Step 19 of 30 · Build & grow
Distribution
What it is
The channels, intermediaries, partnerships, and fulfilment routes that put the offer in front of customers and get it into their hands.
Why it matters
A valuable product cannot earn revenue if customers cannot reliably discover, buy, receive, and reorder it. Channel choice shapes margin, control, and speed.
What Flir develops
Channel map, channel economics per route, partner terms, fulfilment design, and a ranked channel-test plan
Target objective
Prove at least one repeatable channel with known acquisition cost, margin after channel fees, and fulfilment reliability.
Bloom begins with app stores, then adds plant-shop partnerships that place its care QR code on every pot sold—a channel costing $0.40 per signup versus $6 on paid social.
Channel families
- • Direct: your website, app, storefront, or sales team.
- • Marketplaces and platforms: app stores, Amazon, aggregators.
- • Resellers, wholesalers, agents, and distributors.
- • Partnerships and embedded placement inside another business's offer.
- • Physical: retail shelves, pop-ups, route sales, and franchised outlets.
How to judge a channel
- • Cost to acquire a customer through it, after fees.
- • Control over price, brand, and customer data.
- • Speed to reach volume and the ceiling on that volume.
- • Fulfilment cost and failure rate in your geography.
Traps to avoid
- • Launching on five channels at once and learning nothing.
- • Depending on one platform that can change its rules overnight.
- • Ignoring the margin a distributor or marketplace takes.
- • Treating distribution as marketing's job alone.
Monitoring brief
Signals Flir should keep checking as this part of the plan evolves.
- Channel fees, platform rules, and algorithm changes
- Partner and reseller performance
- Conversion, delivery reliability, and reorder rate by channel