With today’s technology, we can all build something in a weekend. Get the landing page up by Friday. Have a working MVP by Sunday. After that, we aim for a polished app by the end of the month. 

The stage is set, the curtain’s up, and the performers are ready to go.

But in the audience? Empty seats.

According to the Sonar 2026 Developer Survey, 42% of all code is now AI-generated. Meanwhile, Carta’s 2025 data shows 36.3% of startups are solo-founded. One person can ship what used to take a team.

The cost of building has collapsed. The cost of being found, however, hasn’t.

Yet, I think most founders have the ratio backwards. They’re spending 80% of their time and energy building, leaving only 20% for distribution. In 2026, the founders who are growing are the ones who’ve flipped that.

AI will eliminate 300 million jobs in the next 5 years.

Yours doesn't have to be one of them. 

Here's how to future-proof your career: 

Tim Bennetto spent eight years as a locksmith in Melbourne. He didn’t have a fancy degree. In fact, he’d even dropped out of high school.

In 2019, he taught himself to code through Codecademy and built “Share My Insights,” an Instagram analytics tool, in 30 days.

It was a cool experience, but his launch on Product Hunt garnered almost no response. One day, a friend’s shutting-down analytics tool redirected traffic his way, which brought in about 100 customers at $5/month. (Around $500 MRR.)

The number kept climbing until it reached $1,300. Then it stopped. For two years.

The feature Tim thought was his differentiator, his shareable analytics dashboards, just wasn’t getting traction. He tried Instagram DMs, Google Ads, Instagram Ads. No dice.

In early 2021, Instagram opened its publishing API. Tim built a scheduling feature in a week, killed the sharing feature, rebranded to Pallyy, and niched down to social media agencies. MRR doubled to $2,500. Churn stabilized. Product-market fit was tighter.

Yes, the product pivot took him from $1,300 to $2,500. But what happened next took him from $2,500 to $100,000.

Tim hired a content writer. Together they published 80+ blog posts (at five per month): comparison pages (“Pallyy vs. Buffer,” “Pallyy vs. Hootsuite”), keyword-targeted tutorials, and free tools that worked as lead magnets. Daily visitors went from 500 to 10,000.

Over time, the blog attracted 3.7 million users.

Then he layered on affiliates through Rewardful. He Googled “top Instagram analytics tools,” found the bloggers writing those roundup posts, and emailed them with 20-30% recurring commission offers.

That program now generates 22% of total MRR and takes about 10 minutes a month to manage.

What’s even better, Tim raised his price by $3 across every plan. No new features. That single change added $10,000+ in additional MRR, the biggest single revenue boost in Pallyy’s history. He could only do this because distribution was bringing in a steady flow of new customers. If you’re afraid to raise your prices, it’s often a distribution problem in disguise.

Revenue went from $36k to $1.2M in three years, on a team that never grew past three people. The product barely changed, and yet, distribution changed everything.

Looked at from this angle, we don’t have to question whether Tim got lucky. We just have to ask ourselves if we’re spending our time on the right things.

If you’ve been reading for a little while, you’ll know I love creating frameworks. Here’s today’s game plan for distribution plannning:

Go ahead and open SparkToro (any other keyword tool works, but I like the channel breadth of SparkToro).

Type in a keyword your ideal customer would search (“social media scheduling,” “project management for agencies,” whatever fits). Look at the websites they visit, the podcasts they listen to, the social accounts they follow. Then search Reddit for the problem your product solves. Note where people ask for recommendations.

If you did the work from the demand evidence newsletter, you’ve already got a head start here.

Write down five specific places: e.g. “r/socialmedia subreddit, 450k members,” not just “Reddit”.

The key question you’re looking to answer: does effort on this channel accumulate, or do you start from zero every day?

Some options:

Affiliate programs: Recruit bloggers and creators who already have your audience’s trust. Pay them a recurring commission. This is best when credible review sites already cover your category.

Building in public on X or LinkedIn: Share your journey, your numbers, your decisions. Best for founder-led brands where the story is part of the product.

Community partnerships: Sponsor niche newsletters, contribute to Slack groups, become a guest on podcasts your customers listen to. Best when your ICP clusters in a few tight communities.

Partnerships and integrations: Build integrations with tools your customers already use. Get listed in their marketplaces and directories. Best for SaaS products with natural adjacencies.

Whichever channel you choose, just pick one. Systematize it. “I should post something this week” is wishful thinking. “I publish every Tuesday and Thursday at 9 AM” is an engine.

Set the cadence and commit for 90 days before judging results.

Pick one number:

Track it monthly. If it’s flat after 90 days, the channel isn’t right for your audience, or your cadence isn’t consistent. Adjust or switch.

Keep going until you find it click.

Rewardful (From $49/month)

Set up recurring commissions, track referrals, and manage payouts in one dashboard. Integrates with Stripe and most subscription billing tools.

SparkToro (Free, Pro from $50/mo.)

Type in a keyword or competitor, and get shown the podcasts your audience listens to, the social accounts they follow, and the sites they visit.

Typefully (Free, paid from $12.50/mo.)

Draft, schedule, and analyze your X and LinkedIn posts in one interface. Suggests optimal posting times and shows which posts drive engagement. If building in public is your channel, this keeps the engine running.