How Substack Locks Writers Onto Its Platform

For the benefit of users and the business

Every newsletter publisher (writer) whose product is their writing has two main challenges on their mind every day: Growth and Monetization. Growth and monetization are the two biggest challenges that, if solved, make writing as a side hustle or profession an unlock for success.

Substack has chosen to focus on helping publishers grow a newsletter. Substack's built-in features help publishers improve their reach, unlike alternative platforms that leave publishers to their own growth efforts. This is especially helpful if a publisher doesn’t have an existing following on social media or doesn’t already have a product or service they sell elsewhere. 

If Substack wanted to focus on monetization, it would have more robust solutions aside from paid subscriptions. This not only would help with a publisher's profitability, but also its own profitability. But I regress…Let’s stay focused on the problem they ARE solving: Growth. 

Substack’s Growth Unlock

Growing any type of product or service is difficult. Substack knows this, and over the last couple of years has decided to focus its efforts on making it easier for its publishers to grow. Substack’s focus on growth has been the biggest factor in my using and staying on the platform. 

Not only is growth great for its publishers, but it’s also good business. I came across this note from Taylor Lorenz the other day:

Her first comment about follower vs subscriber growth has been a hot topic among publishers. I’ll address this a little later. But her second comment about locking in readers (and publishers) is exactly what Substack wants. 

Substack provides value for readers and publishers, and in return, it’s building a moat. What Lorenz is complaining about is actually a feature of Substack. 

It’s the whole point—to build a product that is more like Gmail than Taco Bell. Substack wants to build a product where switching costs feel cumbersome and painful because of the value it provides. It’s good business. 

So, let’s explore how Substack is building growth mechanisms for publishers and locking in publishers and readers at the same time.

Content Feed

In March 2022, Substack launched its app. It was a transformational moment for a company going from a way to send emails to becoming a content platform. What ensued was a feed-like experience where users can read all the Substacks they were subscribed to in addition to discovering new Substacks via search.  

Readers can also block Substack newsletters from appearing in their inbox and instead can be notified in the app when a new newsletter drops. This solved the reader's problem of having a cluttered inbox filled with newsletters. It enabled readers to be more willing to subscribe to Substacks they may have otherwise passed over because they didn’t want their inboxes to be inundated. 

With content now being presented in a feed format, readers have a destination to consume on, which drives time spent reading on Substack. Substack built an app that can compete in the attention economy. 

Notes

The next big product release to improve user growth was Notes. Notes is Substack’s X-like (Twitter) feed which allows users to micro-blog. The Notes feature caused Elon Musk to block and suppress Substack links on X. 

Notes allow publishers (and readers) to broadcast to their audience directly in the Substack app. Now, Substack also has tabs based on content verticals, which allows users to deep dive into topics and publishers they may have not interacted with in the past.

The combination of Notes with Substack’s algorithm (albeit not super robust yet) doubles down on the Substack app being a destination to discover new content, which enables growth opportunities for publishers as long as they are posting Notes. 

Again, this also increases time spent on the app as users scroll to find and consume new content related to their interests.

Followers

Follow is the last big feature I will touch on that locks in publishers to the Substack platform.

Circling back to Lorenz’s comment, publishers are frustrated with the follow button being prominent. However, the alternative to a follow is likely a scroll past the content. 

You see, most users will only subscribe to a newsletter that they are really interested in. The option to follow is a signal that a reader is interested in following along with a writer’s content, but wants more exposure before fully committing to subscribing and handing over their email address. 

Follow allows publishers to broaden their audience to readers who may choose to pass them by if a follow option isn’t available. The way

S.E. Reid

breaks down the value of a follower sums up my comments nicely:

Takeaways

All these growth features—a content feed, Notes, and followers—make Substack look more like a social media platform. However, they lock in publishers more securely because it helps with growth while still allowing publishers to own their audience. 

Just as important as these three features is the Substack dashboard, which reports how many subscribers are from the Substack network (the above features are useless if publishers can’t measure their growth). With one easy glance, publishers can see what percentage of their subscribers come from the Substack network. If that number is above 15 percent-ish, it’s a great value proposition to stay on the platform. 

Compared to other newsletter solutions, Substack is arguably the easiest to grow. And we haven’t even talked about other legacy features, such as the ability to recommend and be recommended by other Substacks during the subscription flow. 

The next time you criticize a feature or strategy, think about why the feature is there in the first place. In this case, it not only drives time spent on the platform but also drives the discovery of new Substacks, which benefits growing publishers.

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