For decades, founders followed the same script: build a product, raise a round, then worry about customers later. In the 2010s, the script evolved—thanks to the Lean Startup playbook—into “ship an MVP, test for traction, raise a round, then prep your GTM.” It was faster, leaner, but distribution was still left at the end of the process.

But even this MVP-first approach kept the hardest part—finding customers—pushed to the back of the journey. That gap is what a new type of founder is closing. These are distribution-first founders.

Instead of starting with code, they start with community. They build an audience on X, YouTube, or Farcaster long before they incorporate a company. They learn their audience’s pains in real time. They earn trust, status, and attention—assets that compound like capital. Then, when they launch a product, they don’t begin at zero. They have a waiting list. They have early adopters. They have distribution.

This shift is possible because building has never been cheaper or faster. AI writes code, no-code tools stitch it together, and open-source libraries supply the missing pieces. A weekend project can be a mini-app MVP by lunchtime on Monday. What once took months and venture capital now takes hours and coffee. The hardest part is no longer building the product—it’s finding people who care. That’s where distribution-first founders have the edge: they start with the caring built in.

Nowhere is this more visible than on Farcaster. It’s the cheapest place to launch a product because distribution is baked in. On Farcaster, DAU (daily active users) wallets are funded, which means every active user is transactable. It’s not just social, it’s an economy in motion. Some call it the Farconomy. Every day, innovators are testing new ideas, mini-apps, and token launches inside the feed—from quick experiments to fully transactable products. It’s not just a social app; it’s a living laboratory where founders can test ideas instantly with an audience that values being early. And that’s why Farcaster has become the proving ground for this new founder pipeline: creator → community → founder.

A YouTuber who teaches productivity launches a SaaS app and instantly has thousands of users. A caster shares experiments for months before turning one into a startup, with their first hundred customers already following along. Their unfair advantage isn’t technology. It’s trust and distribution.

Not every audience translates into a business, of course. Attention without solving a real pain will always collapse. But the odds are better than the old model, because distribution cushions the risk. The audience becomes a laboratory. The failures are smaller, faster, and more recoverable. The wins are exponential.

The lesson for every founder is clear: distribution is the first product. Build the audience, earn the trust, and the company becomes a natural extension of what you’ve already created. On Farcaster, that’s not theory—it’s happening in real time.