Code Is Cheap, Distribution Is The Moat
Noah Kagan
We are in the Golden Age of Building!
Spent the weekend - built a notes sync for my Kindle, an updated bookmarking site because Pocket and delicious are gone, and a two-factor authenticator helper for my desktop, and that was all in 48 hours while being present with my family!! That's just insane.
Now is literally the best time ever to be creating businesses; especially with the amount of people being laid off. We're going to see amazing stuff come out of it.
I've definitely changed my attitude from fear to optimism about what AI is gonna do for us.
It also shows me that the power of distribution is really the current last mile challenge of AI software.
Making software is now trivial, but actually getting people to use it and then really creating moats or network effects is the valuable part.
Those screenshots tell the whole story. A Kindle highlighter, a personal bookmarking hub, and a tiny 2FA helper menu app — all hacked together in a weekend. The builds look clean, useful, and totally shippable. And none of them matter without people using them.
Screenshots Of How Cheap Code Is
The Kindle highlight sync page is basically Readwise-lite. The bookmarking list looks like an MVP of Pocket or Raindrop. The 2FA helper is a single dropdown that auto-copies codes. Ten years ago, each of these would feel like a full startup. Today they are weekend side quests. Shipping software is now the easy part; getting anyone to care is the real project.
Where The Real Moat Lives
- Owning an audience before you write a line of code
- Embedding into existing workflows so leaving feels painful
- Creating habits and data lock-in that compound daily
- Building word-of-mouth loops, not just feature lists
Simple Products, Unfair Distribution
Readwise turned basic highlight syncing into a must-have by obsessing over email digests and creator partnerships.
Notion transformed a plain notes database into a juggernaut through templates, communities, and relentless content marketing.