Sterling Proffer

We are socialized to see what is wrong, missing, off, to tear down the ideas of others and uplift our own. To a certain degree, our entire future may depend on learning to listen, listen without assumptions or defenses.

Some users have already burned out, which raises the question of how many people with a coveted pro deal will find Substack’s grind unsustainable once they exhaust their advances. At the same time, many other writers simply won’t be able to make a living on Substack no matter how hard they try. But nevertheless, Substack’s growing cast of... See more

To understand your adjacent users, it is helpful to understand the attributes of who is successful today and why they are successful. The reason this is helpful is that your adjacent user is different on one or more of these attributes (but not all). These attributes create vectors of expansion.

If you can sell a book, which is the most oversaturated and underpriced product in the world, you can sell anything.”

I suggested that Substack’s day of reckoning may still lie ahead. The bigger Substack gets, the more ideologically diverse its author pool becomes, the greater the chances for highly inflammatory, potentially harmful content.

Solving for your adjacent user is not short term thinking; it is this disciplined sequential execution that will enable your longer-term roadmap and faster growth.