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Stratechery by Ben Thompson - Tech Strategy Newsletter
Does anyone subscribe to Stratechery?
I read the free articles, and his insights on tech strategy are brilliant.
I'm considering the subscription.
Apparently, the content is so good that Ben Thompson, the founder, is earning close to $3 million annually for his newsletter.
How Stratechery founder Ben Thompson built a one-person newsletter that generates about $3 million and became the envy of journalists
You can find the free articles on the main page of the website:
https://stratechery.com/
The article on Aggregators is insightful.
Businesses, the customers of Google, chase and even spend money to improve their search engine optimisation, SEO.
In a way, Google does not have to do much to improve their search engine because everyone is making their website index better.
Uber is a different type of aggregator with less power over suppliers.
In a way, it is an analysis of aggregators using Porter's five forces analysis.
Subscribing gives you access to 3 detailed analysis of the news of the day delivered via 3 weekly emails, in addition to the free weekly article.
His subscription costs USD 120 annually or USD 12 monthly.
If you add his Dithering podcast, it goes up to USD 150 annually or USD 15 monthly.
Maybe writing valuable content and knowledge is the way to go for building a one-man business, solopreneurship.
ThePowerMoves also does this.
Interesting.
Didn't know about it.
Seems more like a service for traders and investors, is that right?
Do you actually subscribe to it, and do you read the weekly reports?
Seems more like a service for traders and investors, is that right?
It is for individuals interested in business strategy. This includes venture capitalists, entrepreneurs, product managers and business analysts.
It reminded me of the business model of ThePowerMoves. The difference is that he focuses more on putting out regular content on tech trends for business strategy while ThePowerMoves focuses on consolidating timeless knowledge on power dynamics.
Do you actually subscribe to it, and do you read the weekly reports?
So far the weekly reports. I'm thinking of trying out the monthly subscription.
Got it.
It is for individuals interested in business strategy. This includes venture capitalists, entrepreneurs, product managers and business analysts.
That's a good market to monetize, since some of these people, probably, are signed up via their companies as part of the "research" resources.
Those who don't, if they're thinking about investing, they probably have enough cash laying around.
It reminded me of the business model of ThePowerMoves. The difference is that he focuses more on putting out regular content on tech trends for business strategy while ThePowerMoves focuses on consolidating timeless knowledge on power dynamics.
Yeah, a somewhat similar business model with the subscription here, but via email, and with that regular/timeless important difference you outline.
ThePowerMoves doesn't publish much and doesn't even want to publish much.
I'm more of a believer of one or a series of a few, finite articles covering a topic well.
The magazine business model of releasing new articles periodically, even daily on some websites, to me is time-consuming noise.
I think that information repeated and rehashed over several different articles is a poor service to the readership and to those who seek to learn.
That's a good market to monetize, since some of these people, probably, are signed up via their companies as part of the "research" resources.
Great thing about working for a company : ).
It's an interesting market to explore.
Targeting the training or research budget for employees.
The magazine business model of releasing new articles periodically, even daily on some websites, to me is time-consuming noise.
I think that information repeated and rehashed over several different articles is a poor service to the readership and to those who seek to learn.
I may have painted Stratechery too much in the direction of a magazine business.
The business model is like a magazine business model.
Indeed he may rehash some concepts again.
He gained credibility over these years because he focused on the latest trends and ties it back to some underlying principles that he laid out.
In the tech sector, I think it's possible to come out with useful insights more frequently.
Technology changes fast, and there are numerous ways to deploy tech.
Probably what's a useful insight now may not be in the future.
For power dynamics, it seems that the principles are more timeless.
In the sense that the concepts here can be used probably a hundred and even a thousand years later.
I don't think that we need to write about thousands of politicians to materialise a power dynamics concept into practical applications.
Though we may find interesting grey areas or extreme cases to talk about.
With all that being said, I may try out 1 month of his subscription to see if I gain anything tangible.
I should probably plan out what I would like to gain out of learning business strategy.
If not, as what you say, I may end up consuming a lot of content while not building any mental frameworks.
I may have painted Stratechery too much in the direction of a magazine business.
The business model is like a magazine business model.
Indeed he may rehash some concepts again.
Nono, You haven't.
With "on some websites" I meant some websites similar to ThePowerMoves.com, but didn't want to be more specific there not to sound disapproving of them (it's easy to be framed as having ill-feelings towards the competition when you disagree with some approaches).
And that's one of the differences between a website like this one, and Stratechery: he can release new content and still make it fresh.
There are thousands of businesses, and after a few years he could even re-analyze the same business -and the environment- could be different enough that a new analysis on the same concept is perfectly called for.
But as you say, human psychology and social strategies won't change instead.
If this website were to do the same, it would become a magazine-like publication, and that's not the goal here.
So that's the difference: the subscription here is more for the full access to a (more slowly) growing body of knowledge on social strategies and power dynamics, while there it seems to be more about the "periodical, new releases".
In a way, I guess that his model might be better suited to keep people subscribed, since the "freshness" matters more there, while here someone might binge read and then pull the plug.
