My main point was that these companies likely had strong hypotheses about how they would grow before building an MVP.
You don't always need to prove out all your growth channels. But it's important to have strong hypotheses and remove at least a little bit of uncertainty around those hypotheses before building.
I see that, but you don't talk about this - your main point - in the case studies, at all. Of course it's difficult to, since they don't discuss it and so you have to infer it, but if it's your main point, you probably do need to mention it in the case study.
Your heading "My side projects always fail" makes me think the problem is getting initial adoption (not going from small adoption to huge adoption). The network effects of those three examples don't kick in until after some adoption.
I like the idea of considering not just the product or the market, but also how you to reach that market. It can change your choice of which idea to pursue in the first place. Really, to evaluate as a business idea, not just as a product idea
You're right; I certainly could've delved deeper into those case studies.
I suppose at this point in the article, if you're not yet convinced that distribution is half the battle, you won't care about the rest of the article.
OK, it makes sense as support for the importance of distribution (the claim that "distribution is half the battle"), but there are other claims made, and it wasn't that that was the specific one you were supporting.
Now I know what you meant, this really is just nitpicking.
It seems like you need a strong hypothesis for growth and a strong hypothesis for customer acquisition. It seems like knowing what you're going to build can help drive how you will distribute, and but vice versa seems less obvious.
You don't always need to prove out all your growth channels. But it's important to have strong hypotheses and remove at least a little bit of uncertainty around those hypotheses before building.