Why do most SaaS founders get terrible advice about distribution?
Last couple of days I've been crawling social media to find people who would be first test users, early adopters of my web based video editor for explainers.
It was an eerie experience - I saw lots of people building all sorts of SaaS apps, and now it looks like a lot of those who managed to complete their projects are struggling with distributing them.
It feels like the common expectation is that once the app is done, the users will just come.
The next level of thinking is making posts about the app itself. Looking at the results - let's say it's not the most viral kind.
A subgroup is the desperation posts where the person basically cries out “I was building this for so long and now I don't know how to get users."
Those actually get some attention, but instead of potential users they attract advice. And judging by the content of that advice, it comes from people who haven't faced the SaaS distribution situation themselves.
The advice typically falls into one of three buckets.
"The app you built is shit" - haters gonna hate.
"You need to learn to buy ads" - at least pointed in the right direction, but massively oversimplified. Paid ads can be profitable, but the process involves aligning the product with a sales funnel, iterating on everything from ad creatives to the checkout screen, and the product still has to be valuable enough that users don't churn before you make a cent.
"You haven't read these books / you don't know the concepts" - a clear tell of a theorist. Most business books are overrated and really serve the author - either to create a consulting niche, or to capitalize on a space where it's genuinely hard to get results but very easy to say things that sound sensible and convincing.
This all looks quite sad. But I don't think it's hopeless.
I'm at level 2 right now, figuring this out in real time. I'll share what I find.
I'm in the same spot right now. Launched something recently, cold accounts everywhere, figuring out distribution in real time.
One thing I've already learned the hard way: "I built X" posts from a zero-karma Reddit account get filtered into oblivion. 200-300 views, zero comments, a few site visitors at the most. The platform is doing exactly what it's designed to do, ignore strangers trying to promote things.
What shifted things slightly was leading with data instead of the product. Framed a post around findings from testing rather than "here's my tool." Different energy, different response. Still small numbers but people actually engaged with it.
Your missing bucket of bad advice: "launch on Product Hunt." Same fundamental problem. If you have no existing audience to rally on launch day, you're shouting into a void with a countdown timer.
The real bottleneck isn't reach, it's trust. And trust takes reps. There's no hack for that part.
The pattern I've noticed: the bad advice all assumes you already have an audience to distribute to. You don't. So "post more content" and "run ads" both fall flat.
What's actually worked for me early on is skipping distribution entirely and doing direct outreach to 10 specific people who fit the ICP. Not to pitch — just to have a real conversation about the problem. You learn faster than any content strategy will teach you, and occasionally someone just asks how to pay you.
The content/distribution flywheel only works once you have signal on what actually resonates. Without that you're just guessing at scale.
Double that!
Paid ads is only for scaling, once you know what works.
Post more content - kinda also, but it can work to some degree, to show the messages that stick better