You didn't end up burned out overnight, and undoing burnout can be a long term effort that demands some pretty drastic changes. Even if you're feeling good short-term, chances are you may not be ready to jump back into it, or that jumping back into the same role isn't a good idea. Be prepared to end up in an entirely different place to where you ar... See more
At the end of the day, everyone writing on the internet is still in the business of attracting eyeballs. Subscriptions make this relationship a little more diffuse, but they end up in the same place: what generates money is what draws attention. And individuals, unbound by institutional restraints and implicitly rewarded for sensationalism, are at ... See more
The first mistake I see founders make is overvaluing their GMV growth while undervaluing net revenue & unit economics — again, retention (i.e. happiness) is what's going to keep your marketplace afloat, not just high GMV numbers.
Writing is often considered an individualistic enterprise, but journalism is a collective endeavor. And that is the paradox of Substack: it’s a way out of a newsroom—and the racism or harassment or vulture-venture capitalism one encountered there—but it’s all the way out, on one’s own
This creative accounting suggests that wasting less food would somehow undo all of the harms of food production. But the nutrient cycle does not care whether or not you clean your plate. All the environmental impacts that brought that meal into being are done deals; in the parlance of introductory economics, they are “sunk costs.” In focusing so mu... See more