I crossed 100,000 subscribers in the first six months of doing this project. Wow. You started it in January 2017. You have a little over 200,000 subscribers today. I didn't set out to, like, start a newsletter.
It very much was like, "Oh, we s- we're just gonna do this now." 27 days in, and there's, like, $34,000 in that PayPal account. Oh my God. There is so much more, like, value being created here than I anticipated.
It's one of those things that sounds so easy on paper, but actually is such a skill. This is an inherently biased product. This is the news through, like, one person.
Are there one or two other times in your nine years of doing this where you've stepped on something the wrong way? I think the biggest mistake I ever made was, like, one of the first ones.
Welcome back to the Creator Spotlight podcast.
My name is Francis Zierer, and today we're speaking with Matt Keyser, creator of WTF Just Happened Today, which is, as he describes it, your essential guide to the shock and awe in national politics.
He has been sending the newsletter for nine years, and it has been his full-time job basically from the start, and almost on accident. It is also almost entirely donations-based.
Very rare to find a media business that works like this, especially in the creator economy. This was a good one. I think you're gonna enjoy it. You have been running WTF Just Happened Today for nine years.
You started it in January 2017.
From what I understand, the most basic version of the origin story is that you started it when Trump first became president as a way to personally keep up with the suddenly much more rapid and chaotic news cycle.
But I wanna hear the origin story, just that first year, from idea to first issue to the end of 2017. Tell me about that first year. Totally. So, um, the idea for this thing was hatched
over martinis at Buca di Beppo in DC after the Women's March. I was talking to my really good friend Jess from New York.
Uh, my wife and I had, like, flown out for the Women's March to meet up with our group of friends from New York who had come down, and we did the whole thing all day. And,
uh, over [laughs] these martinis at Buca di Beppo, my friend Jess and I were talking about how hard it is to keep up with the news.
And this is like, you gotta time warp yourself back to that period of time when every piece of content was broken down into, like, 15 atomic parts and shared out a million times, and the algorithms were so crazy.
Like, you would see stuff that was super old, and it would be confusing 'cause that had been, uh, disproven or ch- the story had changed, and people were just completely, I don't know, like, confused.
Well, th- I think with the algorithms too, I'm pretty sure we were only, like, one or two years into Instagram having a nonlinear algorithm. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And so my...
Jess and I were talking about, like, how do you keep up with the news?
Like, we came to s- quick realization that, um, here was a bunch of, like, privileged people who could take the time off work, travel across multiple states to show up for something that they cared about, and yet...
Like, we have the interest and the time and the money to, like, pay for news, and yet, like, I feel less informed than I have ever felt. And I've always been very much a news junkie. Mm-hmm.
It just became really clear to me that w- there was, like, a gap in the marketplace, and that the news organizations weren't, um, doing a great job servicing the needs of their readers.
And so in, like, the back of the car on the way to JFK to fly out back to Seattle on, like, January 20th, 2020- 2017, um, I was just kind of, like, on Twitter grabbing links and throwing them into, like, an Evernote notebook of, like, s- news stories that felt like they would
sort of... They were important in the moment, and they would be, like, important, like, looking back, like, historically. They would, like, stand the test of time.
And in just doing that exercise, it was, like, very clear that I was m- already more informed by just, like, grabbing them and reading those headlines. And so I went...
So what I started doing was, like, I would read the news and then just, like, write a quick summary of what I had read in my voice, like, in a way that made sense to me.
And what that really was, was just, like, a education hack for myself of read something, regurgitate it- Mm... and you'll better retain it. And I was like, "Oh, let's just do this." Yeah. Let's try this thing.
Uh, we'll, we'll do it in public. We'll make it a 100-day challenge to, like, read and summarize the news every day and kinda see where it goes. And it w- You know, truthfully, it wasn't about making it a business.
It was, like, a project to do in public. And one of the things that I miss about the internet was, like, there was this whole era where, like, the internet was fun. Mm-hmm. It was about possibilities.
It was about, like, people doing cool things, trying things, uh, experimenting, and I wanted to get back to... I wanted to do something in that space.
And I think the other thing that always stood out to me was back in that era, there was tons of these, like, single-serving websites that did one thing and one thing only. Like, the being so narrowly scoped
and having that constraint was actually, like, what made it great. Um, and I always, like, use this example. There was a website called isiticedcoffeeweatheryet.com.
[laughs] And all it did was, like, use your, like, your geolocation of your browser and the weather to be like, "Yes or no." Yeah.
And being in New York, like, you know, there's, like, this whole, like, iced coffee- Is the L train running as well?... thing. Yeah. Yeah.
So, like, that was kind of, like, what was percolating in my head, and, like, I, like, sort of, you know, spin up this blog and
make my first effort at, like, putting together a blog post, not really knowing what I'm doing, but kind of, like, just leaning on experience and sort of, like-Like, trying to make the thing that I wanna make, like, I needed.
And then I'm like, "Oh, I need a domain name," and I'm just, like, click-clacking into Namecheap.com, like, trying to find domain names that were, like, silly, like isiticecoffeeweather.com. And
I just sort of arrived at, like, whatthefuckjusthappenedtoday. [laughs] And it was, like, available. You know, I, I try to do, like, the WTF just happened or whatever. Yeah.
Like, a million, like, iterations of that, but I was like, "Oh, this is available. This is ridiculous. Let's just do that."
I, I think I, like, tweeted out starting, "I'm gonna, I'm gonna track the news or something, and here's the link," and I posted on, like, Facebook maybe. And
what happens next is, like, things that, like, I don't control. Yeah. Basically, the site just goes, like, viral immediately inside of these private Facebook groups.
So I have all of this web traffic coming to my little Jekyll blog, hosted on a GitHub Pages thing, where I don't know what I'm doing. I have a full-time job alread- like, still. Yeah.
And I'm trying to, like, m- figure out what is going... like, what is going on? Where is this traffic coming from? There's no attribution on it.
It's just, like, like, in Google Analytics, it's just, like, not set, like, whatever, organic not set or something like that. Dark social.
Yeah, it was dark social, and I'm like, "Well, this must be coming from Facebook." Um, 'cause, like, otherwise I'd see stuff, like, on Twitter.
And what I immediately realized was because I put the name, like, the s- publishing schedule in the name, now I needed to do the thing. [laughs] And, which was, like, cool. It was, like, fun. I'm like, "All right.
Now I have, like... uh, like, I'm on the hook." Accidental nominal determinism. And I don't know what compelled me to, like, stick that newsletter subscription box on the site, but that's the only reason I'm here today.
We've all seen those viral sites. They come and go, and they disappeared, and I think what was in the back of my mind was, like, oh, this is another one of those moments for me, happening to me,
and let's try and capture some of that audience and see if we can sort of, like, build a flywheel here that, that can sustain.
Because even for 100 days, like, you know, I don't think, like, you were gonna sustain that energy just by, like, publishing a blog post and, like, sharing it on Twitter or Facebook or whatever at the time.
So I didn't s- I didn't set out to, like, start a newsletter. It very much was like, "Oh, it was, we're just gonna do this now. Now I'm gonna send a newsletter." Uh,
I was using TinyLetter, and pretty much, like, three days later, like, blew past, like, their, like, soft limit, which is, like, an amazing problem to have. But I also...
you know, this starts, like, costing not only time to do it, but, like, real money. Yeah.
And I'm, like, over on MailChimp being like, "Oh my God," like, and spent several thousand dollars just, like, doing this project for fun, like funsies, you know? And, uh, I had...
actually, like, I wrote this down 'cause it was a good exercise to go back and pull up sort of, like, the TikTok of the timeline here. Yeah, please. So 27 days in, on February 15th, 2017, I, like, send my newsletter.
I put a little editor's note being like, "Hey, guys. I'm determined to do this for 100 days, but, like, this is gonna start costing me some, like, real money. Um, I'm hoping to raise about $4,000 to cover the costs."
And it was like, "Here's a Patron- Patreon link. Here's a, a PayPal link." Go to bed, wake up, and there's, like, like, $34,000 in that PayPal account. Oh my God.
Four days later, I had about $2,500 in, like, monthly recurring revenue in Patreon, like, from that process, and a couple days later, that was over $3,000 in monthly recurring revenue.
And then on day 90, I quit my job of starting, from starting this project to go full time- Wow... and do, like, a huge membership push around that.
The calculus was basically, like, if I did this full time and bet on myself, could I make this, like, an actual business that, you know, would pay me, like, a competitive salary? Mm.
And that's, like, that was nine years ago, and here we are, like, still doing this thing very much in the same way. It's, like, you know, one, once a day update, one newsletter a day. That's it.
Um, and it's completely supported by the readers using this ridiculous free pay-whatever-you-want membership model where you don't get anything other than, like, feeling good about supporting something you wanna see in the world.
So that's kind of, like... that's, like, the first, like, 100 days. Yeah. That's insane. I didn't realize how much of it was so contained in that first 100 days. Uh- Yeah...
really quick though, I wanna describe the product for anybody listening who has not subscribed, who has not seen it.
So the, my quick summary is that you describe the day's news in one very long paragraph length sentence, then there are half a dozen headlines, and each one has an additional paragraph of context, and then maybe, like, 10 links to corroborating sources.
And that's about it. That's, like, the entire product. Totally. I, I describe it as, like, I doomscroll the news so you don't have to. Yeah.
And then I just compile, like, the executive summary with all the citations, like, clearly, clearly labeled and right there.
Again, it gets back to the idea of, like, a single-serving website that does, like, one thing and does it consistently.
It comes in the afternoon because, like, you have to look back on the day's news to, like, put the thing together.
So there's, I mean, there's so much to get in here, into here, like the, the way you've built the product to gather the news. Uh, what is it called? Current Status. Current Status. Currentstatus.io. It's a website.
From what I understand, this is, like, you were probably gathering all this manually at first, and then-At some point, you build this tool, which I think is open source, right? Um, and now it's automated in this way.
I'm always really interested in talking to people who have these aggregation curation style newsletters because it's one of those things that sounds so easy on paper, but actually is such a skill, the editing.
You know, I, I asked somebody about this the other day, um, Rachel Meade Smith of the Words of Mouth newsletter, if you're fam-familiar with that one. Mm-hmm.
Um, and I asked her what's the difference between aggregating, curating, and editing, and she said, "The aggregating is what I do. I go out and find the stuff, and then the curating and the editing is the same thing.
It's taking what I aggregated and making a product that is fit for my subscribers, for my readers."
Tell me a little bit about how you've built, over nine years, [chuckles] built this skill and then even automated to some extent, built this skill of finding a bunch of stuff and figuring out what's fit to serve your audience.
Totally. I think it, it gets... It goes back to kind of first principles around, like, an editorial scope.
So I set out from the, like, th- from the jump, it was this is the news, national political news through the lens of the executive branch, then the congressional pr- or the legislative branch, and then the judicial branch.
Like, specifically in that order. So the focus is always, like, through the president and what the president's doing and whatever, like, the president, like, collides with, right?
Um, so by, by keeping that focus, it allowed me to just, like, sort of narrow in and triage, like, the, the sort of content gathering focus- Yeah... like, what I was after.
And so when I, I built this, like, tool called Current Status. It's woefully out of date.
[chuckles] It's, like, half the, like, sort of sourcing that I built into it, like, doesn't even work anymore, and this is gonna be, like, a month-long, like, cloud code project to sort of, like, revive it.
And so, like, kind of what I did is I, I, like, kind of built this system to ingest all this content, s-score it, and give me, like, a rough sort of, like, slice of, like, what the political web was talking about.
That's not the, not the only process that goes into this. Like- Yeah... I use that as, like, the sort of frontline of defense or, like, you know, when I...
You know, like, after this call, I'll, like, pop it open and just kind of see what's happening, like, what's updated. My normal process is twice a day I do this, this thing. Sit down with a fresh Chrome browser,
Control + T, new tab, New York Times, Control + T, Washington Post, Politico, NPR. Let me do, let me do this in, in order, though. [chuckles] It's, it's New York Times, Washington Post, Politico, NPR,
Associated Press, Reuters, The Guardian, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, CNBC, CNN, NBC, CBS, ABC. That's, like...
And I just open up all those homepages, and I just, like, go scan the homepage, popping open new links for that, like, everything I see on there that feels like it fits the editorial mission for the day. Mm.
Uh, usually I'll dri-drill down into, like, either the US or, like, political sections for all these sites, and I'll do this process. I'll just go right to left, just popping open hundreds of tabs,
and just that, like, two-hour window of just being heads down, like, sourcing content- Only two hours? [chuckles] You... I mean, yeah, but it's like, I'm not reading anything at this point.
I'm just, like, straight up just, like, news gathering. Mm-hmm. And what it is is really just sort of this, like, crazy inefficient process of pattern matching.
I'm seeing this story, this story, and this story written and on the homepages of, like, all the major US sites. Those stories must be important. And I just...
And then there's a huge amount of editing of, like, what's above the line, below the line. Um, is there, like, sort of, like, a meta narrative to tell? Um- Of the day. Of the day.
You know, sometimes there's, like, there's, like, a, a court ruling that informs, like, this thing that happened
that seemed unrelated, but it was very clear that, like, there's an inner, like, there's a, like, sort of TikTok of the timeline here. I try and say that, like, this is an inherently biased product.
This is the news through, like, one person making decisions about, like, the relative importance of information. I try and do it in, like, an honest, trustworthy, transparent way. I try to own my mistakes.
I try to engage with the, the readers. Uh, you know, like, I, I, I try to, like, toe that line of being, uh, responsive and trying to meet their needs while also not being captured by the audience. Mm.
And that's just, like, a... That's a difficult balance to, to strike and...
But that tension, I think, is where people feel heard, and they feel like they're part of this product, and that's what makes this a little bit different from being just a straight utility product that is easily disrupted by AI today.
Yeah. I mean, it's just summariz-summarizing the news, right? Um, to looking more at this, like, this is a relationship product, and the relationship with the reader is where the value lies. Yes.
It's, it's, it's less in the utility. It's more in, uh, someone has found me to be a trusted source of information through all these activities that I do, like citing my sources, making public corrections.
I like to say that, you know, I mean, I, I don't like... This is a classic saying, right, that every business is a relationships business.
I've taken to saying that every business is a hospitality business recently, which is kinda what you're describing, and I also love what you said about, you know, trying to be as transparent as possible.
Just this morning in Creator Spotlight, we published, I didn't write it, um, Natalia, our assistant editor, wrote it, this piece that... Oh, what did we title it? I think it's Objectivity is Dead.
Transparency is What Comes Next, something like this, where this idea that, you know, now that there are so many sources to find any bit of information,
and in algorithmic feeds, you know, ideological, strong opinions travel easier, right? It's, it's a, it's a distribution mechanism to have strong opinions.
But basically that, you know, objectivity is nigh on impossible to achieve in this environment, so transparency ha- is what has replaced it, right? And so it, it sounds like you would agree with that.Yeah, I think so.
I mean, it's not the only... Being transparent is, like, not the only thing, like, activity you have to do to, like, find success and build trust, but- No... it's a certain, like, a certain component to it, for sure.
Yeah. It's crucial. Uh, okay, back to the audience, audience capture, lack thereof. Um, as far as I know, you have a little over 200,000 subscribers today, right? Yeah. Ebbs and flows. It's around there. Yeah.
There's churn with every issue. Um, and how much of that came in that rush of the first year? And then how much have come in, in the nine years since? I think in the first six months of doing this project,
I crossed 100,000 subscribers, which would be- Wow... like, half my audience, right? And this is in an era before, like, Substack really existed. Yeah. It... They had just got off the ground.
Newsletters weren't normal yet. Yeah. It wasn't normal to, like, subscribe to, like, a media newsletter. And, um, so it crossed about 100,000 people, like, I, I wanna say in the first six months.
And then it was just this slow, incremental, like, march up. But with that came a lot of attrition, just because it's, like, a rather high-churn product. It's impossible to send a newsletter that gets zero unsubscribes.
It's just part of the game. Yeah, exactly. And then I think the growth slowed d- way down because, um, couple factors. One, people were getting, like, very fatigued by the news generally in 2017.
Don't tell them what happened today. Yeah, exactly. Uh, it was like a hate watch kinda thing. [laughs] And, um, and then the social companies started, like, changing their algorithms. Mm.
And I n- I've never, like, really had, like, a super strong, like, SEO game, in part because, like, the product doesn't lend itself well to, like, being, like, here's a page about a specific story. It's...
'Cause it's a compilation of things. But it does rank really well for people, like, rage typing into Google, like- [laughs]... "What did Trump do today?" This very specific thing. "What just happened?" Yeah.
Yeah, so I get all this, like, weird side traffic. Um, and some of it converts. Some of it doesn't. Hey, if you're enjoying this conversation, consider subscribing to the podcast. We release a new episode every Tuesday.
All right. Back to the show. It's also a fun, I th- way to think about sort of history. I get these emails where people are like, "Hey, I didn't get your email today."
And I'm like, "Oh, that's funny, 'cause you're on the list and I sent it to you, and it says you opened it." [laughs] Um, and they're like, "Well, I didn't get it. Can you resend it to me?" I'm like, "I, uh, sure.
But, like, why? Like, what... It's on the blog. Like, what up?" And, um, they're like, "I print them out, and I keep them for my grand-" Oh, what? "... my grandson." Okay.
Grand- Or, like, my grandchild Wait, wait, wait, wait. This, so this brings up something that we have to talk about.
When I first met you at the ONA conference back in September, um, you were on this panel, and I remember, I remember you saying something to the degree of, like, you didn't think you would end up having the audience that you do have, which is mostly women in their 50s and 60s, I think you said.
Uh, you know, you just said grandchild, which is what made me think of this. You thought it would be more of a, you know, millennial crowd trying to keep up with the news.
And then I think partially because of this Facebook, private Facebook group, Women's March launch, obviously your audience is, tends to be liberal, um, and specifically liberal women who were born in probably the '70s.
Mm-hmm. '60s. Yeah. I, I didn't know that for a long time. And at one point, when I was trying to do some paid growth, I uploaded the mail- mailing list to Facebook's, like, lookalike tool. Mm.
And it gave me the whole, like, demographic breakdown, and I was like, "Oh, what... Like, what is happening here?"
Which to, to, for the, for the audience who might not know, this is a tool where you could upload emails, and since Facebook tends to have d- people's emails, it can tell you a bit about what the, uh, what the makeup of this audience is.
Yeah. It was like, you know, your high-level demographics, maybe some psychographic stuff. And then the whole point was that you could then, like, target lookalike audiences for paid acquisition.
Um, I never made it that far, because the F-bomb in the URL was- [laughs]... a non-starter for Facebook. So, I mean, like, blessing and a curse there- Yeah...
'cause who knows how much money I would have wasted trying to, like, acquire low-value leads. But, um, it was a interesting insight. And
it also, I think, explains, like, some of the reasons why I don't see social media growth. Like, I don't see people, like, sharing stuff around on social media, um, and especially not anymore. Mm-hmm.
And but I still have this, like, growth engine, which is primarily people forwarding the email to their friends and family- Boomer behavior... in, like, a very old-school method.
[laughs] Um, you, every once in a while, you see someone with, like, a dozen opens, you know? And you're like, like, what happened there? And it's because they forwarded it to, like, their Indivisible group or something.
Mm. And, like, everyone opened that. And there's this really, like, touching, uh, handwritten letter that I received, like, kind of in that early period where,
you know, like, I didn't really know, like, who I was, like, t- like, communicating with. I get a lot of emails and, you know, you see names like Phyllis, and you're like, "Oh, you must be of that, uh, over 65 cohort."
Um, and I was just kind of struggling with, like, where... Like, how do I reach a younger audience or whatever.
And I, I received this, like, physical letter, handwritten, and it was a woman thanking me for the newsletter because it, it was the thing that she could bond with her grandmother over while her grandmother- Wow...
was in hospice care. And every day, the newsletter would come. They would print it out. She would wheel her grandmother out to, like, the garden, and they would read the news.
Like, my newsletter.And, uh, after her grandmother passed, she like sends, like writes me this letter being like, "Thank you so much.
Like, this was in a really pivotal, like, moment in my relationship with my grandmother, who's no longer here." I'm like, "This is incredible."
This is like, this is like what it's about, is like people connecting over the news in a way that's, like, uh, personal. There's a relationship there. It's about establishing better habits with the news.
And what better way to like have good, like, media habits than to like share that with, like, your grandmother? Like- Yeah.... it's such a cool experience.
That's such an amazing, like, artifact of, of your audience's appreciation. I, uh, I wanna talk about the, the product market fit.
You, you were mentioning the, mentioning this at the beginning, and specifically the fact that you are able to monetize in the way that you monetize, which is through, um, the, the tip jar function and then subscriptions or memberships, which again, as you said earlier, they're not getting anything extra.
They're just supporting anything. And so you said kind of right product, right place, right time, right framing, which is, it, this is a, a Trump bump kind of product, right?
Which is wh- when people talk about, um, Trump's first presidency and Washington Post got a lot of subscribers. Didn't necessarily keep them. That's neither here nor there.
Uh, but it's this demograph- It's this, the right product for the right demographic, which is to be reductive, maybe people who would, um, [clicks tongue] when their local radio station is doing a membership drive, um, you know, a supporters drive, they would probably donate to that too, right?
That's kind of what, uh, the way you monetize as well. Is this... I don't know. It, it seems like you could, maybe you could have planned it in this cynical way.
Like, the, the character I'm getting of you, like, my image of you increasingly as we speak is you kind of are this, you know, '80s, '90s internet guy, and you're not that old. This, you know, I'm not dating you here.
[laughs] But the kind of like early promise of the internet, of the internet as counterculture and building these things and this sort of, like, I think the phrase you can just do things
often is co-opted in sort of this right-wing way, but it also has this spirit of early internet entrepreneurship, trying to make the world a better place. Um, I think you have like punk roots, too.
You started a, a, a record label when you were in college. [laughs] Radio DJ. So my image of you is that you are this sort of like, um, maybe born 20 years too late or something like, I don't know the exact timing here.
I don't know how old you are.
[laughs] Uh, but born 20 years too late internet entrepreneur guy who got, who just happened to make the right product at the right time, and that's sort of the overarching story I'm getting here. Yeah.
I mean, you're right. I grew up probably 20 years too late. [laughs] My favorite bands are like the DIY DC hardcore punk bands who didn't like the world that was like around them. Fear of God type.
So they just, they just created their own world. They created their own thing, right? And you know, there's, um, Jello Biafra from the Dead Kennedys once said, "Don't hate the media, become the media."
And he was kind of talking about sort of like a different thing than this, but that has always resonated with me and stuck with me from like the jump. Mm-hmm.
And that's part of like what's so cool about the internet is like you don't need permission. You can just do it.
But if you do it in a responsible, ethical, moral, like value-based way, I think you have a better chance of like finding like lasting success and finding like sort of your crowd or group that like builds that community.
Um, and so when I like went to like go full time and f- really figure out how to make this like not just a bunch of tip jar contributions, but like make it a more resilient business,
you know, like I looked at should we do like an actual subscription, like c- paywall type of thing, and immediately discarded that because like I'm not the original journalist producing this original like reporting.
It felt really like shitty to try and like cannibalize that with like a curated, aggregated product. So I threw that out. It was like, okay, sponsorship ads, like no way. Like ab- like non-starter.
You know, like nothing like really against that stuff, but like that just didn't like fit my like ethos and values and like
I think it's, I've always maintained that I will keep doing this for as long as people will keep supporting me. And to me, what that says is I am producing enough value worth paying for
that I should keep going, and that the moment that, like that equation doesn't work out and the equilibrium goes away, that tells me that like this product no longer serves like a valuable- Yeah...
part in enough people's lives to continue doing. And like we're just gonna stop when that happens. And- Well, I wanna, I wanna read- Yeah... some of the numbers out 'cause it is working for now.
We'll, we'll get to the- Yeah... when you may or may not stop in a bit.
But some of the numbers from the membership page of your website, I'm not gonna read the whole thing 'cause you're very thorough, very transparent here.
If anybody listening, uh, is very curious about the specific numbers, go check it out.
But you say that about 2% of readers underwrite the product, which unlocks free access for everybody else, costs about $2 and 9 cents per year to send to one subscriber.
So with a current average contribution of $5.93 a month, each member effectively pays for 54 free readers every month. Uh, and then if you back out the math, uh, it's about $227,000 a year to run this.
You break down how this contributes to your living wage, self-employment tax, operating costs. You're very transparent about this, and you are like literally down to the cent.
[laughs] Talk to me about why you have chosen to be so extremely transparent, uh, and also whether this ever backfires on you in any way. Sure. Yeah. So going back to like that, just like
ju- making the jump to go full time-I really felt like it was necessary to just be as honest and transparent, and try and build that trust from day one. And the other part of it was just a deep
uncomfortableness with, like, asking for money. Hmm. I didn't... At the, like, you know, go back to, like, 2017, there weren't a lot of, like, creators making a living on, like, a patronage model. Yeah.
You know, Patreon was still a very new product. Um, it wasn't common to pa- directly pay people for content. You only... Yeah, this is still something you only did to streamers and news companies. Exactly.
And again, like, that idea of I'm not the one producing this original journalism, I'm just the one, like, providing a, like a value curation over the top. I don't know why I chose to do it that way.
I think I was just, like, so in my head around, like, the sort of, like, uh, open source software community around transparency that, like- Mm... this was just a natural extension of that.
And I didn't think I'd be here, like, nine years later either. So I, I think it was, like, just a worthy experiment in just being radically honest and transparent.
But it's one of the things that really helps when it gets time to do, like, these quarterly member drives. So- Mm-hmm...
I do these week-long, three to four times a year, drives where it's very, like, focused on, like, membership, why your support matters, what it funds, like, why you should do it.
Like, u- using math was, like, a much, like a very natural way of, like, to get there. But the, like, the framing of, like, you know, 2% unlocks, like,
this for 98% of people, and that it's free as a result is, like, a really powerful framing. And then to go further and say, like, "This is how much, like, your $5.93 a month, like, supports.
Like, you are directly underwriting, like-" It's an emotional-... these 45-... and data-backed appeal. Yeah. And, and, like, when I do that, I get these emails being... I... So when I...
When you become a member, you get your receipt email, and then you get a follow-up email from me that asks, like, "What compelled you to give today?" And that qualitative feedback has been gold.
It is the, by far the best thing I do in terms of, like, audience listening because it's things like, "I can afford six bucks a month or five bucks a month, and I wanna see this thing exist."
It's, um, "I'm on a fixed income, but this is more valuable to me than The New York Times," which, like, I think is ridiculous, but five bucks is a lot cheaper than, like, the $49 a month or whatever for the Times subscription, right?
And, uh, this is also plumbing at a depth that is, like, a, that fits their, I don't know, their, like, where they're at in the world. Mm-hmm.
Like, it, it's the, the right amount of, like, content or news for them, and that's, like, all they can do, right?
To me too, like, what people pay for with something like this, and, uh, some people listening may have heard me give this analogy [chuckles] before, but I like to think of information, the information marketplace as, like, sushi, right?
There's the people who go out and catch the fish, and they're doing this primary sourcing.
And there's the people who take it to the fish market, and there's the, the chefs who go to the fish market and buy it, and they know what to look for, and they have these knives and these specialized skills and tools to break it down into more usable information.
And then there's, like, this end consumer. You know, you go to a nice sushi dinner, omakase style, maybe there's 12 pieces coming out, and the sushi chefs are just serving one bite at a time.
You don't even need to use chopsticks. You just grab it and eat it, and it's this perfectly ordered 12 single bites. Which... And I...
The opposite of this to me is, like, going to a bad s- it doesn't, it's not necessarily bad, but a steakhouse- [chuckles]...
a bad steakhouse that serves you a steak and gives you a horrible steak knife, and you have to cut it up yourself, and you're gonna kinda mangle this steak, right? Yeah.
And what your, like, your customers are people who want that omakase experience. They want things fully processed. They don't have the time to go and look for the things. They don't necessarily want to go cut the steak.
Now my metaphor starts to fall apart a little bit, but you understand what I'm saying, right? Like, that's, that... People pay because you are doing this great service of curating these little bites for them every day.
Yeah, exactly. And the, the, it proves the model of, like, let's create something that's aligned top to bottom, like, incentive-wise. And, uh, the measurable value is, like, literally whether or not people pay, right?
Yeah. So- And it's ver- it's very much like a create more value than you capture sorta thing. Like, could I push that conversion rate up? Yep. Would I feel awesome about it?
Probably, 'cause I would, like, be able to hire someone or something. Yeah.
But the equalib- r- the equilibrium is such that, like, this thing works as is, and this is a, this was a personal project that became a full-time job. And, like, I'm playing with house money. Yeah.
And that is such a, like, an amazing experience. Are you the only person working on it right now? Yeah. Yeah. So I wanna talk about what I'll call Podgate, and y- you know what I'm about to ask [chuckles] about.
So maybe we need, we, we might need a better name than Podgate, but, uh, you have a podcast that is a quick summary, it's, like, six minutes, of, of what's in the newsletter each day.
Um, a couple months back, I believe, maybe longer, you started using this AI text-to-voice tool.
And previously, this is in your FAQ, it's quite detailed, you wrote that you, uh, over, I'm not, over eight years I think you'd spent over $150,000 paying a human voice actor to read this for you, to read the podcast, and it generated no direct revenue.
You say, I'm quoting, "That is not a financially viable way to run a small business." Makes a ton of sense.
You switched to doing this because this tool became available after you had gone on a hiatus with the podcast once you decided it stopped making sense, and now there's great text-to-voice tools.So you started using them because it's better to have the podcast this way than to not have a podcast at all,
and this was a small controversy in the WTF community. Tell me more. So I always felt that there was a... When I was paying someone to produce and read the, the newsletter version for audio,
it always felt like there was a, a gap I unne-unnecessarily inserted in there, where, like, I separated myself from the work. You know what I mean? Mm-hmm. And, um, not in, like, a terrible, malicious sort of way.
Like, it just... These products can be so parasocial- Yeah... that to have, like, this product by Matt be read by this guy named Joe, uh, there was like a confusion there.
And to be clear, like, the podcast is really just like an audio version of the work. You know, there's no host, co-host kinda thing. It's a four to six minute- No added commentary.
It's just what you get in the newsletter. Yeah. If anything, it's like a, a slightly tighter version 'cause it's revised for audio.
Going into the 2024 election, I didn't know, like, the outcome of the election, and I didn't know, um, what kind of business, like, I would have in 2026 and beyond.
And one of the thoughts was I need to, I need to kinda get back to basics and, and sort of pull in all my expenses.
So, like, I eliminated a bunch of, like, little tools and applets I had, like, been paying for to save some money.
Not that I was in, like, dire straits or anything, but, you know, you could just feel like- Batten down the hatches a bit. Just make sure that you are set up for the long term.
If you're committing to doing this for the next four years of this presidency, that you don't know what's gonna happen, let's make sure I can do it. Yeah, exactly. It's like a tour of duty.
Like, what do I need to, like, re-up for the tour of duty? And one of that was, like, to get, like, crisper on the finances, and here was a product...
My single biggest, like, outlay of expenses was, like, producing this podcast that, like, man, I don't know, like maybe 1,000 people listen to a day, and it generated no revenue because I didn't do ads or sponsorship.
It, uh... There's no easy way to get someone to go from, like, listening on their smart speaker to, like, jump into the website to punch in their credit card information to pay for this thing that's free.
Like, it, the, it's just really hard. And so I decided to pause it. Wasn't kill it, but, like, pause it.
Was figure out how to retool this and, like, make another go at it in a way that made, like, financial sense to do it in a sustainable way.
And I heard from a lot of people that they missed the audio version, and I was like, "This is weird." Like- All 1,000 of them? [chuckles] Yeah.
Like, the analytics do not, like, bear this out, but, like, may- like, maybe I'm missing something. I don't know. And so spent a few months trying to figure out how to get there.
Sort of in that time, like, tools like Descript and ElevenLab sort of, like, really get good,
and, I mean, I think in general the sort of AI world has made, like, a couple step functions in the last, like, 12 to 18 months. Mm-hmm. And so I...
So after a year of, like, having no audio edition, I wanted to bring it back. It was the number one thing people had asked for in, like, surveys and, uh, just through, like, you know, emails inbound.
So I was like, "Okay, I'm gonna do this in my voice, but I don't have the time to read this every day," because it's not just, like, one take, sit down, read the news. These things take a little bit of time.
There's a little bit of editing. There's a little, like, zsh in it. And also, like, I have a hard stop every day when I have to go pick my child up from school. [chuckles] I do not have the bandwidth to do this.
So the only way I could figure out how to, like, add this thing was to clone my voice,
use a text-to-speech tool to take what I w- my, like, my words, my writings, and turn it into an audio product so that it presented as me, and I was responsible for it, and I thought I was giving the audience, like,
what they had asked for. And it turns out, um, I think I misunderestimated the number of people, especially on my list, who happened...
Like, the, like, cohort of people who are young happened to be, like, extremely anti-AI. This- And I didn't- Well, if... Let me interrupt for a second.
I, I think this is a problem of, like, this is your, the pro- When we were talking about product market fit earlier, your audience is this very liberal-leaning audience, probably pretty anti-tech audience.
So, I mean, I'm, I'm... Maybe I'm getting ahead of it here, but it, it makes perfect sense. It, it does in retrospect. At the time I was like, "Hey, I'm just trying to give you the audio version, guys.
Like, all 1,000 of you. Like, maybe if we push that up a little bit, cool, but, like, I, I'm just trying to, like, add, like, like a little bit more to the product, um, and respond to, like, user needs."
And w-what kinda transpired was I received a ton of, like, really, like, personally, like, terrible, like, hate mail from my own readers who'd been with me forever,
and it sucked, and it was, like, a terrible thing to be like, I worked really hard to get this thing up that I was really proud of, and all I'm hearing is, like, how I'm an asshole, and, like, how dare I?
And I can completely empathize and respect, like, anyone's point of view on these tools. Like, I can't even say I'm, like, fully, like, settled on where I land on this, this whole debate.
I also wouldn't say, like, using a text-to-speech tool is, like, the most egregious use of, like, AI.
I, I also found, like, a deep irony in people being so, like, angry with me for doing thisWhile they're sending it from their Gmail account. And I'm like, you know, like Gemini is built into that, right?
This, well, this to me, you could have done this 15 years ago with a text-to-voice... There have been text-to-voice products for decades, right? Yeah. It's just that now,
and I don't wanna get too deep into, like, the, the AI conversation, but the term AI means everything and nothing, right?
It's one of these terms where, like, if you had just done this 15 years ago with a much worse text-to-voice product, one, people probably wouldn't have liked it 'cause it would've been an inferior product, but two, they also wouldn't have cared, and there would have been no controversy here.
Yeah, and- It's really just that, it's this word. Totally. And, like, my perspective was this is a way to expand my, like, capacities
as, like, a solo operator who doesn't have the budget to, like, hire someone to do this. And, you know, people like to make the argument, "Oh, you get volunteers."
Well, that just, like, shifts the cost of labor back to me as- [laughs]... a manager of people. And, like, I just don't... I, I have neither the time nor the money for that, and that's, like, an unfortunate truth. Yeah.
And, um, it's, like, really unfortunate what happened. I learned a really good lesson in... Basically, what happened was I, um, I replied to one email who told me, "F you for using AI," and I said, "Grow up."
And then I got kinda, like, dragged on Blue Sky, and it wasn't, like... Like, I shouldn't have replied. I get that. I was also really frustrated after, like, hundreds of these things rolled in. Yeah.
And then there was, like, a dog pile where, like, this was clearly being forwarded to other people who then, like, dog piled on me, and it was just like, "This sucks."
I didn't get into this to, like, get dragged like this when I was trying to do something, like, help- Work so hard. Yeah. You know, and like,
I've read enough psychology to know that, like, this is the sort of, like, experience that, uh, can harden one's view on something.
Like, you could either, like, re- like, back away from it and not do it, or you could double down and, like, fully, like, embrace AI and AI tools and everything, just be like, "F you." Like, "I'm doing it."
Um, so, like, I had to, like, really temper myself- Mm... going through this experience. And like, I... The big takeaway for me is, like, this is the first time I got dragged on social, like- In a decade...
since starting this project. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And it was like, that's, that's pretty good.
[laughs] Like, to not, like, be, like, subject of, like, nonsense, like, internet banter ex- like, over all these years, just this one time and this one use case. And like,
what was really interesting afterwards was, like, I went through and I looked at all the unsubscribed emails, and these are people that had been with me for, like, many years.
But these are also readers who had never contributed anything to the success of this project. And so in some ways, like, fine. Mm. Like, like, at the end of the day, this is a small business. Mm.
And it requires people contributing to the success of it. And if, if, you know, this does no longer aligns with your values or, um, this is not for you, that's okay. Yeah. Like- Well-... that's okay...
the question is, 'cause you're still doing the podcast with this, are the numbers up, or are they down on the podcast? It's, like, literally the same. [laughs] I'm like... It, I think the one thing... Yeah. Ugh.
The one thing I, like, I haven't, um, done is, like, promote it very much. Mm.
I, and I think part of it is 'cause, like, I realize there's a strong sensitivity here, and kind of in the background right now I'm trying to f- figure out a...
Is there a better way to thread this needle, a better way to approach it? Um, how can I, like, change, like, m- how I talk about it? You know, like, calling it a podcast using AI was, like, the original sin. You know?
It's like a audio companion edition that really is, like, a text-to-speech tool. Mm-hmm. Um... Have there been...
Like, are there one or two other times in your nine years of doing this where you've stepped on something the wrong way like this? Yeah.
I mean, [sighs] and this wasn't really my- Or just, also just any kind of mistake, like, in the way you ran the business that hurt you financially. Any...
Yeah, d- I'm looking for, like, two mistakes [chuckles] that you've made in, in the last decade. I got some good ones. Oh, buddy.
I'm gonna, I'm gonna give you a couple, and then, like, you can, um, edit the ones out that you don't want. Actually, we're gonna, we're gonna edit out everything, but it's gonna be all oops, all mistakes.
[laughs] Yeah, exactly. Um, I think one... Okay, so one mistake was the, uh, the Biden/Trump debate.
I c- I, like, wrote that how I saw it, which was like, "Here are two elderly men who are, like, fumbling over themselves, and this is terrible. This is such a shit show for America."
And what I forgot was that my audience is, like, people over 65 primarily, and what that resulted in is people feeling defensive and seeing their own mortality- Mm... in that moment. And that sucked, because
they were responding to what I wrote from this emotional place about how they felt. Wow. And what I was trying to communicate was like,
"These guys are neither, neither of them are qualified to run to be President of the United States anymore. Like, this, this is embarrassing for America."
So it's kind of like a, a example of, like, forgetting to remember who your audience is and how they're gonna respond to something. And that they're not you. Yeah.
And I try to keep, I try to keep the reader in mind when I do this stuff, because, like, this isn't really, like, ab- just about my perspective. It's about, like, the w- w- what the product represents to
all of these, like, 200,000 people who all have a different sort of, like, take and slice on life.Um, so th-there's that. Uh, I think another one was, um, in the early days, I wanted to...
I was like s- I think that was, like, back when, um... What's the, what's the site where you, like, um, you get- Double down... people to back a product, and then, like, it- Oh, Kickstarter? Kickstarter, yeah.
Oh, yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm. Like, Kickstarter was popular back then, and I was like, "Oh, like, we should do perks. We'll do, like, stickers, and buttons, and T-shirts, and whatever. Postcards.
Like, WTF-branded postcards to write your, like, representatives." Mm. [laughs] And it was, like, fun and cool to, like, do this. We sourced all the designs from the community.
The problem was, like, I didn't anticipate how expensive merch is to, like, do, like, fulfill it, and I ended up be- like, spending so much more time at the post office- Mm... than I was willing to do.
I just became in the shipping business for this, like, weird... Like, I'd rather someone give me five bucks a month for, like, f- five years- Yeah... than buy two $30 T-shirts once. You know what I mean?
Like, the lifetime value of that member is, like, so much greater if they're paying me directly. And it turned out, after, like, talking to people, like, I explained, like, why I was getting rid of perks.
They were like, "Oh yeah, I don't really want the sticker." [laughs] "I don't want the T-shirt." [laughs] Like, I was like, "Okay, this is an easy decision. We're-" Just support me directly.
We have no merch in the middle that takes all the money anyways. [laughs] Yeah. But, like, the, what, uh, the learning there was, like, some people do like stickers. Yeah.
And there's something about, like, having these fun objects that are, like, ar- like, physical artifacts that can live on a f- refrigerator or something. Yeah. Uh, okay.
In an interview with our mutual friend, Liz Kelly Nelson, a little over a year ago, you said, I'm quoting you here from this, "I am mentally committed to doing it for another four years.
I think of it as, like, a tour of duty," you said this earlier. "In four years, that will be 12 years I've been doing this.
I'll have done three different presidencies, and at the end of that, I can decide whether or not to keep doing this or do something else." So there's two questions here. The first one is,
for the remainder of this tour of duty, three years, do you have anything planned that you really wanna accomplish, or you were just talking about these merch experiments, something like that that you wanna do?
Or is it sort of stay the path, I know what I'm doing, I'm gonna keep doing this for at least the next three years? Or do you have, like, a specific thing planned you wanna try?
I think the challenge that I have is that the product today is basically the exact same product it was nine years ago. It's complete. Yeah. And it's, um,
you know, for someone who likes to make things, and tinker, and try stuff,
I've tried a ton of experiments over the years, forums, and comments, and Q&As, and all, all these sort of things, and the audience always, like, came back to, like, I just want the, the utility tool.
And on one hand, that's, like, a really, like, defeating position to be in, be like, "Cool, I'm just gonna, like, click clack on my keyboard today and, like, churn out yet another post."
Like, how do I, how do I, like, fill my bucket, and how do I, like- Yeah... stay engaged myself? And so I wrote all these little experiments on the side as, like, um, tinkering, you know? Like, I'll, I will do...
I've never wanted to, like, put myself in the product as, like, the main character, even though I, I am.
I think it, the, the product works better when if you stripped away the branding, and, like, the little, like, emoji reaction that I do every day.
Like, it's a pretty straight, like, executive summary of the news- Yeah... that's, like, sourced and cited. And but there's these little moments for, like, personal expression where
people realize there's a real human at the other end of this thing. Like, a typo is, like, actually a positive. Yeah.
It's like, uh, it sucks to have a typo and send out, like, this thing to a bunch of people, but it's awesome to get, like, hundreds of emails being like, "You have a typo." Oh, here's a mistake I made.
I wanna tell- Because it's a reminder you exist. [laughs] Exactly, which is more important today than ever with, like, the, the AI tools coming out, and we're gonna...
The, the media, like, newsletter ecosystem is gonna be flooded with, like, low-grade, like, AI summarized content or generated content, and it probably already is. Like, it's only gonna get worse. Mm.
But, like, for instance, one time, I sent out the, like, default, like, starter template that I use every day, which is literally all lorem ipsum,
and I sent this thing out, and I just have thousands of emails being like, "I don't speak Latin." [laughs] Like, what is this? And I was like, "Ah, joke's on you." Your base essentially know what lorem ipsum is.
[laughs] I was like, "Joke's on you. It's not even Latin. It's just, like, gobbledygook." [laughs] But, um, so, like, for me, the things that I've, have been really exciting me are like, how do I,
how do I connect with the audience on, like, a personal level and find ways to connect, like, to deepen this relationship while doing the thing that they're, like, they show up for? Yeah.
It's like, come for the news product, stay for the, stay for the relationship. And so I'll do things like
I don't tell people, like, how to think about the news, like, or give my opinion really, but, like, occasionally I'll be like, "Hey, this is kind of messed up. Like, how are you, like, handling with, handling this?"
Or, "How are you feeling about this?" Yeah. And I'll get all these, like, v-very raw, honest responses from readers being like, "Yeah, this sucks.
I think about, like, my grandkids," or, "I think about, like, you know-In my day, things were, like, so much better.
Like, it's really sad that my children don't e-get to experience the world the way it looks like the world I had, right? What I learn regularly is, like, the more I connect with
the readers at a personal level, the deeper this relationship goes and the more trust that they have in me, and I think that's really where the value lies. Like, for creators who are creating, like,
especially, like, what I do, like, a curated aggregator product, I think it's, like, where the value lies moving forward and how you build a resilient business,
um, and defend against, like, sort of the, the AI slop that is coming for everyone. Mm-hmm. And so, like, some of the things I'm trying to...
I'm in a kind of a quiet period on this right now, but I'm, like, trying to get it out the door, is what are the things I can do routinely
that regularly, like, connect with readers at this level without interrupting the product? And so one of them is this idea of just, like, a call and response where I ask a...
I, like, share how I'm feeling about something specific, solicit feedback. I'll, like, cobble that together and put together a summary and be like, "Here's what you guys said." Mm.
And what's really cool about that is, like, I get readers being like, "I didn't respond to you, but I feel so seen. Like, it's so great knowing that other people feel the same way I do."
And it reminds me that, like, so many people consume this content alone, like, on their phone, on their computer. They, they're just at home or on the bus or whatever it is. And when you give...
When you create these, like, moments of, like, like, a shared community... Like, it's not a real community. It's, like, a shared reality, uh, like, sort of like a connection point. Yeah.
People really respond to that in a positive way. So a lot of what I'm trying to think about is, like, how to do more of that. On the anniversary of the 2024 election, I created a little tool that was, like, um...
It was, like, very, uh, oh, shoot, what do you call it? Like, a Mad Libs style, like- Mm-hmm... form builder where it was like, "Before the election, I was feeling like this.
After the election, I was feeling like this, and a year later, I'm feeling like this. And as I look to the future," and it was, like, write in the blank.
And, you know, it was like, it was like a build your last year in one sentence experience. And what I did is I built a little page that would live update in real time as these responses came in.
And, like, you know, maybe it was a little, like, gimmicky, but I made it as, like, uh, as if they were, like, handwritten Post-it notes, uh, s- different colors and sizes and all that. Um, and I...
For me, that was, like, a fun, fun thing to do was, like, build this little tool. But the value was, like, in just seeing all of these responses come in, like, super raw and emotional and- Wow...
you know, you give people an opportunity to say something, they usually will, like, fill it. But if you give them, like, a
sort of like a safe space that feels anonym- that is anonymous, like in this case it was, like, people will say some, like, real powerful shit, and it's, like, really, really cool. And
a lot of what I'm doing is trying to think about how to really double down into that space 'cause I think it just reveals, like, a certain humanity that we lose sight of in all of the, the terrible news and, like, thinking about running businesses and, you know, like, kinda get back to basics and, like, you know, Joe Strummer said something like, "You need to drag humanity back to the center of the ring," and like- Mm...
let's, like, pay attention to that for a while. And the other thing St. Joe Strummer also said was, uh, "Without people, you're nothing," and I think that's, like,
one of the most true things I've ever, ever heard, and it ca- and it carries with me every day. Yeah. You know, I had...
I was thinking of asking do you think you'll be doing this for another tour of duty, uh, but it's probably too easy or too early
to figure that out, and I really love where you just brought us, so I think we'll end it right here. Sounds great. Thanks for the time. [laughs] Yeah. Thank you for coming on. And listener, we will see you next week.
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