I've Seen This Before. Substack Feels Like Early TikTok.
And Most People Are Going to Miss It.
Go to the Tesla dealership and pretend to buy a Tesla on my credit card because you’re mad at me.
That was one of the first TikTok ideas I came up with that went viral.
She convinced a Tesla salesperson to play along, filmed herself handing over my credit card, getting a key in return, and opening the door.
It got around 30 million views.
We were on a roll getting couples’ content to go viral on TikTok.
It wasn’t because we had some magic formula (although, of course, you need good content).
It was because we were early.
When we started posting in 2020, TikTok was different.
They had just introduced the “For You” page.
Which meant anyone could get millions of views without a following.
And it wasn’t dominated by celebrities yet.
Instead, the people doing the best on the platform were random people.
People like Bella Poarch and Addison Rae, who didn’t have prior audiences.
Sound familiar?
That’s what Substack looks like right now.
Most writers here don’t have massive audiences.
Big names like Gary V are just starting to show up.
And the platform still needs content, so it pushes your posts.
People always want to know the secret to growing on social media.
They think it’s skill.
But it is actually timing.
It is exponentially easier to grow on a platform before it gets crowded.
Early platforms need content, so they aggressively push it to new users.
Mature platforms have too much content, so they throttle your reach.
Look at YouTube.
Most of the biggest creators started between 2008 and 2012.
Or got big on Vine when it first started.
Compare that to Instagram today.
You can make great content and still go nowhere.
Not because your content is bad.
Because it’s too crowded.
Substack is not crowded.
Yet.
I went from 0 to over 400 subscribers in my first month.
Growth opportunities like that don’t last forever.
AI is About to Make This Even More Important
AI is lowering the barrier to entry for creating things.
You can build apps, create content, and launch products that used to take 6 months to build in a day.
Creation is getting cheaper, but attention is getting more expensive.
It isn’t hard to build things anymore.
It is hard to get people to care.
Distribution is the last remaining competitive advantage.
Some people think AI will eventually solve distribution, too.
I don’t believe it, though.
Distribution is about real stories, experiences, and human connection.
AI didn’t live a life. It has no real experience to draw from.
AI can regurgitate phony-sounding inspirational messages, but it can’t replace real, lived, human experience.
Don’t Be a Social Media Uber Driver
You don’t own your audience on platforms like Instagram and TikTok.
You rent it.
And they can raise the price at any time.
You might have 10,000 followers, but when you post, you are lucky if 300 of them see it.
Want to reach the rest?
Sorry, you are going to have to pay for that.
Or worse, they change the algorithm so that nobody sees your content anymore.
Or they ban you.
As a creator, you are fully at the mercy of the platform.
In other words, you are a social media Uber driver.
On Substack, it’s different.
When someone subscribes, they give you their email.
You own that relationship.
If you send an email to 10,000 people and 30% open it, that’s 3,000 real people seeing your content.
You own the list. There is no algorithm.
And if you ever want to leave Substack?
You take your audience with you.
Good luck doing that on Instagram.
This Window Doesn’t Stay Open
Every platform goes through the same cycle.
1. At the beginning, anyone on the platform can get massive organic reach.
2. As the platform grows, there is more competition, and growth becomes harder.
3. As the platform matures, it gets saturated, and it becomes almost impossible to grow, and the platform starts charging people to reach the audience they rent from them.
Substack is still in phase one.
That’s the opportunity.
And the best part is that if you take advantage of the opportunity, you will have a large newsletter that you will own forever.
I’ve seen what this looks like before.
Most people will realize this too late.
I’m not planning to be one of them.