Thread by @mariogabriele

After three months of going paid, I can say, this thing is for real.

❤️ ~600 paying members
🔥 ~33,000 subscribers
🤯 ~$130,000 ARR

I've learned a lot over the past quarter. If you're building a modern media company, I hope this breakdown is useful 👇

1/

If you want to jump straight in, I made a deck that walks through the details.

Hit the link below. Or keep scrolling.

projector.com/story/0fa0076f…

2/

Here are the high-level metrics.

As a note, "revenue" ≠ "salary."

I'm taking as small a salary as I can and investing revenue in making the product better.

3/

Things have been trending well for the most part.

I pay closest attention to MRR, which has been growing steadily.

4/

Monthly churn is sub 5% so far, but definitely something I'm keeping an eye on.

The good/bad news is that a lot of churn seems to be due to failures of communication on my end. Hopefully I can improve on that front.

5/

Growth has been mostly good, and same with engagement.

Btw, the "engagement score" feature is something @ConvertKit offers which is super helpful. Credit to @nathanbarry.

6/

You can see the lumpiness of growth. There's for sure a correlation between # of pieces (input) and new subscribers (output) but its not linear.

H/t to @ZReitano for introducing me to this framework from Working Backwards.

7/

Sounds crazy to say, but the Members-Only community is the best thing I've built.

It takes time, for sure, but the caliber of discussion and connections being created is wild to me.

8/

It's a little too new to have solid metrics yet, but I'm excited to track over time.

So far, people seem to really be digging it and engaging.

9/

Some really cool stuff happened that doesn't show up in numbers.

- Got to jam with awesome people like @jackbutcher @patrickxrivera @Iiterature
- Got interviewed by one of my favorite writers @Alex_Danco
- Featured in some great publications

10/

Those collaborations and creations resulted in some really lovely comments.

Huge thank you to @phil_jacobson, @tylertringas, @shreyas, @sajithpai, @galaxyRTK, @parkerhendo, @SheckyGreen, @MylesDanielsen, and @saxena_puru for some of my favorites from Q1.

🙏

11/

I wrote. A lot. A little over 135K words.

(NB: S-1 Club and RFS both bring in other contributors. It would be more accurate to say I edited or wrote that many words. This is the beauty of the "multiplayer media" model. I probably wrote 100K.)

12/

The premium-only articles have been getting strong engagement and positive feedback. Great!

I'm especially excited as to how I'm building a library of business breakdowns. This is an accumulating asset, helping make membership ever-more valuable.

13/

I'm really excited by everything that's happening. But there have definitely been some critical lessons.

👇

Lesson 1: Focus.

Instead of launching a bunch of new stuff, I've doubled-down on what's working.

Lesson 2: Building was the right call...

I'm glad I didn't go paid on Substack, but building brings its own challenges for sure.

(My stack is @webflow, @pico, @ConvertKit, @CircleApp, @zapier, FYI).

Lesson 3: Articulate value better

I'm doing a bad job of outlining some key premium benefits: exclusive content, and an incredible private community.

Lesson 4: Say no to fun things

Thank you to @paulg for his article "Maker's Schedule, Manager's Schedule."

I was finding my focus disrupted by midday meetings — his piece provided a valuable reframe that I've stuck to.

paulgraham.com/makersschedule…

Lesson 5: Sponsors are collaborators

I've set a very high bar for sponsors. I'm grateful to have gotten to work with @rmandal at @futurefitapp and @BobCasey at @TegusHQ.

Not every sponsor takes the time to really understand what you're building. Grateful for those mentioned.

Lesson 6: Community is magic

Seeing awesome people like @AnnikaSays, @EliKamerow, @VicKalchev, @BeauroyreMax, @divine_economy connect via The Generalist gets me so pumped.

This is just the beginning.

I am trying to build the most thoughtful tech community and publication on the planet.

I'd love to have you join the journey.

readthegeneralist.com

Join more than 33,000 believers here

readthegeneralist.com

Also, inspiration for this thread was taken from the amazing @lennysan who has really lead the way.

I recommend following him and checking out his wonderful work.