@tokemaloke: A guy made $250k in 96 hours, then 200 clones appeared overnight. Mark Hadfield breaks down what it really signals about where power sits now. One link, all my work: mark.agentcraft.me #distribution #aitools #startups #indiemakers #claude #buildingonline

LeadGenDotCom :

Marketing is dead too

myman4180 :

I mean that’s not really engineering it’s a trivial website?

daniel :

this website would have taken about 2 hours to make 5 years ago 👍

Stylaxed :

Who’s working on a tool to defeat the clones?

Joe Simmons :

On point perspective! As an engineer it reminds me of the repeatable theme. Metaphore - worlds greatest lumberjack named Paul Bunyan could clear a forest with one swing of his axe and his pal, an ox for his personal company. Then the chainsaw arrived—no legend required, just a motor and a salesman who could put one in every lumberjack’s hands. Suddenly the myth was outproduced by the mundane. That’s technology folks! engineers are cheap now. Scaling through marketing and distribution is what actually fells the forest. 😂😂😂🥰🥰🥰🥰

williamnelson6767 :

Love it, it's today's version of the "million dollar homepage"

Jonathan B | LMT :

Yeah traffic and distribution is everything as long as it has meaningful eyes on it. Not all traffic is created equal right.

Webby Linker :

Marketing is the moat

IANSCREAMSpresents :

I missed the actual relevaoof the website. You pay to be at the top of a list. A list of random websites? And who’s coming to look at the list and subsequently spend money at the end destination, and why would they click the top website? just because they paid to be at the top of the list? Not based on merit, reviews, or even what they sell…What kind of advertising is this?

Potentialist & Fairy Godmother :

Distribution was always the hard part. This has just exposed it. What folks seem to also get wrong is that more eyeballs is the solution.

donndado :

Ok sure you can clone FB or IG so what! It doesn’t mean you ll get 100 million users. I don’t get your point? If he had means of getting you traffic to your website he is legit or? I really don’t understand what r u trying to convey???

Rick Sanchez :

Luckily my 2 main projects are a trading bot / backtesting program (for just me to use) so no one can clone it, and a program that basically makes small llm's run better which it's this massive program with a ton of complex parts and as long as I don't share source code they could never clone this thing

Seb :

And at the same time, good engineering would have created a website that survives a ddos attack… and then would have been able to add more features and dig a moat while staying up.

builtbyjess :

It's same stunt when they sold 1 dollar per pixel but yes, distribution is everything now.

Shaz | AI & Marketing :

When ai can build anything marketing becomes everything

Chris Burbridge :

But also: ideas that really match a particular market’s needs well, and are well tuned and executed, are not a dime a dozen. That’s also a “hard problem”.

mommagrondahl :

Distribution in the pockets of the U.S. that are neglected would be incredible. Small towns.

Orion Burdick :

This is more true now than before, but it was already true when it comes to simple apps or sites. If you look at platforms like Twitter and Instagram that are technically very easy to build, it was really the user bases that made them valuable.

chatgptbot :

Code might be trending to $0 but I think building has it’s strengths. Sure codex can copy a 20k loc repo but try a 250k loc software suite? The more PRs the more everyone has to catch up, so just build the damn thing

JW :

100% agree. Engineering time and cost plummet, product explodes and in a sea of product that is quick and cheap, distribution is king. Own the eyeballs, not the tech.

BeIndulgent :

Thank you for Shari g. It’s so interesting

skippitydoo :

Eh. It was cheap to “clone” that site before too. It just got even cheaper. Marketing and distribution have really always been one of the more difficult, scarcity functions about making money with software.

WoodenToys.com :

This happened to music. Napster made music “free”. Technology made it easy and inexpensive to create music. No studio time. No record company. Don’t need to know how to play an instrument. Easy. 1 million songs per day are uploaded to Spotify. NOW to break through you need distribution and marketing. That’s why Taylor Swift is on a record label. 😂

Calvin Luttrell :

Cardin ✝️ :

I guess we might just have to build stuff so huge and complicated they can't be copied 😏