Building Substack | Sachin Monga (Substack, Facebook)

Just start basically and see what happens and see what kind of interest there might be out there for what you have to say, especially if you already have a following on other platforms as well.

Just start basically and see what happens and see what kind of interest there might be out there for what you have to say, especially if you already have a following on other platforms as well.

If someone is subscribed to you, they're granting you write access to their brain is maybe the way I view it in a nerdy sense. What that means is not just like, 'I'll let you write your one long form thing once a week,' but, 'hey, you've got this other person that you think might have something interesting to say? Cool, let me know. I'm here for it.'

"This principle of control" refers to Substack's core principle that writers and readers should have control over their content and experience, rather than being subject to algorithmic recommendations.

All things equal, do the one that holds constant this principle of control. We could talk about a few other examples like this, but I think from a prioritization standpoint and from a strategic standpoint, Substack is a pretty principled company.

Even if you did, it would soon be obsolete because we did a really good job and now we've grown 2X or something and the process needs to change. The main thing I care about is are we just getting better every week, every month, certainly every year.

For the first couple months I'd say, that was all I tried to do. I think now Chris and I have some reps under our belt and the teams have some reps under their belts too, and that trust just starts to form.

We just need people who can run through walls to accomplish big goals. Maybe grit and endurance in some ways and drive are the words I would throw out there.

Facebook's news feed forces direct trade-offs where improving one feature inevitably makes another feature perform worse, unlike typical startup prioritization which is mainly about timing.

If we do this thing really well, it is going to directly trade-off against doing this other thing. It's not even a sequencing thing. When you think about prioritization, sometimes you think, we will do this, and then we'll do this, and then we'll do this. In Facebook's case, sometimes it's, 'Oh, if we do this, we just can't do this.'