TL;DR: The traditional growth playbook is broken. As AI commoditizes product features, the old model of "build it, then market it" is a recipe for failure. Lovable's Head of Growth, Elena Verna, recently validated a core Mercury philosophy: the roles of CMO and COO are merging because distribution can no longer be separate from product. This article deconstructs Verna's four critical insights on Growth Loops, AI's role as the "great moat evaporator," and why your product team is now your primary brand custodian. This isn't a theory; it's the operational reality that has driven our own success.
I am James, CEO of Mercury Technology Solutions.
I recently wrote about a structural shift I see happening in the most forward-thinking organizations: the inevitable merging of the Chief Marketing Officer and the Chief Operating Officer. The thesis was that in the modern digital landscape, the systems that create a product (COO) and the systems that distribute it (CMO) can no longer operate in separate silos.
This past week, I was pleased to see this concept powerfully articulated from a different angle by one of the sharpest minds in the industry. Elena Verna, the Head of Growth at Lovable, took the stage at ProductCon 2025 and issued a stark warning: the traditional growth handbook is collapsing, and AI is the accelerator.
Her insights provide a brilliant validation of this new reality. For any leader feeling that their growth strategies are becoming increasingly ineffective, this is a must-read.
1. The Greatest Lie in Business: Separating "Product" from "Distribution"
Verna identified a fundamental "false dichotomy" in corporate thinking: "First, we build a great product, then we figure out how to sell it." This, she argues, is the root cause of why countless excellent products wither and die.
This thinking is a fatal design flaw. It treats distribution as a post-launch "task" for the marketing department. As Verna powerfully stated, "It's like discovering a cure for a disease but having no system to deliver it to the patients. Without a delivery mechanism, the cure itself is useless."
In today's market, if your distribution mechanism is not built into the very DNA of your product, you haven't built a car; you've just built an engine without wheels. This is the organizational manifestation of a disconnected CMO and COO.
2. The Mandate: Abandon the Leaky Funnel, Engineer Growth Loops
The traditional "growth funnel" is a fundamentally flawed, resource-intensive model. It's a leaky bucket that requires you to constantly pour more resources (ad spend, sales headcount) into the top just to get a trickle of customers out of the bottom.
The superior model, as Verna advocates, is the "Growth Loop." A Growth Loop is not a marketing campaign; it is a self-sustaining system where the core actions of your existing users naturally become the input for acquiring new users.
The classic example is Dropbox. Users didn't share files to get a referral bonus; they shared files because collaboration was the core function of the product. When User A shared a folder with non-user User B, User B had to sign up to access it. The product was distributing itself. This is what allowed Dropbox to achieve exponential growth without a massive advertising budget.
At Mercury, this principle is the bedrock of our own growth. Our traction with high-value clients hasn't come from a large sales team, but from creating indispensable frameworks (The 4 Pillars, F.I.N.D.S., A.C.I.D.) that our clients find so valuable they naturally share them within their networks, pulling new strategic partners into our ecosystem.
3. The External Pressure: AI is the Ultimate "Moat Evaporator"
If the product/distribution dichotomy is an internal design flaw, AI is the external force that makes that flaw fatal. Verna calls AI a "platform-level shift" that has completely "democratized" capabilities that were once the exclusive domain of large corporations.
What does this mean? It means your unique technological "moat" could evaporate overnight. If your app's core feature is "summarize text" or "generate images," then a simple API call to GPT or Midjourney can replicate your entire value proposition.
Verna emphasizes that when the "what" (your features) has been commoditized, the only remaining competitive advantage is the "how"—the unique workflow you've built, the superior user experience you provide, or the proprietary data you own.
4. The Last Defensible Moat: Brand is Now a Product Responsibility
In an era where features can be copied in an instant, what is your only truly defensible advantage? Verna's answer is clear: Brand.
But she is not talking about logos or advertising campaigns. She proposes a radical redefinition:
"Brand building is now the product's job, not just marketing's job."
When all apps can perform the same function, the user's feeling—that sense of trust, delight, and being understood—becomes the only point of differentiation. Your brand is not the ad you run; it is the seamless onboarding flow, the thoughtful and helpful error message, the feature that perfectly anticipates their next need.
This makes the product team the primary custodians of the brand experience. It is the final and most powerful argument for why the COO and CMO must become one integrated function.
Conclusion: Your Product Must Speak for Itself
Elena Verna's perspective may be unsettling because it signals the end of our comfortable silos. But it is also liberating. It forces us to stop using "I'm just focused on building the product" as an excuse, and to start asking the harder, more important question: How does my product distribute itself?
This applies to every facet of business, from a tech startup to an individual's career. But it raises an even more fundamental challenge for leaders in the AI era: when the "what" is so easily commoditized, how do you identify the unique, defensible "how" that is worth distributing in the first place? Many companies struggle to articulate this core value proposition.
This is precisely where our strategic process begins. The foundational step of our GAIO (Generative AI Optimization) service is not just about making you visible to AI; it's a deep, collaborative analysis to help your business identify its true Unique Selling Proposition (USP). We help you deconstruct your workflows, user experience, and proprietary data to uncover the "moat" that AI cannot easily replicate.
Once we have codified this unique value, we then architect the "Answer Assets" that serve as its undeniable proof. By building your digital presence around this core, verifiable expertise, you are not just marketing a product; you are engineering a Growth Loop. Your inherent, unique value becomes its own distribution engine, compelling users and AI models alike to cite and share it.
As Elena Verna so powerfully stated, in the age of AI, the old rules are gone. There is only one rule left: Distribution is EVERYTHING. Let us help you discover the unique value you have that is worth distributing.
Mercury Technology Solutions. Accelerate Digitality.
