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Our goal at Contrarian Thinking is a great product with great distribution.
Last week, we told you about how important it is to build a distribution-first business… Before you need it.
Today, we want to show you exactly how we do this in our own business.
But first, you need to understand 1 thing…
As AI lowers the barrier for creating things, it will raise the barrier for selling things. That means the latter will become an increasingly valuable capability.
This goes for selling yourself, your brand, jobs you’re hiring for… all of it, not just “products.” Simply put, as we enter an age of creation abundance, it will require more to earn attention.
Top investors, builders, and founders are already seeing this play out…
As we showed you last week, technologist Balaji Srinivasan even says that startups now need a founding (content) “creator.”
That nomenclature may be new, but the business need for people who understand distribution strategy really isn’t…
Investor and former HotelTonight CEO Sam Shank recently said:
Why would he say that so definitively? Because, in 2009, HotelTonight worked backwards to launch a product around a (then) brand new distribution channel: the Apple App Store. “That combo,” Sam says, “a unique distribution edge + a product tailored to it, powered our growth.”
Most people flip that. They build something cool, ship it, and then wonder why no one showed up. Of course, any channel will eventually get harder to crack. David Sacks has called this the Law of Distribution Arbitrage.
“The biggest mistake I see these days is brilliant founders who… haven’t thought about how they’re going to make their product grow,” Sacks said years ago.
Once a tactic works, people copy it. SEO. Emails. SMS. They all eventually get flooded. In other words, distribution is a strategic lever where you have to be consistently innovating.
That has only grown truer over time. Digital CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost) has risen dramatically over the last decade and will continue to do so as these spaces grow more crowded:
Not investing in owned distribution will be a painful mistake for many businesses in 2026. So many people are talking about this right now, actually, that the literal act of talking about it has achieved meme status:
And yet… Many builders struggle deeply with distribution. It’s why people talk about it! It’s hard.
But why are they struggling, really? Maybe because “distribution” is actually a vague thing. There are a thousand angles to attack it from, and a thousand more ways it can take shape.
So instead of treating it like a mystery, we’re just going to tell you exactly how we think about distribution fueling practically everything we do.
When people hear “distribution,” they usually think “Views. Marketing. Content… The end.” We try to think beyond that.
We view distribution as a core piece of infrastructure that every arm of our company plugs into. Distribution is a central hub. Everything else is a spoke.
It fuels customer acquisition.
It fuels investment deal flow.
It fuels product testing.
It fuels hiring quality.
It fuels the value we provide our customers.
It fuels our portfolio companies’ growth.
And all of it (ideally) feeds back into a bigger, stronger, circular ecosystem, often in ways we can’t even predict.
That’s why our “media business” isn’t actually that separate from our advisory or investing work. They’re all part of the same flywheel engine that lets us:
The traditional model is fairly linear. Build a product. Try to get people to see it. Hope it catches. Our model is more cyclical. We are constantly connecting with people, understanding what they need, going very deep to build for that demand, and accelerating adoption.
Last year, we became owners in ResiBrands, one of the fastest-growing home services franchise groups in America. We’re talking:
One thing we immediately noticed about them was how seriously they also valued distribution. Their Pink’s Window Services brand had scaled across dozens of states by leaning into a nostalgic identity that worked both online and in person.
It was an attention magnet, and we loved it.
Here’s how distribution has played a role in our relationship:
Our venture arm has invested in technology businesses across SMB finance, garment care, pool services, agriculture, robotics, future of work, mobility, logistics, and cross-border trade.
One of the major reasons we’ve been able to invest in these sectors (and others) is that very same distribution engine that powers everything else:
BizScout is one of the clearest examples of how our distribution engine feeds product development, and how the product then feeds the entire ecosystem right back.
We’re now facilitating almost 100 direct buyer-seller connections every day, and as the tool becomes a core part of how people do Main Street acquisitions, the flywheel keeps spinning:
Early on, none of the “flywheels” above were obvious to us. We’ve also shifted gears (aka: failed) many times (and still do, often).
But we’ve always — ALWAYS — remained focused on growing our audiences, learning more about them, and serving them. And that, friends, is what it means to build a distribution-first business. Do that for enough time, and you’ll see some really cool things happen.
Want to know one of the key ways this company got off the ground?
You’re looking right at it.
Email.
In the last 90 days, we’ve sent roughly 5 million of them. It wasn’t always like that, but email was our original distribution channel.
That’s actually a big reason we were able to invest in Beehiiv. We wanted to use it. It now helps us connect with you, and we think it’s the best place to launch and scale a newsletter today.
The cool thing is, we still believe email will be a wildly powerful channel in 2026. More crowded, but more capable, too.
Email is intimate. Direct. Personal. It’s 1-to-many but also 1-to-1. There’s no “views” counter at the bottom. Just a chance to talk straight to another human being. That’s why it’s a great on-ramp into an ecosystem.
Every time we send something out, we get replies from real humans. It’s awesome! Sometimes you’re annoyed at us. Most times, we get to hear about your wins, challenges, and ideas. All of it is priceless.
It really doesn’t matter if you’re emailing 100,000 people or 10 people. WHO those people are is what matters. We don’t take it lightly that you choose to open these emails, learn something, and be part of this journey with us.
Thank you for being here.
-Team Contrarian
The information contained here is educational, may not be typical, and does not guarantee returns. Background, education, effort, and application will affect your experience and the profitability of any business. Individual results may vary.
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