His beachhead may very well be a paid newsletter . . . but the newsletter is just one SKU. . . . There could be a podcast SKU. A speaking fee SKU. A book deal SKU. A consulting SKU. A guest columnist SKU. And so on.”

The caveat to that is that writing is just one format of many in the information landscape (hence the notes, video and podcast feeds on Substack). If you ask me, the real business is ideas (Brian Morrissey, who I referenced a while ago, has a very helpful explainer on this here) . There are more opportunities to make money from writing, but don’t... See more

I think Substack did a lot to pioneer the subscription model of newsletters. But I think those two models (ads or subscription) leave a lot of writers still without a great business model.