How to solve distribution/new user acquisition in the AI age (I will not promote)
I spent a long time building a product that I genuinely thought solved a real market problem. My assumption was that the old “launch something half-baked and iterate” advice doesn’t work as well anymore because user expectations are so much higher now.
The product itself is in a good place technically, but I’m struggling with getting users.
It’s a free consumer-facing product, so distribution matters more than monetization right now.
What I’m realizing is that AI has dramatically lowered the barrier to building software, but distribution may now be the hardest part of startups.
For founders who’ve successfully gotten early traction:
Where did your first 1–1,000 users actually come from?
What channels worked best?
What surprised you?
What completely failed?