What's really behind the Substack wave (tsunami)? And what's the point?
My take on the Substack as a brand marketing mentor, the creator economy, founder led hype, and the great social media decline. Are traditional email newsletters archaic? What's happening RN.
What’s Inside:
Originally this was one post, then it got in deep, so I’ve split it up into two and I’m glad I did because since then, I today I saw this post by Em Austen, which alludes to some similar thinking…so I’m not the only one.
Part One: What’s really behind the Substack wave and where are we heading? (this one)
The creator economy, creatorpreneurs, founder-led brand hype, the “New Social Media”, declining IG numbers, and followers not being cool anymore - how they all contribute toward the Substack
wave…tsnamiWhere are we heading? What should you do? Do you need a Substack? Is it right for you?
Is Substack making the traditional email newsletter kind of archaic? Hint, yes and no.
Part Two: My strategy for making the move with month 1 metrics & takeaways (next post)
My decision process and strategy for migrating from Flodesk to Substack for my weekly newsletter.
The marketer’s comparison between Email Marketing and Substack.
Going from coming soon for 2 years, to ranking on the Rising in Business list + paid subscription
The verdict and takeaways from my first 4 weeks of the platform migration
ICYMI: Hi, I’m Sax! A brand marketing mentor and business coach for beauty, wellness, and lifestyle founders and early stage teams, Creating Forward is my business, the name of this Substack, and my life mantra.
I’m 44 yr Aussie girl, I live in Venice Beach after almost 10 years in NYC. I write about brands, marketing, entrepreneurship, navigating the 40’s chapter, health, and self work :) more in my “intro” post here.
When it came to my decision to move my newsletter to Substack, I had to sit and watch before the time felt right.
Like catching a wave in surfing. I had the board, I was out there bobbing, watching, paddling, watching, paddling, watching, paddling, then I was ready to go for it.
As an inherent trend observer, I’ve been watching this wave called Substack since 2023.
Wave or tsunami?! From 22M to 47M
As a Founder, Entrepreneur and Marketing Mentor for other businesses, I pay extreme attention to all kinds cultural shifts in consumer behavior.
CONTENT is one of those.
Specifically, in 2025, with the “Creator Economy” and “Founder Led Brands” terms are blowing up.
These are massive contributors to the Substack tsunami.
Here’s what I mean:
Let’s start with the terms “Creator Economy” and “Creatorpreneur”
When things evolved from “influencers” to “Creators”, creators were traditionally posting on You Tube, Instagram, and Tik Tok as their primary channels.
In 2025, we’ve seen them pivot into Creatorpreneurs, launching products, digital courses, and - newsletters.
They know, Content = Business.
This isn’t all good.
Unfortunately, not all Creators are equipped with the experience or expertise to be touting programs and courses, beyond being good at content…
And -
The fact I find it baffling, is that there are all these super talented people out there with incredible skills and proof of their skill, AKA paying clients and big career milestones, who really can help founders and business owners as coaches, or mentors or fractionals etc, but, they struggle to find clients - because - their skill doesn’t happen to be creating content…and/or, they just can’t be effed with it.
I talked about this in The Pull Toward Service-Based Entrepreneurship Workshop I co-hosted with my co-founder in The Pull, a new venture with Billy last week for a bunch of service-based business owners.
On this - I also loved this article by Emily M Austen “Why the Pressure to Show Up Online is Quietly Breaking Ambitious People - How “showing up online” quietly became everyone’s second, unpaid job.”
#3 - OOF.
Seeing Emma’s post-engagement and the fact that we had almost 100 registrants for our workshop, tells us, it’s real.
That’s an entirely other deep dive, but I loved reading her take on it.
On the good side of all this!!
Here are some examples of Creatorpreneurs I admire - they have taken their personal clout, ability to create content (and proven business expertise!) and built a product ecosystem around it.
Funnily enough, they are all on Beehiiv (Alex has just joined Substack too though)
OG content creator thought leader, JT Barnett has had Extra Value for years, he has always shown up with a value-first approach, providing key insights for brands and founders on the content world.
His product ecosystem includes an agency doing social media strategy for bigger brands, keynote speaking, consulting, newsletter, podcast, and brand deals.
I haven’t seen anything low-mid ticket from him yet in terms of education.
Adrian Per, a content creator I recently met has done something similar, taking his expertise as a top-tier film director to educational content.
He pivoted his expertise into thought leadership as an educreator - did I make that up?
His product ecosystem includes social content, a newsletter, brand deals, and he launched his first mid-ticket course recently.
Hot Smart Rich - Maggie Sellers is this week’s STELLAR success story for women, raising 7-figures from Steven Bartlett and joining the Flight Story portfolio - BRAVO!!!!
Maggie started similarly to JT, with high-value content, taking her expertise in investing and branding building, to create and share educational and highly relatable content on IG and TT
Her product ecosystem now includes a podcast, weekly newsletter, and merch, plus brand deals and speaking engagements
My friend, Alex, the creator and founder of Join Girls Club media platform
Alex was a lifestyle and wellness influencer who had proof of building a personal brand over 100 K. Her first pivot was creating mini courses to teach people to do the same back in 2022 or 3ish (check me Alex, did I listen!?)
In 2025 she launched Girls Club, as a media platform, sharing a mix of culturally relatable memes (highly shareable) and educational value content (saveable) centered on personal branding for founders, at exactly the time that topic blew up, plus brand breakdowns
Her product ecosystem, beyond content, includes her newsletter, On Brand, on Beehiiv like HSR, but recently launched it on Substack as well, plus, brand deals, low-ticket templates and guides, free workshops, and 1:1 consulting. Alex is also the creator of a content management app, Self Made.
Ok, so that’s Point 1 down in the “what’s driving the Substack tsnami”~ the Creatorpreneur evolution.
For Point 2, I’d like to look at the HUGE focus on “Founder Led Brands” and “Founder Led Content”.
Again, it started on typical social channels like TikTok and Instagram, with the “building in public” strategy.
I wrote about this a while ago in my original newsletter, and again here on Substack.
FYI: It’s not a “hey you need to be a personal brand to be a successful founder” kind of post, it’s a “hey, let’s work out what the core elements of your founder story are, and figure out what’s right for you” post
A few success stories I enjoyed following from the early days, include:
Strawberry Milk Mob went crazy with her Reason number #X on why I love men, and would proceed to say something pretty ridiculous and funny about her boyfriend that was SO relatable. She sells bikinis, but wasn’t even talking about them much back then. Now she sells a lot of bikinis.
Hot Girl Pickles started way back when with “Day X of two girls creating a pickle brand for hot girls”, people were so bought in, they’ve since collaborated with some massive brands, are sold in every cool grocer and big box ones, raised a Pre-Seed round of capital to build a snack empire - renamed Good Girl Snacks.
Cut to 2024 and 2025 - Founders are moving on.
Now, they are finding ways to share their POV in new ways, and it’s longer form.
Like a podcast, LinkedIn thought leadership, events, panels, business diaries, and deeper BTS, which works very well over here on Substack.
Substack is also just a great alternative for founders who don’t want to get on camera or get bogged down with creating Reels and Carousels when they could be doing other things in their zone of genius.
A few past collaborators, clients, and friends’ founder substacks I love to read:
Lauren Sudeyko, Sleep or Die Diaries
Skin in The Game, Dr Prasanthi (she chooses the BEST vintage style shots)
Now, for Point 3, in the “what’s driving the Substack tsnami”.
Let’s add to the first 2 points that the “great social media decline and fatigue” is a real thing.
I’m sure you saw these particular posts that blew UP in the last few weeks?
Need I say more?
All of this is to say - people are looking for something else, to consume, and to create.
Substack is the next best logical platform for any creator or person with valuable things to say, and a desire to have a two way dialogue with their readers, especially if they’re sick of dealing with the finicky content parameters of IG and TT, like filming, editing, hooks, and of course the algorithm.
Considering all of this, Substack has a pretty solid case right?
So, as a marketer, deciding if this was right for me, and Founders or business owners in my community, something else I really started to think about was:
“Is the traditional email newsletter kind of archaic?”
For the next part, I did a full breakdown of one V the other.
But, this is where I decided to split this edition into two, which I’m sure you’ll agree is a good decision.
I’ve given you a lot to chew on.
I’d love to hear what you think of this topic.
Did it help you think about Substack differently?
Do you have a gameplan for how you’re going to show up here or somewhere else with longer-form content?
I can help you figure that out, or we can just chat about where we’re heading with business and content.
Drop a comment below or in the Chat, because that’s the coolest thing about Substack right?
These posts become dialogue.
- Sax, X
So interesting that AI has actually contributed to people wanting more meaningful conversations and connections
You're amazing with your wealth of knowledge. Love to see the Sax on a rising substack list too!! xxx