Ask people to treat your newsletter as a business expense
Help someone do their job better
I recently joined Substack after having run various newsletters over the years on MailChimp.
Before Substack
There were two ways the newsletters I (co-)run make (have made) money:
- Advertising vehicle for the service (a tech tutorial website) who ran the newsletter
- Sponsorships
The newsletter business model for #1 (advertising vehicle) was straightforward: the more subscribers we had, the more people who would be interested in potentially signing up for tech tutorials on the website. This led to an interesting balance in wanting to provide enough value to have people sign up for the newsletter and keep them subscribed but not provide enough value so that they would sign up for the tech tutorials (a monthly recurring fee).
The newsletter business model for #2 (sponsorships) was straightforward: the more subscribers we had, the more sponsors would be willing to pay to reach them. This led to an interesting balance in that we had to provide value to the newsletter subscribers while balancing the needs of the sponsors (getting semi-personal professional data from the subscribers to be able to prove that they were worth reaching).
Now on Substack
Substack provides a third option - provide value directly to your subscribers and they’ll pay you directly. Which means the incentives are 100% aligned.
Which is great and part of the reason for the move to Substack.
The Big Question: How to make money on Substack
Now that the newsletters have been on Substack for a month and have sent a few issues to the subscribers, I’m ready to start exploring the Big Question:
How do entrepreneurs like us, who want to make money writing a substack, build a newsletter that provides immense value to our readers and is profitable enough to make it our full time job.
Every issue will be an exploration of how other Substack publications are making money.
Specifically, it’ll be research around:
- When they turned “paid” on
- How they approached it
- How they think about it
- How they structure their publication
- How they think about providing value
- How they actually provide value
- How often they post
- Etc.
What you can expect:
I’m not an expert - just some one who wants to figure this out for my own publications.
As I learn, I’ll put what I learn to use on my own publications and report back the findings.
So here’s to you, and me, and let’s figure this out!
Until next time,
Sebastian.
