#105 - Notes on Reading, Newsletters and Substack
Education Coffee is a 2x Weekly Newsletter on People, Ideas and Culture.
In each edition of this newsletter, I will share some inspiring web resources that I have curated after hours of research to ensure that you have the best education coffee in your inbox. In upcoming editions, I will focus on sharing insights, notes and realizations that I gather from people, ideas, books, films and podcasts. The focus of this edition is the idea of a Newsletter and a platform that allows you to create and share your newsletters, Substack. I will continue to publish this newsletter twice a week from January 2025. Thank you for your support during the 30 Day 30 Newsletter December Substack Challenge.
1. Learning from People
Christopher Best is a San Francisco-based engineer and entrepreneur. He is best known for cofounding the online publishing platform Substack. Previously Co-founder and CTO of Kik Messenger. He talks about why he created Substack in this short clip.
2. Learning from Ideas and Questions
Substack was founded in 2017 by Chris Best, the co-founder of Kik Messenger; Jairaj Sethi, a head of platform and principal developer at Kik Messenger; and Hamish McKenzie, a former PandoDaily tech reporter. Best and McKenzie describe Ben Thompson's Stratechery, a subscription-based tech and media newsletter, as a major inspiration for their platform
3. Learning from Books, Websites and Blogs
I created a webpage with a list of my favourite writers and newsletters to read on Substack. Here is a link to that list.
4. Learning from Films, Videos and Shows
Here is a short note on this video from the team at The Hustle
Newsletters can be big business. In October 2020, Insider Inc. bought a majority stake in the ‘Morning Brew’ newsletter for a reported $75M. And it started a trend. In the months after, Newsette announced they had over $6M in annual revenue. More newsletters, like MilkRoad, Ladders, and ThePeak, all exited. So how is a list of emails worth millions of dollars? And why are companies paying so much to buy them?
5. Learning from Podcasts and Music
Here is an extended 2 hour interview with Chris Best (founder of Substack) about how his love for reading led to his journey of creating a platform for people to write and to read on the internet.
Thank you for reading this edition of #EducationCoffee. I look forward to writing weekly editions of this newsletter this year. I hope to continue to share resources that will add value to your life. You can also review the archive of Education Coffee for free at this link (past newsletters).
Please do send me your thoughts and resources on any edition of this newsletter through email at abhishekashokshetty@gmail.com, Linkedin or Twitter. If you would like to read pieces in the future please do consider subscribing to this newsletter by clicking the button below. I love taking these discussions forward on those platforms and look forward to hearing your feedback.
Abhishek Shetty