Packy McCormick, founder of Not Boring, discusses Substack's product strategy and monetization philosophy with Nathan Latka.
Insight
McCormick: Free newsletters grow faster and drive more serendipity than paid models
“And I want to keep it kind of free and open. I think it grows better. More people can read it. It creates more serendipity. Like there's just a lot of good things that come if I'm, you know, kind of willing to trade off the security of a paid subscription.”
Disclosure
McCormick: Not Boring charges $10,000 for sponsored deep-dive essays
“Yeah, 10 grand in January and kind of it scales, scales linearly with the audience is how I'm thinking about it now.”
Insight
McCormick: Writing about Stripe drives more employee shares than Facebook
“Like I wrote about Stripe and then everybody at Stripe reads the piece where you write about, you know, X, Y, Z company that's big enough that it can have an impact. But small enough that they're not being written about every day. Like, you know, people within…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
McCormick: Not Boring Monday posts surpass 50,000 views on 26k subscribers
“Like, you know, the 26,000 person list, the past few posts have gotten 50,000 plus views just the past few Mondays, because they just kind of take off a little bit at this point, which is great.”
Disclosure
McCormick: Works 60 to 70 hours weekly and avoids hiring for freedom
“Freedom, and, you know, maybe at some point it stagnates, and I, the revenue doesn't keep going up, and the audience size doesn't keep going up, but the fact that I get to do, like, do this on my own schedule, and it's 60, 70 hours a week, it's a ton of work, …”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
McCormick: Not Boring grew from 500 to over 25,400 subscribers in eight months
“Yeah, it's wild. I had 500 in April and that many now.”