Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures with an interesting take on Superdistribution – the practice of turning each consumer into a retailer of the good in question.
[…] superdistribution is something I’ve become obsessed with. Superdistribution means turning every consumer into a distribution partner. Every person who buys a record, a movie, reads a newspaper, a book, every person who buys a Sonos or a Vespa becomes a retailer of that item. It’s word of mouth marketing, referral marketing, but with one important difference. The consumer is the retailer.
I’ve wanted to be a superdistributor ever since. When I talk about music, books, politics, Sonos, Blackberry, MacBook, or anything else, I want all of you to be able to click and buy. When I buy something, I want to be able to pass it along to everyone else and get paid for doing that. And I want the people who created the thing I pass along to get paid too.
A lot of people who read and comment on this blog think I am anti content creator, that I want to eliminate property rights. Wrong. The thing I want to eliminate is FRICTION. I want to supercharge commerce. I want to turn everyone on to Arcade FIre. I want to them to sell 100 million Arcade Fire mp3s. And I want to get paid for doing my part.
My friend Steve calls me anti establishment. He’s right. I am done with the old way of selling goods. I don’t want to buy from an institution. I want to buy from my friends. And I want to sell to them.
- Mary Meeker’s 2014 Internet Trends report - May 28, 2014
- Andreessen-Horowitz raises $1.5B for its new fund - February 1, 2012
- WestBridge launches India “evergreen” fund - November 15, 2011
Just came across this topic…
I am probably being a little dense here but how is this different from the model that Amway follows?
Mohit,
That IS the point. We are already doing this. Now we make some money while doing so. At least that appears to be the concept! As conveyed earlier, the chaps doing this business model, must surely think through the detailing and the execution, but conceptually, this is how it would work, as far as I can see it.