Distribution and conversion models for consumer startups

We recently invested in a company that enables creators to be the next-generation sales channels for brands, in a transparent and privacy-forward way. Brands care about a few things: 1) They only want to pay when they’ve acquired a new customer and done so profitably; 2) They want to control who can sell / promote their brand and where; and 3) They... See more

The Internet has made distribution (of digital goods) free, neutralizing the advantage that pre-Internet distributors leveraged to integrate with suppliers. Secondly, the Internet has made transaction costs zero, making it viable for a distributor to integrate forward with end users/consumers at scale.

This has fundamentally changed the plane of com

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Distribution innovation is about taking advantage of market arbitrages—places where you can profitability acquire customers—and building network effects as quickly as possible.

Companies with poor unit economics found themselves propelled by aggressive venture dollars (which themselves were propelled by a low-interest-rate environment). Those companies then turned those dollars into aggressive customer acquisition. Until recently, the market rewarded growth at all costs.