👋 Hi Reader, I am a LinkedIn nut. I take all the arguments about LinkedIn being all cringe, AI-slop, broetry memes, and I raise you this: it is still the only social network I know, which insists on you showing up as your true self, not just a random handle ladiesman217. (10 points to you, if you caught the movie reference) So it follows that I spend an inordinate amount of time and effort understanding how the LinkedIn algo behaves. Which is when I realized that huge audience followership on...
12 days ago • 3 min read
👋 Hi Reader, You know I am a sucker for seeing local businesses thrive. I never leave any stone unturned to cover helpful resources at the intersection of local businesses and newsletters. Since we are heading into downtime for the holiday season, I figure some of you are preparing hard and committing yourself to launch a local newsletter or media brand in 2026. If that’s a 'hell yes', you are in luck. I compiled 3 digital stocking stuffers from the best experienced local newsletter creators,...
19 days ago • 2 min read
👋 Hi Reader, Seems like Substack newsletter creators cannot catch a break. The Substack platform has been rapidly making changes in 2025, and not of the good kind. First came paid subscriptions through the iOS app cutting paid earnings dramatically (we covered the paid subscription math in this LetterStack issue) Then came the shaky content moderation stance with a lot of questionable (absent?) decisions being made around moderating newsletters promoting hate speech. If you are curious about...
26 days ago • 2 min read
👋 Hi Reader, If you recollect, I covered the phenomenon of ‘traditional media’ journalists jumping ship from their Big Media outlets to New Media avenues like newsletters, specifically Substack. I understand Big Media is watching this trend closely too and making amends to stem the talent exodus to newsletters. How are they exactly making amends? Well for starters, they are helping their crew build their own personal brand online. The Wall Street Journal is going the whole nine yards by...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
👋 Hi Reader, ICYMI, there has been a mass outcry on X over Youtube’s AI review decisions over entire Youtube channels getting wrongfully banned overnight at scale. Youtuber 'Norse797', who had over 100k subscribers and 25 million lifetime views on his YT channel covering aviation news, was served a ban by an automated Youtube decision mod. Seems serious, until you realize, the purported reasons were over his comments as a teen years ago on an alternate account. norse797 @bjr2730 YouTube...
about 1 month ago • 3 min read
👋 Hi Reader, As you are well aware, I took over LetterStack less than a year ago as the present owner. I spent the last two decades building and launching products, but to be honest, no endeavour in my career gives me more joy than to write to you folks every Saturday. I know we are not a big community at this point, in fact, we are less than a thousand people. But the fact, that more than half of you open and devour the posts I send out every weekend, is immense motivation to show up, every...
about 2 months ago • 1 min read
👋 Hi Reader, Many newsletter creators want to do well by their local communities and build a local presence, but they shy away from niching down into a local newsletter. Why? Finite addressable market, for starters. So I decided to dig deep and find out what the read on local newsletters look like. Thanks to Aniket Panjwani’s excellent newsletter database, I got a quick jumping off point. Ankit Panjwani (who writes the Content Quant newsletter) is not the typical content...
about 2 months ago • 2 min read
👋 Hi Reader, As you folks are aware, I have a day job where I help early stage founding teams find their first 10,000 customers (what the cool kids call as 'GTM') at Anushka Ventures, and then I funnel my learnings into LetterStack. Most of these founding teams tend to have a watering hole on LinkedIn, which makes it easier for us to convince them to go all-in on LinkedIn-first content. An accidental fallout of that conversation is the aspect of getting into LinkedIn newsletters, and then...
2 months ago • 2 min read
👋 Hi Reader, If you have known me for a while and have been a subscriber here, you might describe my relationship with AI as a dramatic jilted lover with massive withdrawal symptoms. I have hemmed and hawed at the prospect of writing with the help of AI. I have tried ChatGPT, Claude, and the plethora of tools available which claim to make AI-written-slop sound human. (Yes, tried that one too) So unless you are a writer whom I have known pre-ChatGPT for your writing, I am going to take...
2 months ago • 2 min read