🪄 Owning Distribution vs Buying Distribution

Hey,

The Spells Master is back!

Welcome to the 98th issue.

Today's topics:

1. Owning Distribution vs Buying Distribution

2. A product to Capture crisp audio

3. One recommended video on Pleasure vs Pain Equation

Owning Distribution vs Buying Distribution

As Social Media bans outside links and build everything on their own platform (TikTok Shop vs Shopify) to capture all demand on the platform itself, it is important to build your own distribution channel.

Charlie Munger used to own a newspaper called Daily Journal Corporation.

Mark Zuckerberg owns Meta (Facebook), Instagram, and Whatsapp.

Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.

Elon Musk owns X.

China owns TikTok, Douyin, and Shein.

Alphabet owns Android, Google, and YouTube.

Apple owns iPhone and Mac.

YCombinator owns Hacker News.

Angellist owns Product Hunt.

Hubspot owns The Hustle and My First Million.

This is not a coincidence.

When you own a thing and have distribution, you can promote your own product for very cheap on your own platform and guarantee instant eyeballs.

If you paid for it, you will have to spend absurd amount of money to reach the same amount of people.

Most of the paid platforms including Meta Ads are filled with bots. Zuckerberg has made everyone comfortable with losing money.

But building a valuable distribution channel is very hard.

That's where smaller distribution channels come in.

An old way to own a distribution channel is to use email as a mechanism. For example, a newsletter is a good example of owning a distribution channel. So in future, if you want to market your products, you can reach as many people as there are on your email list.

50% open rate is guaranteed on email while the growth is capped on Social Media platforms unless you know how to play the algorithm.

But there are 2 new ways to have your own distribution:

1. Podcast

2. Social Media

Podcasts are great to own the distribution. If its an industry leader podcast, then you can create as many products in your industry and sell them to your target audience. Since they spent a long time listening to you, they form a parasocial relationship with you.

Reciprocity works in humans and podcasts are a great way to build long connections. That's why most podcasts are 40-mins long. Shaan Puri was single-handedly responsible for growing an offshore agency to $35m in 12 months thanks to his My First Million (MFM) Podcast. MFM has the target audience of startup founders.

Social Media shouldn't be avoided in today's world. If you want to build a huge business fast, it is imperative that you need it. Now you might say Social Media is a rented audience. Sure, it is. But you can create as many accounts as possible.

Celebs do it all the time. There exists no fan clubs of little celebs so if you see some, they are entirely created by celebs themselves through their PR teams.

Unless you piss off people like Andrew Tate, your content won't be banned. All you need to do is to focus on creating business content only. No politics to alienate 50% of your audience.

Own the distribution > Blackhat Methods > Paid Ads

A product to Capture crisp audio

Catchbox might be an insane product.

I saw an Alex Hormozi video recently and everyone was given a big box to speak into instead of a microphone.

I quickly glanced and saw it is a completely unique product.

In future, video is the way the world will consume content and most big companies will start doing what Alex Hormozi is doing now so this product just might be a bit early. Hopefully, time will tell.

This is a good case of building a product based on a trend so if it eventually explodes, they might be able to capture demand. Plunge went from 0 to $80m+ in 4 years by betting on the term "cold plunge" instead of "ice bath" before the verdict was out. Its hard to predict but easy to spot in hindsight.

One recommended video on Pleasure vs Pain Equation

This video is by a psychiatrist who has given the reason for addiction.

We are all addicted to something. In most cases, its social media. We scroll for 5 minutes and an hour goes by.

This video dives into the mechanics behind how you can stop it from happening to you and get your dopamine from healthy activities. Highly recommend reading Dopamine Nation as it just might change your life.

Top Tweets of the day

1/

Absolutely brilliant format for a landing page that converts.

Now you only need 2 things:

1. Phenomenal Copywriting

2. Beautiful Design

2/

There are a few things in business that give you a massive advantage. Buying an expired domain is one of them.

Rabbit Holes

1. My sister’s tattoo business is struggling. What can she do to find new clients and stay afloat? (Discussion) - TIL Tattoo businesses get leads from Instagram mostly.

2. Write for Yourself, and Wisdom Will Follow - Writing is an underrated way to bring your unconscious competence on the paper. You probably a lot more than you think. This article explains the process behind it way better than anything else on the internet. And it does so with beautiful diagrams and phenomenal storytelling.

3. Google Maps lead generation in 5 easy steps - If you sell to small businesses, this is what you should try to get more clients. Small businesses are a great way to make money if you are from the US or any 1st-world country. It is a poor way to make money if you are from a 3rd-world country.

Until next time,

Your Spells Master!

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Read all the old case studies here.

More Startup Spells 🪄

1. Banned Sites on Socials (LINK)

2. FreeWater Marketing (LINK)

3. $14m In A Week from Live Streaming (LINK)