26 min
Understanding Content Ecosystems, with Linda Lebrun, Substack Inc. Signals by AlphaSense
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- Business
Episode Summary
In this episode we spoke with Linda Lebrun from Substack Inc., a VC-backed publishing platform that has gained prominence in recent years as the go-to place for starting and monetizing email newsletters.
We discuss a wide range of topics covering the technology, content, and business aspects of Substack Inc. While neither email newsletters nor blogs are new, Substack’s singular focus on email-first has been very successful. Another part of the success has been easy writer and user experiences, and transparent revenue splits. We also covered why Substack Inc. does not facilitate advertising, and how the platform’s commitment to free speech stands out.
Guest-at-a-Glance
Name: Linda Lebrun
What she does: Linda leads writer relations at Substack.
Company: Substack Inc.
Noteworthy: Linda joined Substack two years ago, transitioning from the investment space to tech.
Where to find Linda: LinkedIn Twitter
Key Insights
🎙️Substack’s success comes from the email-first strategy. Neither email nor blogs are new. It was the focused approach that centered on ''coming to users' doors'' — their inboxes — instead of waiting for them to come to the platform that enabled Substack’s growth. ''The analogy I saw somebody making in a Tweet was when you have a blog, it's like opening up a cafe, and you wait for somebody to come by and poke their head in, and maybe it's empty, and they don't come in. But when you have an email-first — an email newsletter-first — structure, it is like Uber Eats. And we see it in the data because more than 95% of the interaction people do with Substack content is either in the email inbox or the app.''
🎙️Writers should be focused on content and audience-building, not technology. Substack offers tools for both established writers with existing audiences, and for experts looking to build an audience. ''If you're Andrew Sullivan, and you have this huge audience that likes you, or if you have a big email list to port in, then that's a great way to get started, and you can grow from there. But [...] what if I'm not Andrew Sullivan? So in our roadmap, we are very focused on building features that will help people get found, and then we'll help them create a way for people to go — it's very MBA-style to talk about a funnel of monetization — if people want to fully participate in what you are doing, and if you want your writing to be a business and a living, it works if you are given tools to move people down that path and say, 'Hey, if you want to enjoy everything that I'm doing, if you become a paid subscriber, you will.'''
🎙️ Substack deliberately does not focus on advertising. Substack's business model is helping authors make an extra income, a living, or as Linda says, in some cases, a fortune publishing articles on the platform. They do this by making it easy to launch paid subscriptions. ''This seems to be working; it seems to be gelling to give people a way to get paid. [...] The vast majority of people on Substack would be individuals or small teams. The biggest priority for them is to focus their time and attention on what will help their content business — for lack of a better word — grow, which is probably spending their time on writing and marketing and to try also to have an ad sales department; it's a tough one if you are independent.''
Episode Summary
In this episode we spoke with Linda Lebrun from Substack Inc., a VC-backed publishing platform that has gained prominence in recent years as the go-to place for starting and monetizing email newsletters.
We discuss a wide range of topics covering the technology, content, and business aspects of Substack Inc. While neither email newsletters nor blogs are new, Substack’s singular focus on email-first has been very successful. Another part of the success has been easy writer and user experiences, and transparent revenue splits. We also covered why Substack Inc. does not facilitate advertising, and how the platform’s commitment to free speech stands out.
Guest-at-a-Glance
Name: Linda Lebrun
What she does: Linda leads writer relations at Substack.
Company: Substack Inc.
Noteworthy: Linda joined Substack two years ago, transitioning from the investment space to tech.
Where to find Linda: LinkedIn Twitter
Key Insights
🎙️Substack’s success comes from the email-first strategy. Neither email nor blogs are new. It was the focused approach that centered on ''coming to users' doors'' — their inboxes — instead of waiting for them to come to the platform that enabled Substack’s growth. ''The analogy I saw somebody making in a Tweet was when you have a blog, it's like opening up a cafe, and you wait for somebody to come by and poke their head in, and maybe it's empty, and they don't come in. But when you have an email-first — an email newsletter-first — structure, it is like Uber Eats. And we see it in the data because more than 95% of the interaction people do with Substack content is either in the email inbox or the app.''
🎙️Writers should be focused on content and audience-building, not technology. Substack offers tools for both established writers with existing audiences, and for experts looking to build an audience. ''If you're Andrew Sullivan, and you have this huge audience that likes you, or if you have a big email list to port in, then that's a great way to get started, and you can grow from there. But [...] what if I'm not Andrew Sullivan? So in our roadmap, we are very focused on building features that will help people get found, and then we'll help them create a way for people to go — it's very MBA-style to talk about a funnel of monetization — if people want to fully participate in what you are doing, and if you want your writing to be a business and a living, it works if you are given tools to move people down that path and say, 'Hey, if you want to enjoy everything that I'm doing, if you become a paid subscriber, you will.'''
🎙️ Substack deliberately does not focus on advertising. Substack's business model is helping authors make an extra income, a living, or as Linda says, in some cases, a fortune publishing articles on the platform. They do this by making it easy to launch paid subscriptions. ''This seems to be working; it seems to be gelling to give people a way to get paid. [...] The vast majority of people on Substack would be individuals or small teams. The biggest priority for them is to focus their time and attention on what will help their content business — for lack of a better word — grow, which is probably spending their time on writing and marketing and to try also to have an ad sales department; it's a tough one if you are independent.''
26 min