Indeed, Substack is a great place to grow. I’ve just hit 1,000 subscribers after starting from zero 18 months ago.
There are a few niggling issues with Substack that we need to keep a close eye on.
Recommendations have been amazing but there’s a limit to the number of newsletters each person can read in a week. Lennys newsletter was one of the first out the block but those following are competing against an avalanche of newsletters.
To combat this, Substack needs to have a steady flow of new readers coming into the top of its funnel. I haven’t seen any stats on this but your first graph is comforting to some extent.
In terms of going paid, you need to be both realistic and focused on your value proposition. People subscribe for free because they WANT to read your work. They will become PAID if they NEED to read your work.
Congrats on 1000!! And great advice about want vs need.
It would nice to have some more recent data on platform reader growth but I suspect it's still up and to the right. Plenty of paid newsletters exist outside of Substack and need to bring in all their own customers so I still think there's an advantage to using this platform beyond the "turnkey newsletter" features.
I would add another advantage of Substack: it’s dual nature. It is a blog but also a newsletter you can deliver by email. That opens another avenue for growth.
Thanks for the insights. I only joined substack a few days ago and found this really helpful. Naturally I have subscribed and looking forward to learning more.
Thank you for this useful and thought provoking post! The Greeks called it an agora - where folks came to buy and sell goods. The more who came to buy and/or sell the more successful the agora. I just subscribed and look forward to your future posts.
As a data nerd, and ex applied scientist, thank you for pointing towards these data sets. I was unaware that the Zoom-boom already flattened - I am not surprised though because I always thought that their product is simply not good.
Now, if I may ask a question in relation to:
"But there’s a great opportunity for new publishers to tap into this growing network as they grow their own audiences. As new publications grow, they’ll be able to tap into the network more and more."
A lot of what you write is extremely beneficial for people who already have audiences. What do you think people can do to build audiences on Substack (besides "hoping" for the network effect)?
I am asking, because I find that this is one of the things that often gets omitted in recommendations about marketing, promotion, growth etc.. Please, do not just write "find and generate value for your audience" - yes, I know!
I definitely don't think anyone should just hope for network effects. It's more of an amplifier on top of any growth an author creates for their publication.
For example, I have been leveraging my network on LinkedIn and Twitter to kickstart audience. building but as far as I know we're not connected there so maybe you found this article through the Substack platform somehow?
I'm going to write an article specifically on Substack growth once I've had an opportunity to test more strategies myself, but all the basics of audience-building and traffic generation still apply. Ultimately we need to find out where the people we want to reach spend time, and then putting ourselves there. This can mean promoting your articles on social media like I have, but also different ways like in Facebook groups or Reddit threads your desired audience might hang out in. It can mean optimizing your articles for specific keywords that your desired audience might be searching. It can mean writing guest articles in other newsletters or blogs they might read. And so on.
But I think the one thing that doesn't get acknowledged enough is that 99% of the time, building an audience starts off really slow. It takes a long time for all your effects to compound and growth to finally accelerate!
The key benefit off Subsctack is that a newsletter hosted outside of this platform has to rely entirely on itself for growth. We here on Substack might get a little bit of an extra push alongside our efforts.
Yes, I saw it on my feed - I think someone restacked a quote. I admit, I do not remember.
Thank you so much for writing this out. The examples you have are partially known to me, and also very useful, and simply "true". It is always reassuring to read that there are no specific tricks, shortcuts, and that a certain level of luck still persists - despite every marketeer on the planet probably wanting us to believe differently.
I better keep showing up consistently then, and remember that the real growth is simply slow.
Consistency is so important along with a little bit of iteration/experimentation. See what works, double down. For example, I haven't experimented with Notes yet but I plan to and I'll make sure to give a good go before deciding how effective it is.
There are no shortcuts but definitely look for opportunities to be clever when you can! There's a reason the first business I'm focusing on is Substack :)
Indeed, Substack is a great place to grow. I’ve just hit 1,000 subscribers after starting from zero 18 months ago.
There are a few niggling issues with Substack that we need to keep a close eye on.
Recommendations have been amazing but there’s a limit to the number of newsletters each person can read in a week. Lennys newsletter was one of the first out the block but those following are competing against an avalanche of newsletters.
To combat this, Substack needs to have a steady flow of new readers coming into the top of its funnel. I haven’t seen any stats on this but your first graph is comforting to some extent.
In terms of going paid, you need to be both realistic and focused on your value proposition. People subscribe for free because they WANT to read your work. They will become PAID if they NEED to read your work.
Congrats on 1000!! And great advice about want vs need.
It would nice to have some more recent data on platform reader growth but I suspect it's still up and to the right. Plenty of paid newsletters exist outside of Substack and need to bring in all their own customers so I still think there's an advantage to using this platform beyond the "turnkey newsletter" features.
Yeah definitely. I’ve also build a great group of friends on here who support each others newsletters.
You wouldn’t get that elsewhere.
Yeah that's a good point. The community is a really great perk.
Awesome Martin!
Well said, Martin. Especially the last paragraph.
Great article! Looking forward to learning more!
So informative and motivating!Thank you! 💙
The potential for future growth is awesome.
Not to mention the fact that Substack has a large reader-to-creator ratio!
I can’t fathom why anyone who’s serious would overlook this platform.
Feeling better after setting up shop here :). Great read!
Great post.
I would add another advantage of Substack: it’s dual nature. It is a blog but also a newsletter you can deliver by email. That opens another avenue for growth.
Maybe you can address that in future posts.
Yes, good point! And seamlessly published to both at the same time.
Thanks for the insights. I only joined substack a few days ago and found this really helpful. Naturally I have subscribed and looking forward to learning more.
Welcome!
Thank you for this useful and thought provoking post! The Greeks called it an agora - where folks came to buy and sell goods. The more who came to buy and/or sell the more successful the agora. I just subscribed and look forward to your future posts.
Love that comparison!
Super helpful, and makes me excited to be part of the community. Thanks for collecting all this data in such a digestible way!
Excellent breakdown of the opportunity!!
Great post. Looking forward to read more 🙂
As a data nerd, and ex applied scientist, thank you for pointing towards these data sets. I was unaware that the Zoom-boom already flattened - I am not surprised though because I always thought that their product is simply not good.
Now, if I may ask a question in relation to:
"But there’s a great opportunity for new publishers to tap into this growing network as they grow their own audiences. As new publications grow, they’ll be able to tap into the network more and more."
A lot of what you write is extremely beneficial for people who already have audiences. What do you think people can do to build audiences on Substack (besides "hoping" for the network effect)?
I am asking, because I find that this is one of the things that often gets omitted in recommendations about marketing, promotion, growth etc.. Please, do not just write "find and generate value for your audience" - yes, I know!
I definitely don't think anyone should just hope for network effects. It's more of an amplifier on top of any growth an author creates for their publication.
For example, I have been leveraging my network on LinkedIn and Twitter to kickstart audience. building but as far as I know we're not connected there so maybe you found this article through the Substack platform somehow?
I'm going to write an article specifically on Substack growth once I've had an opportunity to test more strategies myself, but all the basics of audience-building and traffic generation still apply. Ultimately we need to find out where the people we want to reach spend time, and then putting ourselves there. This can mean promoting your articles on social media like I have, but also different ways like in Facebook groups or Reddit threads your desired audience might hang out in. It can mean optimizing your articles for specific keywords that your desired audience might be searching. It can mean writing guest articles in other newsletters or blogs they might read. And so on.
But I think the one thing that doesn't get acknowledged enough is that 99% of the time, building an audience starts off really slow. It takes a long time for all your effects to compound and growth to finally accelerate!
The key benefit off Subsctack is that a newsletter hosted outside of this platform has to rely entirely on itself for growth. We here on Substack might get a little bit of an extra push alongside our efforts.
Yes, I saw it on my feed - I think someone restacked a quote. I admit, I do not remember.
Thank you so much for writing this out. The examples you have are partially known to me, and also very useful, and simply "true". It is always reassuring to read that there are no specific tricks, shortcuts, and that a certain level of luck still persists - despite every marketeer on the planet probably wanting us to believe differently.
I better keep showing up consistently then, and remember that the real growth is simply slow.
Consistency is so important along with a little bit of iteration/experimentation. See what works, double down. For example, I haven't experimented with Notes yet but I plan to and I'll make sure to give a good go before deciding how effective it is.
There are no shortcuts but definitely look for opportunities to be clever when you can! There's a reason the first business I'm focusing on is Substack :)
Yes awesome. I just started mine and am excited to see it grow. One post at time! Thanks for the read.
I love the feeling of hope ❤️
started my newsletter three months ago and i been loving substack, so good and full of great writers with amazing insights.
Great info here, Cassandra! Thank you. :) Looking forward to more.