#126 - Chris Best and Jonathan Gill

Chris Best is the cofounder and CEO of Substack. Substack makes it simple for a writer to start a paid newsletter. They were in the Winter 2018 batch of YC. You can check them out at Substack.com.Jonathan Gill is the cofounder and CEO of Backtracks. Backtracks is a podcast analytics and hosting platform. You can check them out at Backtracks.fm.Chris is on Twitter @cjgbest and Jonathan is @jgill333.The YC podcast is hosted by Craig Cannon.Y Combinator invests a small amount of money ($150k) in a large number of startups (recently 200), twice a year. Learn more about YC and apply for funding here: https://www.ycombinator.com/apply/***Topics00:00 - Intro1:03 - Paid vs advertising in podcasting3:33 - Are advertisers overpaying for podcast ads?6:13 - What percent of the market will ultimately be paid content?8:13 - Payment mechanisms9:48 - Price anchoring12:28 - Individual creators vs brands17:23 - Deplatforming18:53 - Spotify20:23 - Discovery and growth in newsletters22:53 - Public and private feeds25:23 - Apple's role26:38 - Will education be the driver of paid content?30:23 - Educational podcasters in China32:23 - How are their newsletter and podcast customers growing?36:18 - Jack Ryder asks - In 5 years time, are personal newsletters going to replace social networks like Facebook?38:13 - Debdut Mukherjee asks - Do podcasts actually work? If so, how do startups calculate the ROI & the CAC?43:38 - Measurement45:23 - Best practices for new podcasters and newsletter creators