Thoughts on a year of Substack

A slow growth and recent acceleration in stats makes this a ton of fun. Thanks to all my readers for your support and I hope you hang out and still enjoy the 'stack!

Look at that exponential growth!

On February 25th, 2023, I created this Substack. My vision was to talk about my gaming, my music, and anything I felt like. At the start, it was just me screaming into the void.

The first few months I had no followers. I didn’t care. It was an outlet. Then something strange happened, I got a couple of followers. I was very active in the comments section on a couple of ‘stacks, and apparently some of them actually subscribed to me.

Then I got an email from one of my posts. It was someone who wanted to comment, but I had not enabled comments. So, I did.

And then a few more people subscribed.

I think in July, I had like 5 subscribers.

Reality was that two factors happened. I had a few people who apparently liked what I wrote somewhere else, so they “subscribed¹” but in the early spring, Substack — as part of a pissing match with the original Muskrat on Twitter — introduced the concept of notes. This was an overlay of a minimal social media functionality, but it allowed us stackers’ to share and revel in the writings².

Over the next several months, there was a trickle of new subscribers…

The middle quartile, steady growth

Not going to lie. Every time I got the new subscriber email in my Substack Pimping filtered mail folder I got a little squee.

Through this, I began to spend more time writing about politics and current events. Turns out that brings more eyeballs. Additionally, I began commenting and also posting notes/re-stacking great posts. That grew interest and eyeballs.

Look, I was on Twitter for 13 years, and I always wanted to grow a bigger audience, but I was pretty boring there. I mostly wrote about my profession — Product Management — alas that turns out to not be a hot ticket³.

But, when I began dissing some of the ineffective “Never Trump” factions, you know, people who say the right things, but then they also bash their allies for not listening to their pronouncements.

Still, the increase in growth of subscribers and these new things, “followers” is energizing.

Look at that, when I started writing this, I had 119 subscribers, and 179 followers. In the last two hours I have added three new subs, and 21 new followers. My email is going bonkers.

A week ago, I posted a hot take on the shit-show that is the NY Times’ Ezra Klein, and holee-sheeeeeeeit did the wheels come off.

Sunday I posted the take, and my daily views blew up. Prior to that, I mostly got between 40 and 80 views a day. I got so few some days that my own navigation tilted the stats. Now that is in the noise.

Suddenly, I get closer to 200 views a day.

A week later, that post is still generating tons of views, likes, and subscriptions.

That one post has accounted for more than 1/3 of my total sub count.

I am totally floored.

That inflection point was my post on how shitty Ezra Klein is. Tee tee.

Additionally, I am completely humbled. I am not sure I deserve this level of notoriety. I know that a lot of people grow their ‘stacks faster, but I am purely a hobbyist, and this is fun.

As an aside, I moved my professional page from Substack to Ghost, and over the last 8 weeks, I have posted 11 new posts. My subscribers? Stuck at 60. 14 years of writing, 250+ posts on my profession, and it is blah.

Yeah, the thin social media overlay that Substack has grafted on to their underlying foundation does make a difference.

Thank you for your likes, follows, and subscriptions. I do greatly appreciate your attention!

1. I admit that I have subscribed to many people after reading a killer response on another post

2. This is a turning point that really put to bed the whole neutral “we’re just a newsletter platform”. That is why their embrace of the nazi’s really fucking grates on me.

3. Yeah, I am a dreadful bore in my professional persona.

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