Everyone's Talking About Substack. Should You Care?

Everyone's talking about Substack. Brands are joining, marketers are paying attention, and apparently, we're all writers now. But is this the next big opportunity, or just another platform to feed?

We've spent years being told that attention spans are shrinking. That nobody reads anymore. That everything needs to be shorter, faster, louder.

And then Substack happened.

A platform built around the very thing we were supposedly losing patience for: reading. No trending dances required. No elaborate video production. Just people writing things and other people choosing to read them. Naturally, marketers have started paying attention.

But before we all rush to add another icon to our website footer, there's a bigger question worth asking.

Is Substack actually changing how we consume content, or are we just looking for somewhere new to post it?

First, why is everyone suddenly talking about Substack?

Substack isn't new. It launched in 2017 as a relatively straightforward newsletter platform, giving writers a way to publish directly to readers and charge for subscriptions. The interesting part is what it's becoming. Today, there's Notes (a social feed), recommendations, comments, community chats, podcasts and live video. You can follow people, discover publications and interact without ever subscribing to a newsletter. Sound familiar? Substack is slowly becoming a social network, whether it wants that label or not. And it's growing.

In March 2025, the company announced it had passed 5 million paid subscriptions. A few months later, it raised $100 million at a valuation of approximately $1.1 billion.

Not exactly a little corner of the internet anymore.

But the numbers aren't the most interesting part.

It's why people are going there.

We're tired of content. But apparently, not of opinions.

Think about what your LinkedIn feed looked like this morning.

A few thought-leadership posts. Someone explaining five lessons they learned from ordering coffee. A carousel about the future of AI. Another founder announcing they're humbled, honoured and thrilled.

And somewhere in between, perhaps something genuinely interesting.

The problem isn't that we have too much content. It's that so much of it sounds exactly the same.

The same formats. The same hooks. The same carefully constructed opinions designed to offend absolutely nobody.

Substack seems to offer something different.

A place where the argument matters more than the packaging. Where someone can spend 1,500 words exploring an idea rather than squeezing it into a seven-slide carousel. There's something refreshing about that. Of course, Substack has its own algorithm, its own engagement incentives and an increasingly busy social feed. It's not some magical internet sanctuary.

But its growing popularity suggests something worth paying attention to.

Perhaps we never stopped wanting thoughtful content. We just got tired of being served thoughtless content.

And now, naturally, the brands are arriving.

The RealReal, Tory Burch, Rare Beauty and Hinge are among the brands that have established a presence on Substack.

And you can see the appeal.

Rather than fighting for a few seconds of attention between Instagram Reels, brands can build something closer to an editorial relationship with their audiences. There's room for stories, cultural commentary, behind-the-scenes thinking and perspectives that don't fit neatly into a product announcement. But here's where things get interesting.

A brand publishing on Substack doesn't automatically make it interesting. And a newsletter isn't suddenly editorial because you've removed the promotional banner. In fact, some brands have already launched publications only to go quiet. Which raises an uncomfortable question.

Do brands actually have something to say, or have they simply found another place to say the same things?

Because nobody needs a 900-word version of your latest press release delivered directly to their inbox.

The real opportunity isn't publishing. It's having a point of view.

This is where we think Substack gets interesting, particularly for founders, technology companies and B2B brands. For years, businesses have invested enormous effort into looking credible.

Professional websites. Polished presentations. Carefully approved LinkedIn posts. Thought leadership that sounds suspiciously like everyone else's thought leadership. But credibility doesn't come from sounding professional. It comes from demonstrating that you understand something worth listening to. Imagine a FinTech founder openly questioning why financial products are still unnecessarily complicated. Or a PropTech company challenging assumptions about how property is bought and sold. Or a marketing agency discussing the things the marketing industry would rather not admit.

Those are conversations worth having. Not because they're controversial, but because they offer something beyond information. They offer perspective. And perspective is much harder to replicate than content.

So, should your brand be on Substack?

Maybe. But we'd ask three questions before creating an account.

1. Would anyone read this if your brand name wasn't attached?

It's a surprisingly useful test. Remove the logo, the company introduction and the obligatory call to action. Is there still an interesting story? If the answer is no, Substack probably isn't going to fix that.

2. Are you willing to say something that not everyone agrees with?

We're not suggesting manufacturing controversy for attention.

But good editorial requires judgment. Sometimes that means questioning accepted practices, challenging industry thinking or acknowledging uncomfortable truths.

If every article needs to survive six rounds of corporate approval, you might struggle to create something people genuinely want to read.

3. Can you commit to a conversation, not another content calendar?

Substack isn't necessarily about publishing more. It's about giving readers a reason to come back. That might mean one excellent article every two weeks rather than three forgettable posts every week.

Consistency matters. But consistency without substance is just repetition. And remember, you don't necessarily need to launch your own publication to participate. Supporting existing writers, contributing to relevant conversations or sponsoring a newsletter your audience already reads might be a smarter starting point.

One more thing. You don't need another website.

This is particularly relevant for companies already investing in their own editorial content. Should you move your blog to Substack? Publish everything twice? Redirect your audience away from your website?

Not necessarily. Your website still has an important job. It's where people discover your business, understand what you do and decide whether they want to work with you.

Substack can play a different role.

Think of your website as the home of your expertise and Substack as a place where that expertise becomes a conversation. You can also export your subscriber list, which gives you more direct audience portability than relying entirely on social followers. But don't confuse that with complete independence. Substack still controls its discovery experience, recommendation systems and platform features.

As with any third-party platform, you're building on somebody else's infrastructure. The goal shouldn't be to replace one dependency with another. It should be to build relationships strong enough to exist beyond the platform.

So, is Substack the next big thing?

We think it's worth taking seriously. Not because every business suddenly needs a newsletter. And certainly not because marketers have discovered another place to measure impressions.

Substack is interesting because it represents a shift in what some audiences are looking for online. Less performance. More perspective.

Less content created to satisfy an algorithm. More ideas worth spending time with.

Whether Substack can preserve that distinction as it becomes more social, more commercial and more crowded remains to be seen. There's already a certain irony in a platform attracting people who are tired of social media gradually becoming another social media platform. But perhaps the most important takeaway has very little to do with Substack at all.

The next competitive advantage in marketing might not be knowing where to publish. It might be having something worth publishing in the first place.

And if your brand doesn't have that yet, another platform probably isn't the answer. 🟠