It was my first real sort of trial by fire in online media as sort of web 1-0. We sold the company to Dow Jones for $1 more than our IPO price, which was a victory considering what happened in the early 2000s with the first dot-com bubble. But we were able to get the branding and the money and sort of have a somewhat of a first re-advantage.
Bill Bishop likes to make clear he’s not a journalist. Instead, he’s a China analyst who brings his deep understanding of the country to an English-speaking language through his newsletter, Sinocism. In 2017, Bill became the “original Substacker” after teaming up with Substack’s co-founders to be the first newsletter on the platform.
On this week’s episode of The Rebooting Show, Bill and I discuss his independent path, and how a subscription model has created different dynamics as opposed to his experiences in the dot-com era as a co-founder of Marketwatch. What’s telling to me is that Bill is also now considering advertising. The Substack model of “only ads” doesn’t make much sense long term for most writers. Even if they convert 10% of their audience, they’re making no money from 90%. Most businesses don’t operate that way.