👋 Hi Reader,

This thought has been living in my mind rent-free for a while now.

Every time I talk to a newsletter creator who is doing genuinely good work, I ask them the same question. How are people finding you?

The answer, almost every single time, is: social content, and whenever the newsletter platform decides to show people organically.

And that second part is the problem.

These Walled Gardens

If you have built your product for distribution before, chances are you have run into walled gardens before.

If it’s mobile, it is the iOS or Android app stores. If it’s a browser extension, chances are the Chrome Web Store is your garden (poison?) of choice.

Great marketplaces for getting your initial customers, bad for long-term discovery, unless you have money to spend on paid ads.

If you are on Substack, your discoverability largely depends on what Substack's recommendation engine surfaces to other Substack readers. If you are on beehiiv, Kit, or Ghost - boohoo, you are trying to get free or paid recommendations within the platform.

These platforms are not incentivized to send their readers outside the platform's ecosystem. And with good reason.

Which means discovery for newsletters, right now, is mostly a closed loop. Which is why you end up building social audiences, and then funnel them to your newsletter landing page.

Yes, I am aware Sparkloop exists to promote cross-platform newsletter discovery. But the number of options to organically discover great writing, is something I can count on one hand.

And that bothers me.

Because the best newsletters I have read are not always the ones with the biggest subscriber counts. And I feel there should be more outlets, pushing the good word forward.

Which is why I am excited that Ollie built new-media.co.

Enter Ollie Forsyth

Ollie writes NEW ECONOMIES, a Substack newsletter with over 77,000 subscribers. If you have not read it, I might have to reconsider being friends with you.

But what caught my attention recently was Ollie’s announcement on LinkedIn.

What I love about this is Ollie saying: here are the people doing awesome work, go find them.

And that is a refreshing take on our current state of algorithmic-discovery.

And it may be what the newsletter world has been missing.

Can we have more folks like Ollie?

When I acquired LetterStack, the core premise was simple: there are newsletters out there doing incredible work, and they are not getting the attention they deserve.

Not because the work isn't good. But because discovery rewards the already-discovered. And that might discourage new newsletter creators from starting out, since they end up assuming that the discovery battle might be lost, even before it begins.

I want to change that.

LetterStack aspires to be the same kind of discovery engine for newsletters — one that shines a light on the newsletters that are quietly building loyal audiences.

If you know of other outlets like new-media.co that give them visibility outside of their native platforms, I want to know about them.

Hit 'Reply' on this email and or drop a note to marketing@letterstack.co.

The more we map this space together, the better LetterStack can serve the newsletters, that deserve to be found.

This newsletter is sponsored by The Alien Design

Looking for a partner to bring your digital product ideas to life? Alien specializes in product design, web design, and Webflow development. Alien helps businesses build visually appealing digital experiences that drive results. From concept to launch, Alien focus on delivering solutions that fit your brand and meet your business goals.

Want to get featured as the next sponsor on LetterStack? Reach out to us on marketing@letterstack.co!

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Cheers,

Renga from LetterStack

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