How US newsletter site Substack took inspiration from China’s WeChat to give content creators a voice
- The San Francisco-based start-up’s founders took inspiration from WeChat, which popularised self-publishing with WeChat Public Accounts in China
- Both thrive on a model where content is delivered to a user’s inbox and where writers can establish their own mini-media empires
Newsletter publishing site Substack has quickly become the favourite online platform for thousands of writers and content creators to get their work published and distributed.
Its ease-of-use and simple fee model appeals to content creators while consumers are drawn by a product that provides them with a wide variety of quality content on topics of interest, delivered directly to their email inbox.
Substack, which competes with other self-publishing services such as MailChimp and Patreon, allows almost anyone to start a newsletter and charge subscribers for it. You register via e-mail, produce your content, and upload via the easy-to use note-pad style interface. Substack then allows you to set a subscription fee and invite users to sign up.
In return for providing a professional publishing platform and income stream, Substack takes a 10 per cent cut from sales generated by the content creator.
What many people do not know though is that this San Francisco-based start-up took its inspiration from WeChat, the Chinese super app operated by internet giant Tencent Holdings.
Tencent vice president Allen Zhang founded email service Foxmail before joining Tencent in 2005 to work on QQ Mail. He was later tasked with creating a mobile communications tool by the name of Weixin. In 2012, Weixin acquired an English name - WeChat - and the rest is history.