
Launch HN: Substack (YC W18): Paid email newsletters made simple - cjbest
Hi HN, we’re Chris Best and Hamish McKenzie, the founders of Substack (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.substack.com" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.substack.com</a>). We’ve built a tool that makes it simple for a writer to start a paid email newsletter. Sign up, connect to Stripe, and go. Our first publisher, Bill Bishop, writes a newsletter about China (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;nb.sinocism.com" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;nb.sinocism.com</a>) and got to six figures of annual revenue on his first day on Substack. Bill had been publishing Sinocism as a free newsletter for five years and had 30k subscribers. Now he can make a living from it.<p>Hamish is a journalist who has done everything from writing about indie music in Hong Kong to being lead writer for Tesla. We bonded over our shared love of reading when he worked at Kik, where Chris was the technical co-founder. Last summer, Chris was taking time off and asked Hamish to read an essay he was trying to write about the incentive structures of social media for writers, and how growing outrage and polarization was making it hard to have reasonable conversations. At the same time, we both loved Ben Thompson’s newsletter, Stratechery, which was doing really well off paid subscriptions. We wondered: what if it were easier for writers to start something like that? That felt more like a company than an essay, and so one thing led to another...<p>An example of a Substack newsletter you might enjoy is Versioning (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;versioning.substack.com" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;versioning.substack.com</a>), a daily reading list for web developers and designers. We also recommend Mallory Ortberg’s The Shatner Chatner (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.shatnerchatner.com" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.shatnerchatner.com</a>) and Helena Fitzgerald’s Griefbacon (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;griefbacon.substack.com" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;griefbacon.substack.com</a>).<p>The product is still in a pretty early phase but we’ve just launched our self-serve beta, where anyone can create a newsletter, free or paid: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.substack.com&#x2F;beta-signup" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.substack.com&#x2F;beta-signup</a>. At this stage, it’s completely free until you start charging, in which case we take a fee: 10% for people who start during the beta.<p>We know a lot of folks on HN care about this stuff too, so we’re keen to hear your feedback. Also: if you know any writers you’d be happy to pay to read (or if that’s you), we’d love to hear about that too.
======
onassar
Very cool idea Chris & Hamish A friend of mine runs "what happened last week?"
([http://whathappenedlastweek.com/](http://whathappenedlastweek.com/)). She's
got a journalism and economics background, and has a subscriber list of about
2,800 people, but has been struggling to find a way to monetize it. Would
something like that be a good fit for your platform?

~~~
cjbest
Oh awesome! I see

> Stay well-informed about the world each week with clear and concise
> summaries of important news ...

That sounds like an exactly perfect fit for Substack. We've seen that if you
have a committed newsletter following (look at open rates and reader comments)
that loves it, up to 10% of your list might pay pretty quickly if you just
asked them. Depending how they think they could price it could be worth over
$1000 month to start. Of course, this depends on the audience etc.

If they want to do it, it's a simple as signing up, connecting Stripe, and
importing the existing list. They can send out a 'free' post saying that the
newsletter is going paid, and it will go to that list, and come baked with
calls to action to subscribe and stuff.

We've done a couple of these now and would be happy to help. Feel free to
point them to 'chris' or 'hamish' at substack.com

~~~
vram22
>That sounds like an exactly perfect fit for Substack. We've seen that if you
have a committed newsletter following (look at open rates and reader comments)

It would be good if you could put a list of supported features on the signup
page. As of now I do not see it. Will let signuppers know what they will get.

I am going to sign up and try it anyway.

~~~
cjbest
Thanks, that’s good feedback. And glad you’re signing up!

We’ll continue to make it better as quickly as we can.

------
csallen
You should come on Indie Hackers and do an interview in a few months. I'm
constantly telling friends to start newsletters. Would love to see how this
works out and learn the details behind the scenes wrt to marketing and growth.

~~~
cjbest
Oh we would love that!

------
shripadk
> in which case we take a fee: 10% for people who start during the beta.

Why take a cut from the publisher? Why not instead open up access to the
publishers via a marketplace on your site so people/companies can sponsor the
mailing lists? You can take a cut from the sponsor for having given the
opportunity to introduce them to publisher(s) that cater to their market. It's
a win-win-win for the potential sponsors(advertisers), the publishers as well
as Substack. As a sponsor, I would have immediate market access through these
publishers who cater to my niche. As a publisher, I would have outsourced the
task of attracting sponsors and managing sponsor timelines to Substack so I
can focus more on creating content and expanding my mailing list. As Substack,
you wouldn't have to annoy your publishers by taking a cut and instead carry
over your fee to be paid by sponsors/advertisers. A bonus would be allowing
your publishers to carry over their existing sponsors to use your system which
would possibly attract a huge populace of publishers who are currently
manually micro-managing their existing sponsors and timelines instead of
focusing on creating content.

~~~
internet_jockey
Hey, this is Hamish from Substack. Thanks for this! We think this is a great
idea and it's certainly something we're considering for the future. But in the
meantime, the point of a 10% cut is that it specifically does not annoy
publishers. In fact, it aligns our incentives with theirs – we only make money
when they make money. When we established Substack, we wanted to get away from
an ad model in which publishers had reason to favor ad-centric content
strategies over reader-centric ones. We're attempting to create an environment
where writers no longer have to worry about doing things that please
advertisers. They should be focused only on doing things that please their
readers. To us, that's a better way forward for the media. Taking a 10% cut is
a substantial ask, but it is one that writers have so far been receptive to.

~~~
shripadk
Ah sorry! Yes you are right! Now that I re-read your text, I realized I
misunderstood your business model. Maybe my suggestion sits well with those
who are running free newsletters on Substack (who will have some form of
regular income through sponsors). I notice that you are taking a fee from
those who are running paid newsletters. That makes complete sense.

~~~
internet_jockey
Thanks, much appreciated. Yes, free newsletters don't have any charges. No
subscriber limits, either.

~~~
a13n
Do you have a "Powered by Substack" somewhere in your free/paid newsletters?

Our product is also exposed to our customers' customers, so this has been a
huge growth driver for us. Similar story for Statuspage, Intercom, etc.

~~~
internet_jockey
Just as a link in the footer. Substack is also in the domain name, though.
Thanks for the advice!

~~~
hacheka
So every newsletter is sent through the same domain? Aren't you afraid of one
newsletter affecting the reputación of another one?

------
trevmckendrick
This is the future: [https://stratechery.com/2017/the-faceless-
publisher/](https://stratechery.com/2017/the-faceless-publisher/)

~~~
cjbest
Thanks, love this. We think Ben Thompson is right about a lot of stuff, and he
is definitely a big inspiration.

------
raleigh_user
How easy is it to export your subscribers if you do choose to leave? I have a
few hundred people on my list and have learned (the hard way)to not migrate
without knowing this

~~~
ryanwaggoner
The _actual_ hard part when switching from something like this is migrating
user accounts (users will be forced to reset their passwords, which is lame),
order history, and active subscriptions so that you can seamlessly continue
billing your paying users.

And at 10%, you're definitely going to want to migrate at some point if you
succeed, so keep this in mind.

------
vram22
Consider connecting Substack to other payment providers too, if not now, after
you get to some sales and profitability, since Stripe is only available in
some countries as of now. This is a common and perennial issue with many
startups, whether US-based or other. I'm aware that it can be a lot of work,
due to different and complex government regulations and legal paperwork needed
for different countries, but it can lead to growth of the startup too.

~~~
waytogo
Second this. While I love Stripe's API, Braintree/Paypal driven checkouts have
higher conversions just because of Paypal.

------
somberi
Would have liked to see a "gallery" of writing that I can subscribe to. Sort
of like how ecommerce platforms have a list of stores that were built on this
platform.

On a side note, I like how you have written the body of this post. Not to
mention a very useful product.

~~~
internet_jockey
Thank you very much. Yes, good suggestion. We are thinking about how to do
something like this. Any ideas?

------
radley
I think subdomain user accounts are going to be an issue over the long term.

~~~
radley
Also, you guys should make a better blacklist for account names. I was able to
claim "blog.substack.com". (It's ok to delete that account).

[https://github.com/marteinn/The-Big-Username-
Blacklist](https://github.com/marteinn/The-Big-Username-Blacklist)

~~~
cjbest
Ahh thanks. I hope you don’t mind if we boot that one.

How do you foresee sub domains being a problem otherwise?

~~~
radley
SEO will see each account as a separate domain, so your primary site ranking
will be low. Further, there's too many ways for user subdomains to be mistaken
or conflict with company products and promotions. It's usually best to reserve
subdomains for company needs — you never know what you'll need 5-10 years from
now.

~~~
amasad
It's also a potential cross-domain attack vector if you let your users insert
arbitrary code. See, for example, why github pages was switched from `.com` to
`.io`: [https://github.com/blog/1452-new-github-pages-domain-
github-...](https://github.com/blog/1452-new-github-pages-domain-github-io)

~~~
cjbest
All really good points. Thanks for the feedback.

------
dglass
Looks great! I just signed up and connected my stripe account. After reading
the welcome email I tried disconnecting my stripe account from the dashboard
so I could start out with a free newsletter. I couldn't figure out how to do
it so I ended up revoking access in my stripe dashboard. Now it just says
Stripe account: <loading..> on my substack dashboard.

I'd like to start writing but I want to be sure that I can connect my stripe
account again in the future. Any ideas?

~~~
cjbest
Ahh that’s a really good point. You may be the first to disconnect Stripe. I
will make sure this works.

Email me your account details if you’d like. Chris at Substack dot com

------
danr4
I really like the simplicity of this. I think it doesn't really need more
"killer" features. What's the vision in the long run aside from growth?

~~~
cjbest
Thanks! We’ve had (paying, highly engaged) users report that they like there
is nothing to think about.

One thing in future that’s really exciting to us is the idea of building
community, and using the paid barrier as a way to solve a whole bunch of the
problems that normally come with that. Some writers have slacks, and people
who follow a niche writer often delight to meet each other.

Need to find a way to keep it just as simple though.

------
phoenix24
congratulations on the launch.

I love the fact the product is so minimal at the moment, that it opens doors
for real user feedback; I've been wanting to make something similar for a long
time now, but was always stuck in the feature loop.

would be great, if others could comment on the MVP or Launch Early nature of
Substack.

~~~
internet_jockey
Yes, thank you, we love this feedback. We are trying to keep the product as
simple as possible.

------
masukomi
i'm not seeing any mention of trials for users.

let's assume i'm using this and churning out valuable content every week / day
/ whatever.

Someone hears about my thing and thinks "that sounds nifty. Not sure it's
worth $x a month though"

I'd want some way for folks to be able to "try before you buy" let them get
some specified number of newsletters before the system says "hey, you've been
reading this newsletter for Y weeks now but we're at the end of your trial.
<compelling message from author> To keep receiving this letter please
<initiate payment process>."

~~~
cjbest
Thanks, that’s a good idea.

The way we try to handle that now is by having an option for writers to write
free posts - which are visible to anybody, and get emailed to non-paying
subscribers. That way you can get a sense of the writing before committing
(and regular readers are the ones who subscribe anyway...)

You’re right that that doesn’t let you “preview” the paid content though.
We’ll think about that.

~~~
masukomi
yeah, free posts is ok, but with many newsletter topics they can quickly
become dated and irrelevant and authors are unlikely to go back and regularly
update them if they're also regularly writing a newsletter.

overall i really like the idea and i agree with one of the other commenters
who says you don't really need many more features.

------
vram22
Always a good idea to mention why the name of the product.

~~~
cjbest
We are a Stack for Subscription publishing.

~~~
vram22
Got it now, thanks.

------
jonathanehrlich
This is a great idea.

------
douglascorrea
Hey Cris, I really like your product/idea. I was thought about it year ago
when I found [https://www.getrevue.co](https://www.getrevue.co). Which is a
plataform for create a newsletter from curating content from Web. So, if you
implement it on Substack, I'm sure it will be huge plus for the product, since
multiple influencers could generate more income with their "weekly bookmarks"
or something like that.

~~~
anant90
Revue is awesome! Thanks for making it.

------
ryanwaggoner
Looks interesting, but 10% is _really_ steep to me.

That’s just going to heavily incentivize your most successful users to bail. I
run a five figure paid email service and I’m using a membership management
service that charges flat fee plus 2%, and it annoys me every month. I’ll be
replacing them this year. Membership billing plus a synced email list on
Mailchimp is really commodity at this point. Doesn’t make any sense to pay a
percentage of revenue.

If it was 10%, I’d replace them this week.

I may get pushback because there’s a contingent of people on here who
basically seem to think that ever worrying about price for software and
services is the wrong move. I think that’s pretty stupid when you’re a small
company. It’s stupidly easy for a lot of small companies who are paying
hundreds or thousands per month in recurring subscriptions to shave 20-30%
off. If you’re a solo founder, that’s a huge increase in your personal bottom
line.

EDIT: I'm probably coming across as too negative here, so let me add a few
thoughts:

1\. You built something useful, launched it, and have paying customers. That's
HUGE and puts you ahead of 99% of "startups" so congrats :)

2\. I strongly believe in the power of paid publishing and email marketing (it
drives almost 100% of my income these days), and I think more cool tools and
platforms in this space is excellent. This is the kind of thing that I would
use.

My only real issue is just that I think what you're doing with the pricing
model is shooting yourself in the foot (since it incentivizes people to switch
away) AND it's unfair to users (since switching away is REALLY hard, and you
probably know that and are counting on it to some extent).

Maybe charge flat + fee up to a cap? It'd be really comforting to know that
I'd never pay more than $495 / month for this or something, and that would
only be once I hit $10k / month in revenue or whatever.

~~~
gkoberger
You're also (I presume) an engineer. Most writers don't have the skills to
build something like this.

One way to look at it is "I'm losing 10%". Another way is "I'm now making 90%
I couldn't have otherwise made."

~~~
ryanwaggoner
You don't have to build this. There are tons of membership management plugins
and platforms out there, pretty much all integrate with Stripe, and most of
them will keep a mailchimp list in sync so you can easily send emails to just
your paying members.

EDIT: I also hate the logic of "meh, fees don't matter, my revenue would be
zero otherwise!!" It's not true (you have other cheaper alternatives), but
even if it was, doesn't that mean you should be fine paying 99% in fees to
platforms and credit cards and whoever else? After all, 1% is better than
0%!!!"

~~~
tschwimmer
There's actually a pretty interesting behavioral economics point to be made
here. From a purely rational standpoint, you would choose to make 1% over 0%,
because it's 1% more than you otherwise would have made. In practice, humans
have a "fuck you" threshold above which they feel taken advantage of and
refuse to cooperate. Check out the idealized economics experiment version of
this which is called the Ultimatum Game:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimatum_game](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimatum_game)

~~~
ryanwaggoner
I do find this super interesting as a pure behavioral economics question, but
this situation is a bit more complicated. There's actual work to be done for
this revenue, other costs you have to manage, opportunity costs for any
capital you have invested, and the risk that you'll actually make enough at
the end of the day for it to be worth it :)

------
amirathi
Neat idea. As a reader, I would also find it useful as a discovery tool for
interesting newsletter.

~~~
cjbest
Thanks! That's a great idea, especially now that people can create lots of
these.

I wonder what would be the ideal format for that? It could give you a list of
newsletters and their descriptions, with some popularity signals or
something.. It might be better to surface the free content though. Maybe "here
are some recent free issues by newsletters you might enjoy." Just thinking out
loud...

~~~
fovc
What if you let authors tag their newsletters with topics and then let readers
browse by topic?

~~~
cjbest
That’s a great idea. Could help existing readers find things similar to stuff
they already like. Thanks!

------
rokhayakebe
I love this. Anyway one can embed the subscription form in their website?
Branding reasons.

~~~
cjbest
Oh that’s a great idea. I will put it on our roadmap.

Currently you would need to link to the main page which has a subscribe form,
but doing and embedded form would be much better.

------
fiatjaf
Honest question: do people actually pay for reading a newsletter?

~~~
internet_jockey
Fair question. The short answer is "hell yes." We already have writers on
Substack making a lot of money with their newsletters. For instance, our first
publisher, Bill Bishop, told the WSJ that he's making more money from his
newsletter than he ever made from a corporate salary (he's a former exec and
serial entrepreneur). Ben Thompson of Stratechery has many thousands of
subscribers paying at least $100 a year. We can't share the private data of
other publishers, but we have enough info to confidently state, that, yes,
many people are happy to pay for newsletters.

------
tkone
The creator of browserify is gonna hate your name

~~~
benatkin
I wonder if they'll have twitter hand the name over. Twitter certainly isn't
above doing that.

------
hockeybias
Chris and Hamish,

Do you have anyone using Substack for a 'news aggregation' sort of newsletter?
I am curious.

I have written software that makes it simple for me to curate ice hockey news
and place links and article summaries on
[http://HockeyBias.com](http://HockeyBias.com) every morning. I have been
thinking of providing the data in an email newsletter as well.

Thank you.

~~~
cjbest
Ooh hockey!

Curation with commentary can be very valuable. That's a lot of what Bill
Bishop does with Sinocism
([https://nb.sinocism.com/](https://nb.sinocism.com/))

If you can do a roundup that lets people stay up to date in a way they find
valuable, it could definitely be a good idea. I'd encourage you to try it as a
free newsletter on Substack and see if you can get people reading it regulary!

