"They got cognitively clear on who their first early allies would be: professional writers."

"Who Substack focused on to seed the community"

"the Substack founders focused on a small but passionate “Who” at the outset: professional writers."

"“Journalists, as professional writers, feel these challenges–having to write in a certain way or with certain kinds of incentive models–faster than people like me who have the luxury of writing about stuff on the side. Professional writers really feel the pain, and had a need for a publishing alternative that was more independent and more dictated by their own terms.”"

"they focused on building a tool for professional writers, not amateurs or semi-professionals."

"One of the challenges we see many people face when they attempt to spark a community is a lack of specificity."

"They looked for people who resembled Ben Thompson, who runs a popular one-man publishing operation called Stratechery."

"Their hypothesis was that more professional writers would go independent like Ben Thompson had if writers had the tool stack to support them in doing so (e.g. payment, blog / email publishing, analytics, community tools)."

"In October 2017, the three founders pinpointed a small pool of these writers to try their site."

"As Ricardo Bilton reported in 2017, the team extended invites to two types of writers:"

"Creators who had existing free newsletters with large subscriber bases."

"Writers with large fanbases who had recently been laid off from major publications."

"Substack founder Hamish McKenzie had a relationship with Bill from Hamish’s days as a reporter in Hong Kong, and also knew that Bill had dreams of making his newsletter paid."

"In the communities we’ve studied, the first people who show up are always people who crave or care about the space you’re building more than the average person, as Bill Bishop did with Substack"

"These people who care are more powerful than the people who don’t. They alone will help you build a community from scratch. Pinpoint them, as Substack did, and who knows how far you will go together."

"Don’t underestimate the power of personal outreach when you’re inviting the first people to join a new community. There’s no cheat code for personal outreach, and we almost always undervalue its potency."

"Courtland wrote 50 personal emails to spark Indie Hackers, a community of 60,000 entrepreneurs."

"From their early days through to today, the Substack team has treated writers as essential collaborators and connected publishers so they can to swap best practices."

"For example, by observing and speaking with writers Substack’s team learned that successful publications tend to:"

"Make the best piece of writing free to their readers, not paid, in order to convert more subscribers."

"Publish prolifically."

"Cover niche topics."

"Write in long form"

"Although there are exceptions, Substack is a place for thoughtful, long-form writing and rewards deeper thought and reflection on specific topics."

"So Substack is exploring community programs that will empower writers to help each other directly and to do so at scale."

"The team has also hosted online discussion threads through their own Substack newsletter."

"We see these great moments of people in the comments finding each other.”"