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Why is it that Substack can’t just be run as a 10-20 person small-medium sized business forever? If publishers want to go there for a basic product, and Substa

Why is it that Substack can’t just be run as a 10-20 person small-medium sized business forever? If publishers want to go there for a basic product, and Substack can collect rent from them, what’s the problem?

senko 1y ago
> Why is it that Substack can’t just be run as a 10-20 person small-medium sized business forever? They have taken VC money.
chowells 1y ago
They took VC funding. That requires them to attempt to grow to the size of Facebook or Amazon, or implode. Merely being profitable forever is not an acceptable outcome.
- rwmj 1y ago
  There must be an opportunity here for someone who can stand up a medium-sized website and integrate it with a payment provider to take Substack's lunch money?
  - scyzoryk_xyz 1y ago
    I've always struggled to understand this part: what is it that Substack came up with that we did not have earlier? Aren't there a hundred examples out there of medium-sized websites providing a similar infrastructure mix?
    - gregates 1y ago
      Marketing, including paying well-known individuals to switch to their platform. That's funded by all the VC money the smaller fish don't have.
    - kubectl_h 1y ago
      Substack had a few things that worked for it * Patreon kind of sucks for writing / newsletters or else they could have captured part of this market. Medium was supposed to fix this but they had an epic collapse. * Single point where subscribers can manage their subscriptions and preserve a common identity across subscriptions in the comments etc. Again, Medium/collapse. * A rapid adoption of substack by well known online writers with loyal followings. These writers either had their own blogs or were exiting traditional media or getting dumped out by the collapse of online media (gawker network, buzzfeed news, etc). Again, could have been Medium if not for their collapse. * I suspect Substack spent a lot of that VC money guaranteeing 2 years of X revenue for a non-trivial number of high profile writers so they would onboard. Reading this story I didn't realize just how much they had taken over the years (I use to operate in this media space, but haven't in a long time). I'm not sure what the headcount is but that amount of money is staggering and I can only imagine it was all used to acquire DAUs and very little novel technology has been created with it. I think Substacks first 10m/100m (their keep of rev/total rev from subscriptions) was extremely impressive and fast. But also it was a kind of low hanging fruit. There was a market already there for this and Medium/Patreon couldn't capture it. Now if they are really at 45m/450m that is much less impressive. It will be extremely hard to get to 100m/1000m and IMO impossible to get much higher than that with their current approach.
      - socalgal2 1y ago
        > could have been Medium Did Medium have a way to pay authors? Maybe it would have been easy to add but saying "A could have been B if only" I think misses the picture. Yahoo could have been Google if only they'd chosen a different algo. Flickr could have been Instagram if only they'd made a mobile app with filters. Etc... I think it's precisely because substack launched with a way to let readers sponser the authors directly they liked that it took off. Medium had a partner program but that's not the same.
        kubectl_h 1y ago
        I'm certainly not arguing against your point. I didn't work at Medium but I had insight into their operations at the time and they didn't really seem to have a coherent vision to make money 12 or so years ago. My comparison of the two is more around their similar goals and audience, which was giving great (or interesting) writers a home for their projects and audiences and somehow make money. Medium was saying the financial part would happen down the line and it was a can they kicked for a long time. Medium seemed more interested in talking about their technology and aesthetics than they did on figuring out the crucial parts. Substack got it right doing what Patreon (and even Twitch) had already proved, people will pay up front for the writers/creators they love. That said Medium did pay higher profile writers and publications to move to their platform (in some cases quite a bit of money) in a similar way that Substack has, which was to dip into the VC funded bank account.
    - cnst 1y ago
      To me, it seems like they're simply a monetised version of Tumblr, without the newfound censorship that all the other social media companies somehow have to have. I really don't get the whole email thing, though. Newsletters are kinda super annoying to signup for, and then to receive. I've tried the Substack version, and I still don't get it. Even though I do love the mailing lists, but that's not the same as the newsletters.
  - derektank 1y ago
    Ghost exists
  - skwashd 1y ago
    Buttondown already offers this - https://docs.buttondown.com/paid-subscriptions https://docs.buttondown.com/paid-subscriptions
  - akudha 1y ago
    What about https://ghost.org/about/ https://ghost.org/about/ They seem to be doing well, 8.5 million in revenue
- rectang 1y ago
  I wonder how many profitable, sustainable, rewarding medium-sized businesses that have never taken VC money are utterly invisible to HN. “You know, you could just not take VC money.” “… We don’t do that here.”
RamblingCTO 1y ago
VC money and you can't boast to your peers with your monopoly valuation that doesn't have any real merit.
elicash 1y ago
There are already small newsletter businesses that offer basic products.
mcepl 1y ago
You cannot give millions of USD to potential authors if you are tiny webserver-running small business. That’s what the article was all about.

senko 1y ago

> Why is it that Substack can’t just be run as a 10-20 person small-medium sized business forever? They have taken VC money.

chowells 1y ago

They took VC funding. That requires them to attempt to grow to the size of Facebook or Amazon, or implode. Merely being profitable forever is not an acceptable outcome.

rwmj 1y ago
There must be an opportunity here for someone who can stand up a medium-sized website and integrate it with a payment provider to take Substack's lunch money?
- scyzoryk_xyz 1y ago
  I've always struggled to understand this part: what is it that Substack came up with that we did not have earlier? Aren't there a hundred examples out there of medium-sized websites providing a similar infrastructure mix?
  - gregates 1y ago
    Marketing, including paying well-known individuals to switch to their platform. That's funded by all the VC money the smaller fish don't have.
  - kubectl_h 1y ago
    Substack had a few things that worked for it * Patreon kind of sucks for writing / newsletters or else they could have captured part of this market. Medium was supposed to fix this but they had an epic collapse. * Single point where subscribers can manage their subscriptions and preserve a common identity across subscriptions in the comments etc. Again, Medium/collapse. * A rapid adoption of substack by well known online writers with loyal followings. These writers either had their own blogs or were exiting traditional media or getting dumped out by the collapse of online media (gawker network, buzzfeed news, etc). Again, could have been Medium if not for their collapse. * I suspect Substack spent a lot of that VC money guaranteeing 2 years of X revenue for a non-trivial number of high profile writers so they would onboard. Reading this story I didn't realize just how much they had taken over the years (I use to operate in this media space, but haven't in a long time). I'm not sure what the headcount is but that amount of money is staggering and I can only imagine it was all used to acquire DAUs and very little novel technology has been created with it. I think Substacks first 10m/100m (their keep of rev/total rev from subscriptions) was extremely impressive and fast. But also it was a kind of low hanging fruit. There was a market already there for this and Medium/Patreon couldn't capture it. Now if they are really at 45m/450m that is much less impressive. It will be extremely hard to get to 100m/1000m and IMO impossible to get much higher than that with their current approach.
    - socalgal2 1y ago
      > could have been Medium Did Medium have a way to pay authors? Maybe it would have been easy to add but saying "A could have been B if only" I think misses the picture. Yahoo could have been Google if only they'd chosen a different algo. Flickr could have been Instagram if only they'd made a mobile app with filters. Etc... I think it's precisely because substack launched with a way to let readers sponser the authors directly they liked that it took off. Medium had a partner program but that's not the same.
      - kubectl_h 1y ago
        I'm certainly not arguing against your point. I didn't work at Medium but I had insight into their operations at the time and they didn't really seem to have a coherent vision to make money 12 or so years ago. My comparison of the two is more around their similar goals and audience, which was giving great (or interesting) writers a home for their projects and audiences and somehow make money. Medium was saying the financial part would happen down the line and it was a can they kicked for a long time. Medium seemed more interested in talking about their technology and aesthetics than they did on figuring out the crucial parts. Substack got it right doing what Patreon (and even Twitch) had already proved, people will pay up front for the writers/creators they love. That said Medium did pay higher profile writers and publications to move to their platform (in some cases quite a bit of money) in a similar way that Substack has, which was to dip into the VC funded bank account.
  - cnst 1y ago
    To me, it seems like they're simply a monetised version of Tumblr, without the newfound censorship that all the other social media companies somehow have to have. I really don't get the whole email thing, though. Newsletters are kinda super annoying to signup for, and then to receive. I've tried the Substack version, and I still don't get it. Even though I do love the mailing lists, but that's not the same as the newsletters.
- derektank 1y ago
  Ghost exists
- skwashd 1y ago
  Buttondown already offers this - https://docs.buttondown.com/paid-subscriptions https://docs.buttondown.com/paid-subscriptions
- akudha 1y ago
  What about https://ghost.org/about/ https://ghost.org/about/ They seem to be doing well, 8.5 million in revenue
rectang 1y ago
I wonder how many profitable, sustainable, rewarding medium-sized businesses that have never taken VC money are utterly invisible to HN. “You know, you could just not take VC money.” “… We don’t do that here.”

RamblingCTO 1y ago

VC money and you can't boast to your peers with your monopoly valuation that doesn't have any real merit.

elicash 1y ago

There are already small newsletter businesses that offer basic products.

mcepl 1y ago

You cannot give millions of USD to potential authors if you are tiny webserver-running small business. That’s what the article was all about.