Why Distro exists
Something strange happened to software. Building it became easy. Anyone with a good idea can now ship a real product in weeks. But selling it got harder than ever — and buying it got worse.
Buyers get fifty automated messages a day from tools they never asked about. Builders with genuinely useful products can't get anyone to look. And the people who are actually good at helping companies buy — experienced power users — spend most of their week producing reports nobody reads, for one employer, on one product.
Everyone is working harder. Everyone trusts each other less. That is not a technology problem. It is a trust problem.
So we built the boring thing nobody else wanted to build: a catalog where everything is checked.
On Distro, a product listing is not an ad. A real person has used the product, tested its claims, and signed what's true. The prices are real. The fees are on the table — including ours: a flat finder's fee the buyer can see and veto. And when a buyer wants a human opinion, they get one from a power user who is paid the same whether they buy or not — so there's no reason to push.
We also built it for the way buying works now. Most software research happens inside AI assistants before any vendor knows it started. So every Distro listing is published in a form machines can read and check. A builder can claim anything on their own website. They cannot verify themselves. Verification has to come from someone else. That someone is us.
Some promises, in plain words:
- — Nobody on Distro will ever contact you out of nowhere. Not a person, not a machine.
- — Verification can be earned. It can never be bought.
- — Ranking is not for sale. Not at any price, not to anyone.
- — Every fee is visible. Buyers can even veto the referral fee.
- — Nobody sells what they haven't used.
- — We make money two ways only: real work (audits, sessions) and a cut when money actually moves. Never from access.
We think the next decade of software belongs to small teams building sharp tools — if buying them stops feeling like a gamble. That's the whole idea. A market where good software gets found because it's good, power users get paid for honest advice whether you buy or not, and buyers stay in control because everything is on the table.
Where software is bought, not sold.
— Tural, founder. B2B seller for 10+ years; built Distro because I got tired of watching all three sides lose.