Elon Musk Is Open to Acquiring Substack — Here’s What Makes The Platform so Powerful
For instance, the highly-hyped platform has over 500,000 paying subscribers and is worth $650 million.
On January 18, billionaire Elon Musk will shut down Twitter’s newsletter service Revue.
This is a shock for many creators although according to internal data shared via The Information, this decision isn’t new. It was over a month ago when Musk decided to kill Revue.
If you‘re using Twitter and the smart Revue integration (as I do) you’ll be definitely annoyed about what will happen to the newsletter service.
Where to migrate your email list
There are lots of alternatives.
My recommendation is the highly hyped platform Substack.
Substack’s business model is easy enough to understand:
“Start a newsletter. Build your community. Make money from subscriptions.
It’s a true newsletter platform that makes it super simple to set up an account, start creating a newsletter, grow it and monetize your content.
It’s a powerful tool for marketers, creators as well as tech giants who want to get a piece of the paid newsletter boom.
Substack knows how to get into the media
On October 31, Substack for instance warned in an announcement:
“Twitter is changing, and it’s tough to predict what might be next.”
This way, it lured hundreds of creators onto Substack.
Exploding Topics data shows that Google searches for “Substack” are up 167% over the last two year
Also, Musk is aware of Substack and even tweeted that he could imagine buying Substack in the future.
He said he’s “open to the idea” of buying the newsletter platform.
He agreed with a user saying that Substack would give him “control” over the “narrative layer” of the web:
Twitter tried to acquire Substack at some point in 2020 but was rebuffed.
Back then, Substack’s co-founder Hamish McKenzie tweeted:
“this is not going to happen.”
That’s one of the reasons Twitter purchased the small Dutch newsletter startup Revue instead.
Why is Substack so highly-hyped and powerful?
Launched in 2017, Substack raised rapidly.
In its first year, it went from zero to 25,000 paying subscribers.
For 2022, it says it has millions of readers and more than 500,000 paying subscribers generating more than $9 million in revenue (there is a 10% commission fee charged for paid subscribers, no ads).
SimilarWeb data shows that Substack generated 44.4 million visits in November 2022 and is on the rise:
It’s no wonder, Substack has raised more than $82 million with 15 investors putting capital into the platform.
At the beginning of 2022, Substack was valued at $650 million.
In regard to Musk’s potential acquisition of Substack, I also found out that Substack gets most of its social media traffic from Twitter
Additionally, the audience who visits Twitter is also very interested in visiting Substack:
Who is writing for Substack?
Besides people like me and you, Substack is attracting writers like
- Mathew Yglesias with Slow Boring
- former BuzzFeed tech reporter Alex Kantrowitz
- Andrew Sullivan after leaving New York Magazine
- lately Matt Taibbi, a longtime political reporter for Rolling Stones
The Top 10 authors on Substack collectively make over $20 million per year.
In December 2020, it was $10 million.
What else does Substack have to offer?
Besides the flagship newsletter offering, Substack also offers podcasting, video (in beta), a new chat function and is constantly working on improving the writer-centric platform.
For instance, they introduced mentions and cross-posts. You can learn more about Substack’s awesome new features in my latest video:
What does the future of Substack look like?
In my opinion, Substack is both riding and driving the growing trend for paid newsletters.
So it’s not surprising that Elon Musk is open to acquiring Substack and is looking into the paid newsletter business with Substack as a real driver and game-changer.
However, Substack Chat, for instance, definitely reflects the company’s larger goal of becoming a more personal and private social network on the internet. This means a competitor to Twitter.
In an interview with The New York Times Substack co-founder, Hamish McKenzie, compared the company with tech platforms like Twitch or OnlyFans.
So, it’s no surprise that in their official launch announcement the company stated that there are more features to come in the near future:
“…these are just the early days for Chat and all of Substack’s social features…”
In this way, Substack will be more than just a newsletter service. It will become a media empire that every maker, marketer, and big tech giant wants to have a piece of.
Also, that’s why I recommend switching to Substack.
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