Hey Guys,
I usually miss these kinds of posts, but today (Thursday) Substack gave us some stats and figures that help me buy-into the social proof of why I originally chose Substack, over its competitors.
Read it for yourself:
So thus far Substack demonstrates a tentative walled-garden (hopefully not too secret) features as an ownership economy leader.
In particular I want to zero in on some of the stats and data they shared:
Readers who are already paying for another Substack publication are 2.5x more likely to in turn pay for yours.
Up to 10% on average of Paid subscribers now come from within the Substack Network.
I would add that in my observation, incentives for Substack Network ROI are higher the longer you’ve been writing on the platform (likely increasing as your Newsletter gets more total free subscribers). That is probably also correlated with your understanding of your niche and relationship with your peers.
The human connection is important. But so is the curve of how ROI scales over time for many Creators.
I consider the sweet spot to be about 16 months, of investment to reach a sustainable level assuming you came here with nothing but a pen and maybe a nice voice. If you wrote two Newsletters a week for 16 months, so that’s about 226 weeks. So roughly 500 Newsletters divided by your subscription revenue, the ROI you’d see on average would be well worth your time.
On Substack, Trust is KYC Verified Human
Recommendations — writers that make a recommendation are three times more likely to be recommended themselves
Writer and reader profiles — discover new Substacks through the reading lists of writers (and readers) you trust
Think about it, both of these augment how Creators relate directly with other Creators and share audiences around niche-topics. No algorithms, no interference, no censorship.
Trust and Product really stand out on Substack circa mid-2022.
The Real Pillar of Substack Remains Product Excellence
For a walled-garden advantage over competitors, Substack will be hard to beat. As other startups are freezing hiring or rescinding offers, Substack is still actively hiring. They can delay Series C funding, since they were huge beneficiaries of the Pandemic bump.
I also just think they will be more immune to the crypto winter since revenue growth has been good. Substack launched in October 2017, so it’s only not even five years old yet. These are early days guys.
Product
https://substack.com/jobs#openings
The Substack iOS app — a seamless space for readers to explore the Substack ecosystem (Android app coming soon!)
Expanded leaderboard categories and improved search — simple ways for readers to discover new publications
Twitter connections — readers who follow you on Twitter can be alerted to your Substack publication
Post and publication embeds — a powerful cross-promotion tool for growth
Can embed things like TikTok, Anchor (for podcasting) and now Polls.
Substack enables writers, creators and podcasters to spend precious little time thinking about the technology, administration, customer support, and maintenance of their publishing operation, so they can focus on the work that really matters, the creative part!
Substack’s podcasting community has grown so wildly well, Substack is now a landing page for Creators, their HOME page, not just a Newsletter service. People could and are building empires here.
Check out Substack’s product innovation “On Substack”
Substack is Quickly Becoming the Shopify of the Creator Economy
Think about that.


Stats
More than 30% of all new free subscriptions and around 10% of paid subscriptions to Substacks come from within our network.
Since Substack’s earliest days, they’ve believed that the 10% fee more than pays for itself.
So thus far it appears Substack’s lead in Product and Trust (via network effect) will attract more Creators in 2022 as they keep hiring to improve their first-mover advantage.
Product and Trust won’t be Substack’s only core pillars. Can you guess what the others are going to be? What do they do that nobody else can do as well or as easily?
I might call Patreon an older sister of Substack, but it’s sufficiently different and more geared to video creators for me to consider it an actual competitor.
From a customer success point of view, Substack needs to get better at combining data points, brand ambassadors and user success stories, but it is getting better.
Anyways guys with the advent of Web3 and potential competitors from Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other pure-play Newsletter apps and ESPs, it’s pretty interesting to see where Substack ends up.
Did any of their stats jump out at you?
Go to Dashboard ~ Stats ~ Network to see your Wheel.
After six months of writing here, here is mine:
37% of my Substack free readers had existing Substack accounts.
Starting at zero, I brought nearly half of my traffic from elsewhere. Hopefully I’m pulling my weight!
These stats are belonging to my flagship Newsletter: AiSupremacy
Thanks for reading!