Orbits

One of the biggest changes in SaaS I've noticed is how much easier it is to build.

A solo founder can validate an idea, build an MVP, deploy it, and start getting feedback without needing a large team.

But there's an interesting consequence:

When building gets easier, distribution becomes relatively more important.

If 10 founders can build similar products, the advantage may not come from who can build the fastest.

It can come from who can consistently get their product in front of the right people.

I've started thinking about SaaS distribution as three separate jobs:

1. Create attention
Give people a reason to stop scrolling and learn about your product.

2. Create exposure
Put that message in places where potential users already spend time.

3. Create consistency
Keep doing both long enough for your product to actually compound.

The problem is that founders are usually doing all three manually while also building the product.

That's the problem I've been working on with Orbits. I had 9 founders testing it for the past 2 months, and I just opened the public beta.

But the bigger lesson for me has been this:

Building the product and distributing the product are becoming two very different problems.

I'd be curious what other founders think.

If you had to choose one, which is harder for you right now: building the product or consistently getting it in front of potential users?

The hard part is getting anyone to care that you built it.

Tools have made development dramatically faster. A solo founder can validate an idea and ship a usable product without needing a huge team.

But distribution hasn't gotten proportionally easier.

You still need to:

• Get your product in front of the right people

• Create content consistently

• Participate in communities

• Find conversations where your product is relevant

• Keep doing it even when the first few posts go nowhere

And that's where I think a lot of small SaaS companies get stuck.

It's not necessarily that they have a bad product. They simply don't have enough distribution behind it.

I've been working on this problem with Orbits. I've had 9 founders testing it for the past 2 months, and the public beta is now open. https://the-orbits.com

The interesting part for me isn't whether another tool can generate a post. It's whether we can actually reduce the amount of work founders have to do to consistently get their product in front of potential users.

I'd love to hear from other Indie Hackers:

What does your distribution process actually look like today?

Orbits is finally live.

This one is a little personal because the idea came from failing at two startups before this.

Both times, I could build the product.

Getting people to actually find it, try it, and keep coming back was a completely different problem.

I spent way too much time thinking that if I built something useful, users would eventually come.

They didn't.

And I realized distribution isn't something you can just figure out after the product is finished. It needs to be part of the process from day one.

So I started building Orbits around that exact problem.

The idea is simple:

You build the product. Orbits helps you get it in front of people.

It can help with things like:

• Creating content for your startup

• Turning that content into visuals

• Publishing across social platforms

• Finding relevant conversations on places like Reddit and X where your potential users are already talking about the problem

• Joining those conversations instead of just blasting out ads

• Creating and managing paid campaigns

• Learning from what's actually working and doubling down on it

The goal isn't to give founders another marketing dashboard to babysit.

It's to make distribution something you can actually keep running while you're busy building the product.

It's live now, and this is still the MVP. There are a lot more advanced features I want to add as we learn what actually helps founders get traction.

If you're building a SaaS or indie product and distribution has been one of your biggest headaches, I'd love for you to try it and tell me where it falls short.

Orbits is live: https://the-orbits.com

And if you've struggled with distribution before, I'd genuinely love to hear what happened. That's probably more valuable to me right now than another feature request.

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about why so many good SaaS products struggle to get users.

Building the product has never been easier. Getting it in front of the right people is still incredibly difficult.

You have to create content, post across different platforms, find relevant conversations, run ads, track what works, and somehow keep doing it consistently while also building the product.

That’s the problem I’m trying to solve with Orbits.

I’m launching Orbits today with the goal of giving solo founders a simpler way to handle distribution without having to become a full-time marketer.

For the founders here: what’s currently the hardest part of getting users for your product?