Founder stories
$100K ARRin 6 months
2 milestones
Newsletter Platform Co-Founder Gets First Publisher, $100K+ Revenue Day One
Founder
Hamish McKenzie
Co-Founders•Technical•USA
Commitment
Full-timeExperience
ExperiencedProduct
Platform enabling writers to start and run subscription newsletters.
Type
SaaSIndustry
Content CreationModel
Marketplace FeesMarketing Strategy
How Hamish acquired customers
Primary Channel
Word of Mouth
Also Used
Communities
Tech Stack
Tools used to build Substack
Ruby on RailsStripeSendGridAWS
The Full Story
TL;DR
Substack found the perfect first customer in Bill Bishop, who generated $100K+ in revenue on his first day going paid.
When Substack launched in July 2017, co-founder Hamish McKenzie and his team needed one perfect publisher to demonstrate their model.
The Perfect First Customer
Their first customer was Bill Bishop, who had been writing a newsletter about China for 5 years for free. His friend Ben Thompson (Stratechery founder) encouraged him to go paid.
The Launch
Bill was the ideal demonstrator - he had built up a following. When he launched his paid newsletter Sinocism on Substack in October 2017, he immediately got six-figures of revenue on day one.
The Validation
This success convinced the founders to go deeper and take a big swing at building Substack into a full platform. The company quickly added a third co-founder, Jairaj Sethi, as CTO.
- First publisher: Bill Bishop (Sinocism)
- Day one revenue: $100K+
- Platform launch: July 2017
- Business model: 10% of creator revenue
Key Takeaways
1
Find the perfect first customer who can demonstrate your vision
2
Existing audience + monetization platform = immediate revenue potential
3
Day one success ($100K+) can validate entire business model
4
Strategic first customer creates powerful case study for future growth
Originally published onThought Economics
Inspired by Hamish's journey? Generate a business idea in the Content Creation space using AI and real founder data.
Milestone Journey
Hamish achieved 2 milestones on the path to $100K ARR
First Customer
3 months
October 2017
6% faster
vs avg 3 months+3 months to next milestone
$100K ARR
$100,000
6 months
January 2018
85% faster
vs avg 3 years6 months
Total journey time
2
Milestones achieved
Hamish's Path to $100K ARRPremium
The journey, decisions, and context behind this milestone
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