This is the single biggest change in how I filter ideas these days. Few years ago between two competing ideas, I would go with the "cooler" one(ie. one I liked more).
These days I start out thinking about any idea from the perspective of distribution. If I have an idea with no clear path of distribution(and revenue), it is an automatic no-go. I think a lot of Valley folks have learned this in past few years.
Totally makes sense, especially having read the book PayPal Wars where the author--who led PayPal's marketing--talks of day to day strategies that helped PayPal acquire users consistently and cheaply.
Mint's founder on virality (paraphrased): his product had essentially no virality (no one shares their bank stories with their friends) so he focused instead on good old PR: making sure he'd be in the news as much as he could.
I think Josh's point was not that you needed virality. Virality is just one way to get distribution (albeit a very efficient way). Josh's point was that distribution (aka Customer Acquisition) is hard and you can't just 'bolt virality on' as an afterthought.
It's also worth noting that it can actually hurt your image if you try to bolt on virality when you don't know what you're doing. You can become a laughing stock. I'm reminded of recent failures by two of the largest engineering companies in the world.
These days I start out thinking about any idea from the perspective of distribution. If I have an idea with no clear path of distribution(and revenue), it is an automatic no-go. I think a lot of Valley folks have learned this in past few years.
It can't be a coincidence that VCs in general are blogging more about sales: http://southeastvc.blogs.com/southeast_vc/2009/11/vcs-hear-i...