Is Substack The New Everything App?
We want to be a bit controversial, but Substack is indeed winning over audiences on YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram. Can it grow into something more?
💬 Quick CONVERSATION STARTERS:
Is Substack quickly molding itself around creators’ needs?
Two posts on Substack Notes caught our attention last week…
In the first, comedian and political commentator
announced he’s working on new video content for Substack. Our immediate reaction was — well — just like Patreon?As of now, Bill crossposts his Club Random podcast on multiple platforms, including Substack. Is he working on Substack-only video content?
In another interesting post on Notes, Substack’s co-founder and CEO
[jokingly?] restacked a post where mentioned the potential of Substack to become… Tinder!Nolan later admitted: “I was joking. Well, half-joking. There’s definitely potential.” And also: “This was more of a joke (half joke) than a wish.”
, who works on growth at Substack, [jokingly?] responded to Nolan with a link to a 2022 piece by … He commented: “Old news ;)” also commented: “Any app is a dating app if your rizz is sufficient.”And just the day after I started to write this post,
, in commenting on the above, seems to agree with us — and with the title of our Substack post today — “Substack *is* the everything app.”Perhaps, we’re onto something.
But here's what everyone misses... Substack has been growing tremendously and molding new tools in the past few months.
“Thanks for powering a challenger to Big Social’s dominance,” wrote on Notes co-founder
commenting on the fact that the Substack app was back at #1 in the AppStore in late January. He added just last week: “1 million posts are discovered in the Substack app every day.” And he also pointed out: “Wild times ahead. Golden age for creators arriving.”
Substack’s growth has been quite evident in many areas, thanks to many factors. Creators are migrating from other platforms. Journalists have left legacy media and launched their own very popular Substacks. Politicians and political-adjacent figures are joining the platform.
This is the case of popular new, newer, and new-ish Substackers like
, , , , , , , Michael Cohen.This trend — if in fact it is a trend — shows how these new generation of Substack creators are interested and active leveraging all features developed by the platform.
And the company is responding very quickly to inputs provided by creators, as CEO Chris Best confirmed in his recent conversation with
’ and .“Yes, that is true.
told me the story right now on how we built a three-way live because you needed it,” Chris said in a recent live stream with Sarah and Beth.Here are a few steps Substack has been taking recently to nurture its growth and to protect creators, in addition to the three-way live video:
made a major investment to bring creators with paid audiences from other platforms over to Substack
invested in creators with a Substack Creator Accelerator Fund and recently posted a Creator Partnerships Manager job on LinkedIn, requiring “proven experience working with creators, particularly in video, audio, or other multimedia formats”
And there are still things that Substack is working on or would need to work on:
ads: “We are very bad at advertising,” Hamish admitted on Notes
What is Substack still missing?
A ‘search’ tab for videos — right now it’s only for Top, Posts, Publications, People, Notes
A shopping feature
A music feature — for listening or for adding music to your posts/videos
Video editing capabilities
“A writer’s version of DoorDash but with cocktails and salty snacks,” says
.
But do we really want those features on Substack?
Can we predict more growth from Substack’s 2024 stats?
Back in December, Substack co-founders Chris, Hamish, and
provided some data about the platform performance in 2024:More than 4 million paid subscriptions to Substack publications
Tens of millions of total active subscribers across the network
More than 50% of all subscriptions and 30% of paid subscriptions generated via the Substack network
More than 50,000 publishers making money on Substack
The top 10 publishers collectively bringing in more than $40 million a year
In the are of politics — run by
— and in the news category more than 30 publications made at least $1 million a yearEarlier in October 2024, Hamish pointed out:
the Substack app is now the most powerful growth machine for creators
Recommendations have generated more than 34 million subscriptions
In October 2024, recommendations drove 2 million subscriptions, the app drove 3 million
Substack’s ambitions in 2025 and beyond:
to build a new economic engine for culture
to make the app simpler and easier to navigate on first contact
to win over audiences on YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram to bring millions more people into Substack, which will dramatically increase the “total addressable market” for everyone who publishes on Substack
to support media of all types will vastly grow the earning potential of our customers, and therefore revenue for Substack
to adapt the product and build the destination, and direct our partnerships and marketing efforts toward a broader range of media
Why Substack?
We asked our favorite Substacker, creator marketing expert
, author of .Here’s what she told us:
One of Substack’s advantages very early on was recognizing and doubling down on the distinction between a newsletter platform versus an email service provider. It was very much geared toward writers. Since then, they’ve added more community features — Chat, Notes, etc — encouraging more interaction beyond the inbox. Now, people talk about Substack like a social platform, versus a SaaS provider that hosts someone’s newsletter. The evolution to redefine what a newsletter platform could be feels very intentional and it fascinates me that the founders were able to pull this off.
And here some thoughts from the Substack-verse:
- of explained in Notes: “I think a lot of creators could come over and recognize that this is ultimately a much better platform to build your business on AND it’s one that will never cave to government censorship of speech!”
- wrote in : “Audio features, community tools, and even video capabilities have been introduced, turning Substack into more than just a newsletter service—it’s a full-fledged media ecosystem.”
- of said in a live video with Hamish: “If you’re looking for a place where people feel more connected to the community. That’s probably the first thing that attracts me to Substack. You can post everywhere, right? We can write anywhere. We can even write in ur journal at home. But the sense of community and feeling at ease… I feel it’s a different place, where you can just be yourself, connect with your audience, build an audience, make some money, and have fun.”
- pointed out in : “The Substack platform has evolved significantly since those early days. What began as a simple combination of email newsletters and blog posts — think Mailchimp meets Tumblr — has grown into something far more dynamic.”
Thank you!