Last updated on June 13th, 2023

Disruption Vs Distribution

Pardeep Kullar
Pardeep Kullar
Disruption Vs Distribution

The old is continually being challenged with the new, so much so that the time we live in has been coined ‘the era of disruption’. Gary Vaynerchuk explains the importance of disruption within business success, and how distribution is a key factor in the growth of disruption.

*This article is part of the [Content Distribution](/blog/the-best-content-distribution-strategies-plans-and-tactics-that-are-proven-to-work) series by [Upscope](https://upscope.com?ref=contdistarticle): “Click to see their browser, click to take control.” Finally, the [screen sharing that sales and support wished for](https://upscope.com?ref=contdistarticle).*

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Summary transcription

How do you ask about a startup to balance between disruption and distribution?

Distribution and disruption are in very different places. Disruption is a thesis of how you look at the opportunity for your business.

You’re either gonna disrupt yourself, or somebody else is gonna disrupt you, or you’re starting from zero and you’re about to disrupt somebody. There’re only two groups:

  • Incumbents
  • Newcomers

The newcomers want to disrupt something that is an incumbent has, and that’s where their opportunity is.

The biggest problem with incumbents is they’re not willing to disrupt themselves ninety-nine out of a hundred times, which is why we have what we have.

Distribution is a totally different thing. Distribution is oxygen.

If you don’t know how to distribute the awareness of what you’re doing, nobody knows. The end!

Disruption is a thesis, distribution is a currency.

So the best thing in the world is to actually, from the product or service that you’re providing, to be disrupting, which alludes to bringing more value to the end consumer than what they’re offered today.

This automatically puts you in a good situation, and then you have to be great at distribution to let you know that there’re new things that are better than the things that you’re doing now.

Creating a better way to clean people’s clothes is disrupting it, but if nobody here knows that to be true through distribution, it’s not going to matter.

What’s your advice? How do you care about both?

Be religious, blindly religious about being great at both. That’s what I’ve done!

Why not be disrupted? Everybody was selling wine at their local store, I wanted to ship it to you through FedEx, and UPS, and DHL, and I did that in 1996 when everybody told me that the internet was a fad and nobody would ever buy wine on the Internet.

Vaynermedia is disruptive, while the biggest brands in the world want to spend all their money on print, and radio, and television, and banner ads, I think that they should spend nothing on that, and should spend it on Kol, Facebook, Instagram — things of that nature were disruptive. Then I go and do shit like this for distribution, so that happens.

Pardeep Kullar
Pardeep Kullar

Pardeep overlooks growth at Upscope and loves writing about SaaS companies, customer success and customer experience.