What's New on Substack in 2022
How Substack is building tools for the future of media and the ownership economy.
Hey everyone,
Substack was huge beneficiary of the pandemic lockdown with a significant spike in new accounts and revenue during the 2020 to 2022 period.
While things are different now, I wanted to go over some of the innovation for writers I’m seeing on their product and accounts trends.
These are simply my own observations and don’t represent anyone else so feel free to take them as you will. Full disclosure, I have been writing on Substack for the past six months.
Creators from Instagram, YouTube and even TikTok are Joining
In 2022 I’ve noticed quite a steady stream of Instagram community niche writers making the transition to Substack. In addition I’m noticing some bigger TikTok and YouTube accounts rounding out their creator stack with Newsletters on Substack. This diversification of the kinds of Creators we are seeing on Substack means, Newsletters and podcasts are part of a Creator’s tool kit.
Substack Joins the Podcast Revolution
On a product level (“On Substack”) Substack has upgraded its audio tools for Creators to a significant degree. This means there’s more ways to reach and engage an audience than ever before.
While Substack puts the finishing touching on its Android app, audio listening will be one of the huge reasons to join either as a reader, listener or creator.
With the introduction of voice-overs, text-to-speech and other Podcasting tools Substack is lowering the bar for entry. Before Twitter Notes or Facebook Bulletin goes live, Substack is the preeminent place to start a Newsletter. The main reason or this today is the Substack Network.
Further reading:
2-
Substack Network
It quickens time to product-market fit for serious Creators interested in monetization.
In 2022 one of the most tangible benefits for Creator discovery is the Newsletter recommendation system which means Substack has a niche discovery network that’s organic and human based whereby your Newsletter is more easily discovered, especially if you can get recommendations from others in your niche or category.
For the top Newsletters on Substack, Creators are seeing in the area of 40-60% of their traffic (and free subscriber growth) now already coming from the Substack Network. So if you were considering Ghost or Mailchimp before, this discovery and targeting feature in the product means Substack is just that much easier to grow.
It’s hard to emphasize how much this changes the overall trajectory of the product and ecosystem, in terms of scale over time. It quickens time to product-market fit for serious Creators interested in monetization.
Further reading:
1-
Substack is Diversifying the Range of its Tools for Creators
When the Android app goes live, Substack will be a legit ecosystem for Creators and not just a Newsletter destination or landing page. This is also because of how Substack leverages networks like Twitter really well.
I have noticed that political, product or investing/finance (including crypto) Newsletter writers who are prolific on Twitter, also tend just do really well on Substack. Substack’s product is geared (and a bit biased) to Twitter’s ecosystem here. The important point however, is Substack’s range of product optimization across audience experience and retention. It’s starting to out-do its competition.
Substack is also likely to continue to refine and improve its community development and management aspect in the near future. From my perspective, Substack by 2023 becomes a Creator Platform because of how well it’s integrated many things in a SaaS model. Its advanced features will mean its unique value proposition becomes significantly stronger. This will subsequently attract a greater variety of Creators, writers, hobbyists, niche celebrators and grassroots organizations.
For early stage Creators or established creators with huge followings it’s a “must-have” in 2022, so basically everyone from an amateur writer to a professional writer to a platform Creator from somewhere like Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok or even LinkedIn, could do fairly well here over time.
I’ll admit the same could be said for Twitch; imagine if streamers had text summaries on their experiences of new games? As the Gaming Metaverse evolves, I’d subscribe to dozens of such Newsletters. If they existed?
Substack’s immersion in a niche and broad range of tools makes it a SaaS model for writers that brings tremendous value to the future not just indie media online, but community in general.
Even anyone from Pinterest, Patreon, Telegram communities, Medium writers, Spotify podcasters, Microsoft Teams business leaders, OnlyFans influencers, Snapchat Creators, Shopify or Shopee E-commerce sellers and so many others could use Substack to increase their own revenue, readership and group communication.
Live-streaming has to come to Substack, if it’s serious to become a kind of “Shopify for Creators”. The potential E-commerce synergy is pretty high. Still with discussion threads, video for interviews, voice-overs, polls - there’s already community tools to engage your audience with on Substack.
Building a Tribe, a Movement or an Inspirational Channel on Substack
This means Substack isn’t just for media, but for groups, social movements, activism, local communities, inspiration, entertainment and fan-groups of various kinds. It’s also for niche hobbyists, whether food, sports, music, local (small town) journalism, comics, art & illustration, literature, book clubs, and so many more!
Substack is basically just a group of tools for you to create an architecture that feels like much more than just a Newsletter. There are lots of possibilities and Substack Creators are just beginning to tap into its true potential. The synergy between a Substack around yearly Events and live-events is actually pretty high, which we will see once the pandemic is finally over.
Substack can more properly be seen as a utopia of grassroots creativity and initiatives. I’ve already witnessed more diversity and inclusion on Substack than I have in mainstream social media feeds.
Further reading:
Substack’s Growing Middle Class
With more audio tools, a working Substack Network and an excellent product timeline now new Creators can create another growing revenue streaming that means Substack is no longer just a place for hand-picked and professional writers with massive followings but is becoming more viable for even those that start from zero.
This is actually a big pain point in the Creator Economy, those in the bottom 80% don’t actually earn very much on a consistent basis. There are various studies and reports I’ve read in 2022 that validate this ugly truth, some of which I’ve covered already on this channel.
Substack in the next 18 months is likely to grow its number of accounts to facilitate more inclusion and a greater variety of different types of voices, storytellers, analysts, curators and so forth.
How these people facilitate entertainment, inspiration, education and information exchange is also diversifying as a greater variety of people start using Substack’s tool-kit. Substack will reach a point where it won’t just be known as a Newsletter platform. This will depend somewhat on the success of its apps to increase readership and to promote audio and video uploads.
Substack’s environmental press of a poor macro climate for fundraising and VC support in late 2022 and early 2023 will actually be good for it. Layoffs notwithstanding, it will laser focus their leadership and product managers to build the most important things first.
Joining Substack in 2022 is a time when Substack’s entire architecture is still trying to scale, so it’s a win-win to just try such an ecosystem early on. One of my biggest regrets I personally have, is that I didn’t start sooner. I missed the pandemic bump in readership entirely.
Substack made at least $9 million in 2021. Let’s say after layoffs it has around 82 employees as of July, 2022. Now let’s imagine revenue jumped to $15 million in 2022. That’s still $183,000 per employee. Substack’s hiring patterns also gives some good info on what it is prioritizing in this crazy environment for growing startups.
Substack has raised about $83 million since its founding in 2017. Due to its inclusion, diversity, smart product choices and tone of leadership, it’s a Creator underdog worth believing in.
According to Statista there are overly 1 million paying subscribers on Substack.
If I had to guess I’d say the average subscription on Substack is between $7 and $8 dollars per month.
Substack has nearly 33 million monthly visitors. If you are deciding on whether to try a Substack, you would be joining just as Substack is scaling its overall audience.
To help you visualize the growth of Substack, let’s take a snap-shot from Similarweb’s chrome extension.
While its employee count is woefully inaccurate, I’m fairly trusting of the other KPIs.
As Substack releases its Android app (likely later in 2022), it will be much more than a top #1000 website.
According to GrowFollowing, a top writer on Substack could expect earnings around the $5,000 to $30,000 figure. That’s not per year though, that’s per month. What they also fail to note is that this number only increases over time.
GrowJo.com estimated Substack’s annual revenue is likely $21.3 million by Mid 2022.
I basically started this Newsletter for early-stage Creators among others, to help you understand how to become one of those top writers.
Further reading:
https://growfollowing.com/substack-statistics/ (News as of July 4th, 2022)
This article was written on July 4th, 2022 as an introduction to prospective Creators to Substack.
I’m interested in interviewing via recorded Zoom calls the thoughts of early stage Newsletter Creators who might be willing to try Substack. Feel free to approach me on LinkedIn or comment here if that sounds like you.
Did you just start a Substack Newsletter but don’t know what to do to grow it faster? Why not jump on a call with me, I might be able to share some useful info once I hear about your project and goals.
Check out some of my Locked posts.
If you want to benefit from some of my Substack and Creator tips that are for paid subscribers, you can do so here.
Thanks for reading!