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I’m sure that you probably know my opinion on all this already (given my general loudness about newsletter things in general, as the editor of Tedium), but I’d

I’m sure that you probably know my opinion on all this already (given my general loudness about newsletter things in general, as the editor of Tedium), but I’d love to see you offer options to create ecosystem options that don’t rely on having to publish on Substack proper. It seems like creators could use the support of something like Substack without being tied to the publishing platform itself. That seems like a real opportunity. I really don’t like the idea of newsletter platforms expanding beyond email, because the reasons why we’re using email in the first place is because it’s platform-agnostic. So your company launching an app really gives me pause. But creators I’ve talked to over the past day or so are in more of a wait-and-see mode. I realize I’m not the target audience for your service as-is. I prefer self-hosting things like my website, I want to code my template myself, and don’t want to charge my readers a subscription fee. But I think some of the services you offer do not need the publishing platform you’ve created for it. It could be a way to help the newsletter ecosystem without making it dependent on the URL and how we choose to publish.

cjbest 5y ago
Thank you this is an interesting perspective. Substack today is definitely targeted at people who want a full stack thing and don't want to worry about coding one's own template etc. As someone who does want to self host, which Substack services would be valuable to you? What do you feel like we could offer you?
- rsingel 5y ago
  Google Reader, which y'all claim to love, supported reading any blog, not just Google's owned Blogger. You could have done the same thing and built a generalized newsletter app. But instead you built a reader just for Substack, which is clearly built to lock in an open ecosystem, just as medium tried with blogging and Spotify is trying with podcasts.
  - internet_jockey 5y ago
    You can add any RSS feed to the app via reader.substack.com. As long as other newsletter providers support RSS, this should be no problem.
- shortformblog 5y ago
  I think your company has done a lot of work around building resources for up-and-coming writers—legal services, health insurance—as well as educational offerings. Most of those have requirements tied to Substack usage or revenue. If you offered a package that made these accessible to non-Substackers, that would be a useful contribution to the space in general. I think promotional options within the ecosystem would be nice for newsletter creators outside of Substack, but at the same time, I think the work that you’ve put into building significant resources is a unique offering in the sector that nobody else is doing to the same degree. A good model to compare this to, in my mind, would be the Freelancers Union (https://www.freelancersunion.org https://www.freelancersunion.org), which offers a lot of services to people who freelance. That I think could be of interest even to people who don’t publish with you. I’ve been around the block for a bit, and I think a big part of the reason the blogging ecosystem died is because there weren’t any nets. You have done a good job of creating a net for your audience. There’s no reason that net has to be for Substack users alone.
f0e4c2f7 5y ago
Ghost[0] Seems like it more or less fits what you're describing. I first heard about it on an episode of Indie Hackers.[1] It was an especially interesting and unusual episode. I remember him talking about positioning with open source and also him going on these crazy international sailing trips while running the company. Also I can't comment on a post about substack without mentioning my favorite substack post of all time![2] [0] https://ghost.org/ https://ghost.org/ [1] https://www.indiehackers.com/interview/how-john-onolan-grew-his-publishing-platform-to-750-000-year-14e5bac2fa https://www.indiehackers.com/interview/how-john-onolan-grew-... [2] https://tedgioia.substack.com/p/how-i-became-the-honest-broker?s=r https://tedgioia.substack.com/p/how-i-became-the-honest-brok...
- shortformblog 5y ago
  I addressed this in the answer to Chris, but I think the secret is really that they’ve invested a lot in resources in a way other platforms have not, and those resources are probably useful to non-Substackers as well. Ghost is a good platform. I don’t use it these days, but I’m a bit of a maverick—case in point, I used Ghost to build my newsletter before it had any newsletter functionality! (I currently use Craft CMS, which has a dedicated view that can spit out a completed newsletter template, with custom ads, in a matter of seconds.)

cjbest 5y ago

Thank you this is an interesting perspective. Substack today is definitely targeted at people who want a full stack thing and don't want to worry about coding one's own template etc. As someone who does want to self host, which Substack services would be valuable to you? What do you feel like we could offer you?

rsingel 5y ago
Google Reader, which y'all claim to love, supported reading any blog, not just Google's owned Blogger. You could have done the same thing and built a generalized newsletter app. But instead you built a reader just for Substack, which is clearly built to lock in an open ecosystem, just as medium tried with blogging and Spotify is trying with podcasts.
- internet_jockey 5y ago
  You can add any RSS feed to the app via reader.substack.com. As long as other newsletter providers support RSS, this should be no problem.
shortformblog 5y ago
I think your company has done a lot of work around building resources for up-and-coming writers—legal services, health insurance—as well as educational offerings. Most of those have requirements tied to Substack usage or revenue. If you offered a package that made these accessible to non-Substackers, that would be a useful contribution to the space in general. I think promotional options within the ecosystem would be nice for newsletter creators outside of Substack, but at the same time, I think the work that you’ve put into building significant resources is a unique offering in the sector that nobody else is doing to the same degree. A good model to compare this to, in my mind, would be the Freelancers Union (https://www.freelancersunion.org https://www.freelancersunion.org), which offers a lot of services to people who freelance. That I think could be of interest even to people who don’t publish with you. I’ve been around the block for a bit, and I think a big part of the reason the blogging ecosystem died is because there weren’t any nets. You have done a good job of creating a net for your audience. There’s no reason that net has to be for Substack users alone.

f0e4c2f7 5y ago

Ghost[0] Seems like it more or less fits what you're describing. I first heard about it on an episode of Indie Hackers.[1] It was an especially interesting and unusual episode. I remember him talking about positioning with open source and also him going on these crazy international sailing trips while running the company. Also I can't comment on a post about substack without mentioning my favorite substack post of all time![2] [0] https://ghost.org/ https://ghost.org/ [1] https://www.indiehackers.com/interview/how-john-onolan-grew-his-publishing-platform-to-750-000-year-14e5bac2fa https://www.indiehackers.com/interview/how-john-onolan-grew-... [2] https://tedgioia.substack.com/p/how-i-became-the-honest-broker?s=r https://tedgioia.substack.com/p/how-i-became-the-honest-brok...

shortformblog 5y ago
I addressed this in the answer to Chris, but I think the secret is really that they’ve invested a lot in resources in a way other platforms have not, and those resources are probably useful to non-Substackers as well. Ghost is a good platform. I don’t use it these days, but I’m a bit of a maverick—case in point, I used Ghost to build my newsletter before it had any newsletter functionality! (I currently use Craft CMS, which has a dedicated view that can spit out a completed newsletter template, with custom ads, in a matter of seconds.)