7 Comments
User's avatar
Harry Campbell's avatar

Congrats to the Substack team and Eric on this great interview - have always been a fan of the guys and you can tell they care about the product/experience/etc. I have sent a few e-mails to Hamish with general feedback and he's always taken the time to reply/acknowledge which is cool to see.

Excited to keep growing my new newsletter on Substack and support the biz!

Patrick Kervern's avatar

Is that Mari Meeker's bond ? Then that's an ointment.

Kimberley Pittman-Schulz's avatar

I appreciate some of the insights from the founders that often don't make it to the ears of many Substackers.

Specifically, their remarks that writers/creators should not look only to the Substack universe, at least for now, as their sole growth strategy. I think many writers/creators new to the platform, especially those who are not in the top categories/niches or have a substantial reader/audience base to bring to the platform, have unrealistic expectations about what it really takes to grow their publication.

Additionally, related to some Substacker's expectations, it was helpful to get a sense of the founder's vision for Substack at this point. As Substack grows and diversifies the platform and its approach, there are already a range of very different understandings about where this ride is going.

That is, it was helpful to understand the vision is toward swimming in a much bigger pool, focusing less on being a cozy writers' milieu, and more on being a multi-media ecosystem that can take on the likes of YouTube.

While Substack is balancing a lot of values, it's good for all Substackers to remember that Substack is a business that is growing yet still a long way from profitability. This new infusion of VC capital is exciting, AND further underscores the challenge the founders will have to straddle the expectations of Substackers (especially the high-earning, leaderboard-topping publications) with generating a return to it's VC partners 5-7 years from now.

Thanks, Eric, for making this interview happen for the Substack community.

The Human Playbook's avatar

Great job Eric. I am bullish on the future of Substack. We need this more than ever given the current state of the media and (social) too.

Emma Gannon's avatar

Love this Eric. Great interview. I got to chat to them too and I'm super excited about the news.

Stewart Alsop's avatar

I tried to restack this interview and had to log in first and lost the restack.