Parting Ways with Substack

It doesn't feel right

First, I have to say I love Substack. It’s a great platform. I recommend it to everyone, and I’ll continue to do so.

Second, I’m not leaving Substack. I’m only parting ways from some secondhand advice I got from them.

A few days ago, I explained some inside info I got from a subscriber in the Substack partnership program. The word was that in order to grow on Substack, you should have more paid posts.

In response to this inside info, I started offering a daily tip along with my regular posts, and I put these daily tips behind a paywall.

In short, I didn’t like it. It felt mean to have a paywall on every post.

Here’s where I part with most business advisors. Smart businesspeople will tell you (and they tell me all the time) that you can’t give away too much for free. They rightfully ask, “How do you make money if you’re giving everything away for free?” And this advice from Substack seems to be saying the same thing.

These business advisors and Substack are probably interested in this quarter’s profits, and I get that. But I’m in this for the long haul. I’m interested in building trust and goodwill with an audience. That’s more valuable to me than this quarter’s profits. It’s a wiser business strategy.

I align myself with the school of Eben Pagan, one of the first successful Internet entrepreneurs, who popularized the idea of giving stuff away for free online.

Another entrepreneur I admire, and who also lives by this creed, is Alex Hormozi. He amassed a million followers on social media in just a few months by posting free, valuable content every day. He also offers a free course. Now, he makes a million dollars a month selling his books—a million dollars a month.

The short of it is that I’ll be going back to free posts every day. Well, almost every day. I’ve always put my weekly accountability post behind a paywall, and I’ll continue to do that. I’ll continue offering daily tips at the end of each column, but they won’t be behind a paywall anymore, at least not every day. They’ll be free every day except Wednesday. I can live with that.

How do you like that?

UPDATE: Where I’ve settled now is a free post about one a week, paid posts daily. The rationale behind this move is that if people are going to pay for a subscription, they should get something valuable:

• 365 posts every year with time-saving, quality-enhancing, hustle-enhancing, and creativity-inducing tips and ideas.

• An accountability post every week where subscribers take advantage of peer pressure to be productive.

• An accountability Zoom meeting every month where we talk through goals and smash through any roadblocks.

• Inner circle members get a 30-minute one-on-one coaching session with me to seriously raise their game.

All together, these things will keep you on track, and make it well worth being a paid subscriber, which costs about $7/month. It’s ridiculous!

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TODAY’s TIP:

Move the free line.

Eben Pagan’s primary business model is “Move the free line,” which means, “Give away as much for free as you possibly can.” He also sells plenty. He made his first fortune selling dating advice to desperate men—a big market.

He and Hormozi understand the concept of building long-term goodwill. It’s the best business strategy.

Hormozi thinks of it as building a brand instead of a mere business.

If you produce any kind of creative work and aspire to make money from your efforts, think of it as a brand, and focus on building goodwill instead of making money. Do this by giving away as much as you can for free.

It’s how I built The Onion into a big brand. I gave away a weekly newspaper and all our stories online for nearly 20 years.

When you try to sell everything instead of giving it away for free, that’s the equivalent of hiding from your potential audience.

When you give stuff away for free, you open yourself up. You attract people. You’re marketing.

Once you have an audience, sell a small percentage of your stuff—your premium stuff.

If your free stuff connects with audiences, you’ll build a platform faster, and start making money from your creative work faster, too.