to go. Especially when we talk about distribution.

Because when you think about it, you’re not just distributing your product, you’re distributing to someone a real person. Every message, every product feature, every platform choice all of it has to connect back to that person.

Recall when I talked about the base of the pyramid, it ties back perfectly here. It’s about asking: how do the people at different levels of that pyramid behave? Where do they spend their time? What platforms do they use? What do they trust?

You don’t have to be on every single distribution channel. In fact, that’s where a lot of brands get it wrong. You just need to be where your audience actually is.

Now we’re entering a new phase where AI seems to be taking over, with new tools, new distribution systems, and faster ways to reach people. However, one thing that remains unchanged is the people themselves. The humans consuming your product are still humans. Their behavior might shift, their preferences might evolve, but they don’t disappear.

So before you rush to “keep up with the times,” keep up with your people. If your audience genuinely uses AI-powered tools, then by all means, reach them there. But if they don’t, why go where they aren’t?

This is something we’ve been learning firsthand at Selar. Recently, we noticed some emerging niches in the events space. Certain kinds of events were suddenly becoming more common. Instead of waiting for these organizers to come to us, we started proactively reaching out building relationships early, even before they began planning their next event.

It’s a simple but powerful way to think: stay close to the humans behind the trend. Watch what they do, where they go, how they think.

So when you think about your ICP, don’t stop at demographics or segments. Think about their day. When they wake up, what’s the first app they open? What content do they see? What do they trust? What makes them curious?

Because distribution is not just about where you show up it’s about when, how, and why you show up for the people who actually care.

At the end of the day, technology changes, but human behavior is still the compass.

Keep watching it closely.

Over the past few days, we’ve talked about a lot of loops, platforms, embedded systems, creators, and even marketplaces. And I really hope some of the things I’ve been sharing are starting to take shape in your mind, too. That you’re beginning to think differently about how products move, how distribution actually happens, and how all these tiny systems connect to build momentum.

There’s this article by Adia Sowho, Beyond the Billboard, that I really love. It talks about the base of the pyramid and made me rethink how we view markets — especially in economies like ours. I also came across Brian Balfour’s essays — The Next Great Distribution Shift and How to Navigate the AI Distribution Landscape — both of which dig into where distribution might be heading next.

And if you’re curious about how some of these ideas tie into broader business thinking, this Harvard course on Business at the Base of the Pyramid and the classic Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid paper are great deep dives.

AI is changing a lot of how people search, how they discover products, and even how they decide. Search won’t die, but it’ll change shape. And that means distribution will too. We’ll start seeing new paths open up new ways for products to find people, and for people to find products.

As we move forward, it’s about finding balance.
Some of our ecosystems still need foundational, non-advanced systems, and that’s perfectly fine. Not every market evolves at the same speed. But at the same time, we can’t ignore what’s emerging. The best thing any marketer or brand can do now is stay curious. Watch where attention flows next. Experiment with small bets in new channels. Prepare your products to move through new systems, even before they’re fully formed.

So yeah, day 16 feels like a little checkpoint. A moment to look at how far we’ve come and what’s still ahead.

Because if there’s one thing I’m sure of, it’s that distribution is going to keep evolving, and it’s on us to grow with it.

This is Day 15. Halfway already! It’s been such an interesting run, and today I want to touch on something I’ve always found fascinating: distributing to the base of the pyramid.

I first heard that phrase a few years ago during a business program, and it completely changed how I think about markets. It’s the idea that at the base of the pyramid are the people whose alternative isn’t another product, it’s nothing. They’d rather not use anything at all. That means you’re not competing against another brand; you’re competing against zero.

And that’s a completely different distribution game.

See, at the top and middle of the pyramid, you compete for preference users are already buyers; you’re just convincing them to switch. But at the base, you compete for adoption, you’re convincing people that the category itself is even worth their attention.

That shift changes everything: your pricing, your channel strategy, and even your product design.

In FMCG, this is old news. Companies like Unilever and Coca-Cola built entire empires on base-of-the-pyramid distribution. They learned early that if people can’t afford your product, you don’t lower the quality; you redesign the package. Smaller sachets, smaller bottles, same experience, different unit economics. It’s genius.

Dano Milk does this exceptionally well. You’ll find them everywhere: kiosks, roadside stores, and community markets. They’ve mastered how to move products to people who would otherwise never reach for them. That’s distribution at work, not marketing campaigns, but physical reach engineered into the business model.

Now, let’s bring this thinking into the tech world.

Distributing tech products to the base of the pyramid means designing delivery systems that make technology accessible, affordable, and usable for low-income or under-served users.

Start with accessibility. Some of these users have low bandwidth, limited internet access, or low-end devices. That’s why USSD payment systems are so brilliant with no app, no data, no problem. Accessibility isn’t a feature; it’s the foundation of distribution here.

Then there’s affordability. You can’t price for aspiration; you have to price for consistency. That’s why pay-as-you-go and micro-transaction models work. Even if each purchase seems small, the collective behaviour at the base of the pyramid compounds on a scale.

Next, localisation. And this one’s both cultural and linguistic. If your interface, tone, or payment flow doesn’t feel familiar, people drop off. Look at Opay, they understood this deeply. Their communication feels local, their language is familiar, and their touch-points mirror how people actually interact with money. That’s how they grew.

But here’s one of my favorite ideas, using humans to scale digital distribution.

It sounds counter-intuitive, right? In tech, we’re taught to automate, not humanise. But in base-of-the-pyramid markets, humans are the infrastructure. That’s what the agent network model proves.

Moniepoint nailed this. Their growth didn’t just come from performance marketing; it came from people. Agents, one after another, are expanding the reach physically. A human distribution layer built on top of a digital product. It’s one of the most efficient scaling models in emerging markets.

Telcos are another brilliant example. I once heard someone say that telcos are the original tech companies, and it’s true. Look at how MTN or Glo grew, they handed out SIM cards for free or at a minimal cost, charged micro-amounts for airtime, and built trust through ubiquity. Their USSD and SMS systems still power millions of transactions today. MTN and Glo are probably the earliest examples of infrastructure-led marketing distribution that sell themselves by being embedded into daily life.

Even now, many tech brands are learning from that playbook, using SMS and WhatsApp as distribution interfaces. I’ve seen small utilities that let you pay for electricity through WhatsApp where I live. That’s distribution adapting to where your users already are.

M-Pesa did this too. It didn’t just build a mobile wallet; it built trust through accessibility. No need for an app, smartphone, or internet. Distribution like that doesn’t just reach users; it redefines what a market even looks like.

And then there’s uLesson. They realized that to reach families with poor internet access, they needed to design an offline-first product. They developed learning kits, offered flexible payment plans, and enabled students to study with minimal data. That’s a perfect example of designing distribution directly into the product experience.

When you think about it, the principle is the same whether it’s milk or mobile apps:
How do you make someone who would normally choose nothing choose you?

That’s the essence of distributing to the base of the pyramid. It’s not just about reach; it’s about relevance. Marketing can create awareness, but distribution is what creates participation.

At the base of the pyramid, that’s where real innovation happens, not in features, but in accessibility, pricing, and trust.

Because when people who would normally choose nothing start choosing you, you’re not just selling, you’re changing behaviour.

And that’s the hardest, but most rewarding kind of distribution there is.

See you tomorrow for Day 16.

Cheers,

It’s Day 14, and I hope your weekend’s going well so far, so good on my end.

I’ve been thinking again about loops. We’ve discussed social loops, where people share your content, and product usage loops, where using your product attracts new users. But there’s another layer to this that I find really fascinating when creation itself becomes distribution.

Think about Notion. Someone creates a goal-setting or content calendar template and shares it. Another person duplicates it, and suddenly, they’re not just using the template, they’re using Notion. The creator has, unknowingly, distributed Notion.

It’s the same with Google Sheets, Docs, or Canva. People create templates, trackers, resumes, and pitch decks, and then share them online. Each time, the product spreads quietly through something people genuinely find useful.

You’ll notice this a lot once you start paying attention: Airtable bases, Figma community files, Webflow templates, and even GPT prompt libraries. Each creation carries the parent product inside it. When someone downloads a Figma UI kit or tries a GPT someone built, they step into the product’s ecosystem.

That’s what fascinates me. It’s distribution that doesn’t feel like distribution.
It’s when your product becomes the canvas for other people’s creativity, and every time they share what they built, they’re also sharing you.

So yeah, that’s where my head’s been today. It’s a quiet but powerful kind of loop, one where user output becomes your next input.

Enjoy your weekend, and I’ll see you tomorrow for Day 15.

Amos

We’re still on distribution loops, but today I want to talk about social loops, a very interesting form of distribution. And then there’s another type I’ve found fascinating too, which is product usage loops.

But first, let’s start with social loops.

Social loops are what happen when people start sharing what you post, what you create, or what they do with your product, and that sharing brings in more people.

It’s similar to a viral loop, but slightly different. Viral loops are usually more deliberate referral programs, “invite your friends,” that kind of thing. But social loops are more organic. They’re powered by people talking about what you do in public.

You see it a lot on TikTok and Instagram. People share videos that attract others to the platform. That’s one of the ways TikTok grew people would see a short video somewhere else, and it’d have that tiny “TikTok” watermark. You’d see enough of those and eventually go, “Okay, let me just download this app.” That’s a perfect social loop in action.

Another form of social loop happens when people share what they did with your product. Like that platform, I can’t remember the name right now that created an AI tool to do a “Year in Review” for your LinkedIn. You’d generate your own review, post it on social media, and it’d say something like “Made with [platform name].” Then everyone who saw it wanted to make theirs too. That’s a brilliant loop.

I’ve seen other people do this as well. When I worked in a fintech, one of the things we used to do was create content that people could easily share after performing an action, such as saving money or achieving a financial goal. It’d say something like “I just saved ₦20,000 using [app name]” and they could share that on Twitter or Instagram. Those posts naturally drew in new people.

Even newsletters do this!
Sometimes, you’ll see people screenshot a quote or a section they love and post it online. I’ve seen it with Lade’s newsletter, “Marketing for Geeks”, people often share snippets or phrases from it. And that kind of sharing becomes a loop on its own.

So yeah, that’s the social loop, the loop powered by people talking publicly about what they did with your product. It’s built on visibility and participation.

Now, the second kind I wanted to touch on is the product usage loop.

This one’s slightly different; it’s when the use of your product naturally brings in new users. Think Canva badges, or Typeform’s “Create your own form” button at the end of a survey.

You use the product, and part of that usage exposes it to new people.

Even at Selar, we see this happen. When someone creates a product and sells it through Selar, the buyer sees that it was sold via Selar. And when that buyer later wants to sell their own product, they already know the tool that made it possible.

Same with events.
When someone creates an event using Tickets by Selar, everyone who buys tickets sees that branding. Then, when they’re ready to host their own event, they think, “Oh, I know this tool, I bought a ticket through them.” That’s a product usage loop.

It’s one of the most underrated forms of organic growth because it’s powered by interaction. Your users become your distribution channel just by doing what they came to do.

There are many other examples of this; these are the ones that come to mind right now.

Anyway, that’s where I’ll leave it today. It’s been really good reflecting on these loops.
And I’m just excited for tomorrow, it’s the weekend.

See you tomorrow.