u/Final_jelly_7

Substack absolutely fascinates me. I've mentioned in a couple other posts that I've been doing a lot of research into how people actually grow on Substack. What I've found is actually way more people asking about how to grow and very little insight.

The tension I keep coming back to is this: Substack does a great job of feeling human for a growth-oriented tech platform.

A lot of people come to the platform because they are exhausted by the rest of the internet. They want a place where writing still feels like writing, something that does not feel like it was A/B tested into beige sludge. Personally, I love reading strange essays, personal dispatches, overlooked stories, independent journalism, weird fiction, niche expertise, actual taste, actual voice. I get that, and it's a huge part of why I like the platform.

For context, I run a VC fund, and I use Substack for my newsletter, although the newsletter is not really "about VC" most of the time. One minute I'm writing through an investment thesis, the next I'm writing absurdist recursive fiction about something that definitely did not happen but somehow felt like it did. I care a lot about creativity, especially writing, and I think Substack is one of the more interesting places on the internet right now.

But because I come from the startup and venture side, I also can't unsee the mechanics. There are recommendations, Notes, rankings, paid conversion, welcome emails, subscriber dashboards, growth loops, social proof, audience portability, cross-promotions, network effects. It is not fully algo-optimized in the TikTok or YouTube or Instagram sense, and that's part of the appeal, but it is absolutely a growth-oriented platform.

The mechanics are there, and they work. Intimacy converts, trust retains, taste differentiates, and voice compounds. A direct relationship with readers is beautiful, and it is also a business model. Substack is not currently an ad-driven feed in the way the giant social platforms are, and that's part of its moral and aesthetic appeal. But if the platform is not primarily monetizing by shoving ads between posts, then the money has to come from somewhere, and that somewhere is paid subscriptions.

What actually drives growth here is taking the principles of growth-bro marketing (reader journeys, funnels, value-add offers) and boiling them down to what they really are, which is creating an experience for your readers. Your welcome email should be linking to your best pieces. Then you should go back into those best pieces with the eye that you want to drop share and subscribe CTAs in the places that make sense, and the CTAs should be on-brand and engaging. People need direction. If you've got recurring bits or references, drop those links inline (the medium-size Substack article embed is great for this). Make your about page rich and engaging.

Your million-dollar offer, or whatever Hormozi's schtick is, isn't going to be a course on how to sell courses about courses. It's going to be something more like: "I'm going to create a universe here that's deep, immersive, curated, personal, intelligent, rowdy, chaotic, a vibe, whatever, and I'm going to give you a ton of value for free. When you come to my Substack, you've entered my bubble. I'm the writer, and I'm the personality who is a writer."

That sounds a lot like being an influencer or having a personal brand because it is. That's growth, that's the internet, and that's Substack, just with drop caps.

The job is not to make the work less strange but to make the strangeness easier to enter, and distribution is how the work finds the people it was meant for. Growth is the architecture that lets the human-feeling thing survive.

After wrapping up our process, I thought it might be useful to offer some concrete advice in whatever way possible so doing an AMA.

I’ve been actively involved with recruiting, mentorship, and career development throughout my career in finance, and this year a few things really stood out to me:

• Lots of applications felt AI-generated, especially the short-answer responses. Becomes obvious when you're looking at a table of typeform answers.
• "Value-add" attachments. This year more than ever before I saw investment memos for Andruil, DCFs for OpenAI, DefenseTech market maps. I'm a pre-seed b2b software investor.
• A lot of resumes felt overly padded, with stacked roles, two-week “winternships,” remote fellowships. Hard to believe you learned anything.

I get why students are doing this. The internship market is competitive, everyone is trying to stand out, and people are getting conflicting advice from TikTok, LinkedIn, career centers, friends, AI tools, and random resume templates.

I’m happy to answer questions about resumes, cold emails, interviews, VC and startup internships, what stood out, what blended in, common mistakes, and what I’d do differently if I were applying today.

AMA.

Genuine question from someone who hires interns but does not have kids.

Quick background on why I even care: long time ago, I was a community college dropout who got the idea that I needed to be an investment banker. I had to figure the path out on my own and I’ve stayed close to recruiting ever since.

Today, I run a small venture capital fund, and we recently hired for our summer internship. In all my years hiring interns and being around recruiting, this was the first time I had parents reach out to me on behalf of their kids. I’d never had one. This year I heard from seven.

Let me be super clear, this is not about judgement. I don’t blame parents for wanting to help their kids out. There’s a lot of uncertainty in the world right now and it also feels like everyone else has some cheat code, connection, angle, or playbook that you somehow do not have access to. I get why parents would want to help.

It is really competitive. To put some numbers around it, we are a tiny shop that you have never heard of and we had something like 250+ applications plus countless emails and DMs for one spot.

What felt new to me was the degree of parental involvement around the actual process, especially from people I genuinely had no meaningful connection to. It wasn’t anything demanding or rude, but it was very much like they were trying to “coffee chat” me for their kid, ask about the process, open the door, get advice, make the intro, follow up, etc.

That’s not to say parents haven’t ever been involved at all. Back in my investment banking days, it was the random senior banker who’d materialize at my desk a couple hours before an interview block like “hey bud, I heard you’re talking with Jimmy today. I told him to wear a tie, so if he shows up looking like an idiot, let me know.”

Obviously, that conversation was not actually about Jimmy’s tie.

From the parent perspective, does internship and early-career recruiting now feel like an arena where your kids need real support from you? Is this the college search-ification of early careers? Like has the process become confusing enough that expecting them to figure it out alone feels unrealistic?

For those of you with college-age kids, how do you think about this?