Opportunity area · theme founders discuss · intermediate

Distribution approach for selling services series local

Distribution · Selling services series local — cold open must name the pain in one sentence or the channel taxes will eat you. Industry pocket: martech. Original insight: if onboarding costs more than the pain, you built a tutorial, not a company.

Problem

ex-agency builders describe the same loop: notice the mess late, patch it manually, promise a system later, repeat next month. Unexpected challenge: community fame attracts wrong-fit users who want entertainment, not a paid pilot. Hidden cost: integration debt you promised in the pilot to win the logo.

Target user

Practitioners who already tried generic tools and still fail here

Proposed solution

Own checklists, data shapes, and approval rules for this theme so switching costs are process depth, not chat novelty. Distribution sprint (30 days): one channel, daily reps, weekly conversion review. Features only if activation is already clear. Counter-intuitive advice: say no to custom work that does not teach the core path. Distribution bottleneck: marketplaces and app directories tax you twice—once in fees, once in attention. One caution: multi-angle roadmaps (discussion + validation + distribution at once) create thrash—pick one mode this month. One recommendation: ship a concierge version, log exceptions, automate only the repeats. Practical next step: identify one integration/import that makes this feel native to martech workflows. Real-world pattern: Stripe won by removing friction on a job merchants already had—copy the posture, not the category. Straight take: keep the story small until numbers force it wider. Venture slides that promise to own all of martech are usually fiction.