But giving up more equity to VCs will bring more “suggestions” from the company’s board to move in this direction. To its credit, Substack changed the default to preserve email subscriptions within 24 hours. In March, when the company introduced an app, I noted here that Substack shut off emails from your subscribed publications by default - a worrying step, I thought, toward building a centralized platform that the company could monetize more aggressively. One, it reduces the pressure on Substack to financialize every facet of its newsletter, podcast and app ecosystem. Newton celebrated Substack’s failure to fundraise in his newsletter: Given the turbulent financial markets, Substack abandoned its fundraising effort, according to the report. Substack reportedly generated about $9 million in revenue in 2021. Unlike fellow Andreessen Horowitz portfolio company Clubhouse, which raised at a $4 billion valuation in April 2021, Substack hasn’t earned a unicorn valuation. Substack apparently isn’t raising a new round of financing, according to the New York Times. Our discussion was sparked by a news story about what’s not happening. (Paying Newcomer subscribers get access to the community, though I’ll confess that my channels are fairly dormant.) Newton and I are part of a group of writers that formed the Discord community Sidechannel together. Newton founded Platformer, a go-to destination for news and analysis about what’s happening in the technology industry - especially at social media companies. On the podcast, I reminisce about how I phoned Newton during the depths of the pandemic to tell him that I was going to leave Bloomberg to start a Substack only to learn he was about to launch one as well. This week on the Dead Cat podcast, Katie Benner, Tom Dotan, and I talk to technology Substack writer Casey Newton.
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