Shipping Is Easy. Distribution Is Hard.
Vibe coding, AI coding assistants, and AI website builders have made it easier than ever to build software. You can have an idea in the morning and, by the end of the day, have a working application, a landing page, a database, authentication and something you can actually put in front of users. The technical barrier to shipping has dropped dramatically.
But there is a phrase I keep coming back to:
“Shipping is easy. Distribution is hard.”
And I think this is becoming one of the biggest challenges for people building products today. You can build a great SaaS, create a beautiful website or solve a real problem, but none of that guarantees that anyone will find you. The internet is already full of useful products that nobody knows exist.
You can ship something in a weekend and still spend months trying to get people to use it.
That's where SEO becomes interesting.
SEO is often treated as simply finding keywords and writing articles, but the bigger objective is distribution. It's about making sure that when someone has a problem your product solves, they can actually discover you. That means understanding search intent, creating useful content, building topical authority, structuring your website properly, improving technical performance, building internal links, earning backlinks and continuously giving search engines more reasons to trust and understand your site.
“A great product nobody can find is still a product nobody knows exists.”
And this isn't just an SEO problem. We've seen it play out with products that suddenly take off because the creators realize they have to actively distribute what they've built.
Take ountrank.lol, for example. The project is a good illustration of what can happen when distribution becomes part of the building process. There was pressure to actually get people to see the product rather than simply launch it and wait. The product itself became something people could talk about, share and engage with, helping it spread much further than a typical quiet launch.
That is an important lesson for anyone building with AI or vibe coding.
When it becomes possible for almost anyone to build a product quickly, the product itself becomes less of a moat. You can have ten competitors launch something similar next week.
What becomes difficult is getting attention.
“When everyone can build, distribution becomes the advantage.”
You need people to discover the product through Google, social media, communities, referrals, partnerships or whatever distribution channel makes sense for the business. You need to give people a reason to click, try it, share it and come back.
This is also why I don't think SEO is becoming less important because of AI. If anything, I think distribution is becoming more important. AI is making the creation of websites, applications and content dramatically faster, which means the number of things competing for attention is going to keep increasing.
You can build the next great product in a weekend.
Getting the first 100 people to discover it is a completely different problem.
Even after you start getting traffic, the work doesn't necessarily stop. Websites change. Content becomes outdated. Pages get deleted. Links break. Competitors publish better content. Technical issues appear. Search algorithms change. A website that was performing well six months ago can slowly lose visibility if nobody is maintaining it.
That's why I see SEO as an ongoing process rather than something you do once when launching a website. Building the website is one part of the job. Keeping it technically healthy, useful, relevant and discoverable is another.
“Don't just build it. Build the path that leads people to it.”
The current AI wave is making shipping incredibly cheap.
But attention is still expensive.
Building is getting easier. Distribution is getting harder. And the businesses that figure out both will have the advantage.
If you already have a website and need someone to keep the technical SEO, content and overall site health in check, I also offer ongoing SEO and website maintenance: