Before I ever sold a track, I played it to a room. You learn fast whether people move or check their phones. The crowd came before the product.
June I kept landing on the same idea from every angle: build the audience first. The thing you're selling is almost secondary to the people who already want to hear from you.
The ones on this thread
The distribution-first company. Audience before product. It's how The Bornless got 40,000 wishlists in 48 hours: we built the crowd, then gave them something to want.
Write your book in public on Substack. Build the readership and the thing at the same time. I do a version of this every week with Mind of a Renaissance Man, and the writing gets better because people are actually reading.
The founder-as-brand flywheel. Your story is the distribution. People follow a person through things they'd never follow a company through.
Waitlist referral positions. Let people jump the line by bringing friends. Turns launch day into a crowd that's already there.
The thread
Distribution used to be something you bought after you built. Now it's the thing you build first, and the product grows into the audience you've gathered.
It's slower than it sounds. I've been writing weekly for months for an audience that's still small. Some weeks it feels pointless. Then someone replies with the exact thing you were hoping someone would feel, and you remember why you play to the room before you release the record.
Some weeks it still feels pointless. I keep showing up anyway.