Hatching Growth #15: Why We Keep Making Interview Content (Even Though It’s Not the Fastest Growth Play)

Glasp’s note: This is Hatching Growth, a series of articles about how Glasp organically reached millions of users. In this series, we’ll highlight some that worked and some that didn’t, and the lessons we learned along the way. While we prefer not to use the term “user,” please note that we’ll use it here for convenience 🙇‍♂️

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Introduction

In the last edition, we shared how we decide what to build at Glasp — the frameworks behind our four pillars: Content, System, People, and Finance.

This time, we’ll zoom into one project that sits at the intersection of Content and People: Glasp Talk, our long-running interview series.

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It’s not our strongest short-term growth tactic. But we believe it’s one of the most compounding, high-leverage, long-term assets we’ve built.

In this edition, we’ll unpack:

Why we started Glasp Talk
What we’ve learned from doing 60+ interviews
How it fits into our long-term growth loop
And why having an “interview media” in the company portfolio changes who we can connect with

1. What Glasp Talk Is

Glasp Talk is our interview series on YouTube and Substack where we invite people shaping the future — founders, researchers, educators, and creators — to share their ideas and frameworks.

We started in August 2023, paused for a while, and restarted in May 2024. Since then, we’ve published more than 60 episodes, averaging about one per week.

Each episode runs 30–120 minutes and focuses on learning directly from guests — not for marketing, but to expand our collective knowledge base.

It’s our way of “highlighting in real time,” but through conversations instead of text.

2. Why Long-Form Conversations Matter Now

We started thinking seriously about long-form interviews at a time when AI can easily generate content, and short-form videos like TikToks and Reels dominate attention.

Precisely because of that environment, we felt it was essential to record and preserve real human learning in its raw, long-form state — conversations that can’t be replicated by a model prompt or compressed into 15 seconds.

In an age when content trust and learning behaviors are shifting rapidly, we want to create something that doesn’t change — something enduringly valuable. That’s what Glasp Talk aims to be: a long-term record of how people actually think, learn, and build.

3. Why We Restarted It

When we analyzed Glasp’s ecosystem, we noticed a gap: well-known thinkers and builders — the kind of people users are curious about — weren’t very visible on Glasp.

We thought:

“What if you could see what leading AI researchers, founders, or writers are reading and highlighting?”

That vision is powerful, but we couldn’t always make it happen organically. So instead of waiting, we decided to invite those people directly, interview them, and share their ideas through Glasp Talk.

It’s our way to:

bring high-signal voices into the ecosystem,
make their insights public, and
connect Glasp’s mission (“make people’s knowledge visible”) with real conversations.

That’s how Glasp Talk became both a content and people initiative.

4. Who We’ve Talked To

Our guests range widely — from authors and journalists to startup founders and product builders.

Some highlights:

Francesco D'Alessio, founder of Tool Finder (and YouTuber with 450K+ subs)
Eliot Peper, novelist and tech essayist
Jason Feifer, Editor-in-Chief of Entrepreneur Magazine
Sean Ellis, author of Hacking Growth
Noah Smith, economist and writer of Noahpinion (400K+ Substack readers)
Julian Treasure, whose TED Talk “How to Speak So That People Want to Listen” has 160M+ views
Nick Babich, founder of UX Planet (one of the world’s biggest UX media sites)
Bozena Pajak, Learning Scientist at Duolingo
Gary Rivlin, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author
And many others — AI researchers, educators, GTM experts, and creators around the world

Each conversation helps us explore how experts think, learn, and build. For a two-person team, that’s like borrowing dozens of C-level minds.

5. What We Learned

Doing these interviews has changed how we learn, communicate, and build. Here’s what we’ve noticed after 60+ episodes:

It’s a learning engine. Each interview forces us to dive deep into new domains. Before every recording, we spend time researching the guest — their background, books, talks, and field. That preparation itself becomes a form of education. We end up learning not only about the person, but also about their industry, their way of thinking, and their frameworks. Over time, our research ability, domain knowledge, and pattern recognition have all improved.
It trains real-time thinking. During each interview, we listen actively, synthesize ideas on the spot, and ask follow-up questions in real time. This is more than just an interview skill — it’s mental training. It sharpens how we think, connect dots, and respond under pressure. It’s also directly transferable to everyday conversations: when meeting new people, we now naturally know what to ask, how to listen, and how to dig deeper.
It compounds. Once recorded, every interview keeps working — on YouTube, on Substack, in transcripts, and in search. Each one becomes a permanent node in the web of Glasp content.
It’s network leverage. Each guest opens new doors and connections. Media gives us a reason to reach out — “let’s collaborate” is much easier when you have an audience and a credible platform.
It’s aligned with our mission. Glasp Talk is basically Glasp in human form: turning people’s experiences into public knowledge.

The result?

Even though it looks like a media project, it’s actually a training system for curiosity, research, and connection — and that compounds personally as much as it does organizationally.

6. Distribution: Why We Still Do It on YouTube and Substack

YouTube and Substack aren’t just platforms — they’re major acquisition and retention channels for us.

YouTube: 6,000–7,000 subscribers today. According to onboarding surveys, 30–35% of new users discovered Glasp via YouTube. So when YouTube grows, Glasp grows.
Substack: ~550,000 subscribers with 30–35% open rate — that’s 200K–300K views per send. Many episodes actually get more engagement via Substack than YouTube.

As SEO becomes less predictable (due to AI answers and summarization), owning distribution channels like YouTube and Substack becomes more important. They’re not dependent on algorithms we can’t control.

Each interview → video → audio → transcript → highlight → post. One recording can be recycled across formats — that’s compounding in practice.

7. Is It a Strong Growth Tactic?

No. It’s not a “growth hack.” It’s slow, manual, and doesn’t spike metrics week to week.

But as a compounding asset, it’s extremely valuable:

Evergreen: interviews don’t expire.
Reputation-building: consistent output builds trust.
Conversion path: both YouTube and Substack drive signups steadily.
Knowledge asset: we own hours of expert insight that fuel product decisions.

So while Glasp Talk isn’t the most efficient short-term growth, it’s one of the most sustainable. It grows like a tree — not a firework.

8. Why Interview Media Belongs in the Company Portfolio

We now see Glasp Talk as part of our company portfolio — not just a marketing channel.

Having our own interview media means:

When we meet someone interesting, we can offer visibility (“Would you like to appear on our show?”).
When we collaborate, we already have a platform.
When we talk about Glasp, we can show who we’ve learned from — not just what we’ve built.

It turns social capital into an active growth loop. Every guest becomes a potential long-term ally, partner, or contributor. For a small startup, that’s priceless. You can’t automate trust — but you can compound it through conversation.

9. Media × Product = The Future

We think the future belongs to companies that merge media and product.

As MVPs become cheaper to build, attention becomes scarcer. Owning a content surface — interviews, newsletters, feeds — is how you get discovered.

That’s why we’re building Glasp so that:

people can view feeds even without signing up,
our interviews feed into Glasp’s discovery system,
and content fuels product usage.

In the long run, Product-Led Growth and Media-Led Growth will merge. Glasp Talk is our experiment in that direction.

10. Original vs. User-Generated Content

Glasp’s main loop is UGC — people highlighting what they read. But UGC alone is secondary content. To strengthen the ecosystem, we need original content too — content that originates on Glasp.

Interviews are perfect for this:

They’re original (our questions, our guests).
They generate transcripts → highlights → discoverable pages.
They give users something valuable to engage with.

Owning both original and user-generated layers makes Glasp more resilient.

11. Takeaways

What We Did

Restarted Glasp Talk (60+ interviews so far).
Published consistently on YouTube and Substack.
Used it to connect with world-class thinkers.

What We Learned

It’s a slow growth channel but compounding.
It gives us access to people and ideas far beyond our immediate network.
It forces us to research deeply, learn quickly, and think clearly.
It improves how we communicate — both on camera and off.
It converts surprisingly well (especially via YouTube).

Why We’ll Keep Doing It

Because it’s long-term, evergreen, and deeply aligned with our mission.
Because it makes Glasp’s “People” and “Content” pillars stronger.
Because it trains us as founders while connecting us with the kind of people shaping the next decade of knowledge creation.

As a growth tactics, it’s weak. As a compounding asset, training system, and connective infrastructure, it’s one of our best bets.

In short:

We keep making interview content not because it grows fast, but because it keeps growing — and keeps making us better — even when we’re asleep.

What’s Next

In the next edition, we’ll talk about startup finance and product monetization — how we think about cash flow, pricing, and building sustainable revenue loops without breaking compounding growth.

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