Building Substack | Sachin Monga (Substack, Facebook)

Sachin Monga: I really think that we're just starting into this golden era of what it might mean to be a writer on the internet.

Sachin Monga：我真的认为我们才刚刚开始进入互联网作家的黄金时代。

The economic model for supporting great writing on the internet has been generally pretty terrible for the entirety of the internet's history.

在整个互联网的历史中，支持互联网上伟大写作的经济模式通常是相当糟糕的。

In the early days of Substack, there's a couple of these glimmers of hope where you'd have people like Matt Taibbi or Bill Bishop, some of the early writers on Substack that were really well established writers who were clearly just being undervalued and now could come to Substack and see their true value.

在 Substack 的早期，有一些一线希望，像 Matt Taibbi 或 Bill Bishop 这样的人，Substack 的一些早期作家，都是非常成熟的作家，他们显然只是被低估了，现在可以来到 Substack 并看到他们的真正价值。

Sachin Monga: And that was awesome.

Sachin Monga：那太棒了。

That was really cool to see.

看到这真是太酷了。

But in the last year or so, even in the last few months, I think there's been so many really interesting success stories now from writers who might not even consider themselves writers.

但在过去一年左右，甚至在过去几个月里，我认为现在有很多非常有趣的成功故事，这些故事来自那些甚至可能不认为自己是作家的作家。

People who are able to make a living, maybe even make a fortune just doing great work and not needing to have millions and millions of viewers or play the attention games of other networks, but just do really high quality work and have a relatively small number of people value it highly enough to pay for it.

人们能够靠做出色的工作谋生，甚至可能发大财，不需要拥有数以百万计的观众或玩其他网络的注意力游戏，但只需做真正高质量的工作，并且有相对少数的人足够重视它并为此付费。

Lenny: Welcome to Lenny's Podcast.

莱尼：欢迎来到莱尼的播客。

I'm Lenny, and my goal here is to help you get better at the craft of building and growing products.

我是莱尼，我的目标是帮助您更好地构建和种植产品。

Today, my guest is Sachin Monga, who is currently the head of product at Substack.

今天，我的嘉宾是 Sachin Monga，他目前是 Substack 的产品负责人。

Before Substack, he had a startup called Cocoon that he sold to Substack.

在 Substack 之前，他有一家名为 Cocoon 的初创公司，后来他将其卖给了 Substack。

And before that, he spent over seven years at Facebook working on the video and camera products, building out the developer platform, and leading the ads growth team.

在此之前，他在 Facebook 工作了七年多，负责视频和相机产品、构建开发者平台并领导广告增长团队。

In our conversation, we dig into all things Substack, what it's like to build product at Substack, how different it is to work at a startup versus a big company like Facebook, the future of the Substack product.

在我们的谈话中，我们深入探讨了 Substack 的所有内容，在 Substack 构建产品是什么样的，在初创公司工作与在 Facebook 这样的大公司工作有何不同，以及 Substack 产品的未来。

Lenny: We also spent a lot of time on what I venture to say will go down in history as one of the most legendary growth features ever created, the Substack recommendations feature.

Lenny：我们还花了很多时间研究我敢说将作为有史以来最具传奇色彩的增长功能之一载入史册的子堆栈推荐功能。

Substack as a product and a company has changed my life and allowed me to do the work that I do now, and it was such a treat to be able to chat with Sachin.

Substack 作为一个产品和一家公司改变了我的生活，让我能够完成现在所做的工作，能够与 Sachin 聊天真是一种享受。

I hope that you find this conversation as interesting as I did.

我希望你和我一样觉得这次谈话很有趣。

With that, I bring you Sachin Monga.

接下来，我为您带来 Sachin Monga。

Who has an opinion on internal tools?

谁对内部工具有意见？

Internal tools are something you probably don't think about until you have to, or it probably didn't even occur to you to think about them.

内部工具是您在必要时可能不会考虑的东西，或者您可能根本没有想到要考虑它们。

Lenny: But if you work at a big company, you probably have a bunch of one-off custom apps or dashboards that are laser focused on just one job to be done for one specific team or just one role, and they're always such a huge pain to build and maintain.

Lenny：但是如果你在一家大公司工作，你可能有一堆一次性的自定义应用程序或仪表板，它们只专注于为一个特定团队或一个角​​色完成的一项工作，而且构建和维护它们总是非常痛苦。

And that's why I'm such a big fan of Retool and why I think Retool is so popular.

这就是为什么我是 Retool 的忠实粉丝，也是我认为 Retool 如此受欢迎的原因。

Retool allows teams as small as just one person to build a suite of custom internal apps in a fraction of the time that you think it takes.

Retool 允许小至只有一个人的团队在您认为所需时间的一小部分内构建一套自定义内部应用程序。

The productivity gains of custom apps is now within reach, not just for large enterprises but for small teams as well.

定制应用程序的生产力提升现在触手可及，不仅对于大型企业，对于小型团队也是如此。

And as you scale, your company Retool scales with you.

随着您的扩展，您的公司 Retool 也会随着您的扩展而扩展。

Lenny: Snowflake saves about 26 hours a week of manual spreadsheet work with custom internal apps built on Retool.

Lenny：Snowflake 使用基于 Retool 构建的自定义内部应用程序，每周可以节省大约 26 个小时的手动电子表格工作时间。

Amazon uses Retool to handle GDPR requests.

Amazon 使用 Retool 来处理 GDPR 请求。

Thousands of teams at companies like Coinbase, DoorDash, and NBC collaborate around custom-built Retool apps to operate with greater efficiency.

Coinbase、DoorDash 和 NBC 等公司的数千个团队围绕定制的 Retool 应用程序进行协作，以提高运营效率。

Maybe you've thought about using Retool before, but just haven't and I'm here to tell you that now teams of up to five can build unlimited Retool apps for free.

也许您以前考虑过使用 Retool，但只是还没有，我在这里告诉您，现在最多 5 人的团队可以免费构建无限的 Retool 应用程序。

Get started today at Retool.com/lenny.

今天就开始访问 Retool.com/lenny。

Do you want to reduce friction in your onboarding flow?

您想减少入职流程中的摩擦吗？

Then let me tell you about Stytch, and that's Stytch with a Y.

然后让我告诉你关于 Stytch 的事，那就是带有 Y 的 Stytch。

Lenny: Stytch is on a mission to eliminate friction from the internet.

Lenny：Stytch 的使命是消除互联网上的摩擦。

There's starting by making user authentication and onboarding more seamless and more secure.

首先是让用户身份验证和登录变得更加无缝和安全。

They offer super flexible out-of-the-box authentication solutions for companies of all sizes.

他们为各种规模的公司提供超级灵活的开箱即用的身份验证解决方案。

From email magic links to SMS passcodes, one tap social logins to even biometrics, Stytch is your all-in-one platform for authentication.

从电子邮件魔术链接到短信密码、一键式社交登录甚至生物识别技术，Stytch 是您的一体化身份验证平台。

Stytch customers have been able to increase conversion by over 60% after spending just one day integrating.

Stytch 客户仅花费一天时间进行集成后，转化率就提高了 60% 以上。

And with their API and SDKs, you can improve user conversion and retention and security all while saving valuable engineering time.

借助他们的 API 和 SDK，您可以提高用户转化率、保留率和安全性，同时节省宝贵的工程时间。

Lenny: Your engineers will come and thank you for using Stytch, because Stytch keeps you from having to build authentication in house and the integration process is super fast and super smooth.

Lenny：您的工程师会来感谢您使用 Stytch，因为 Stytch 使您无需在内部构建身份验证，并且集成过程超级快速且超级顺利。

To get $1,000 in free credits, just go to Stytch.com/lenny to sign up, and that's Stytch with a Y.

要获得 1,000 美元的免费积分，只需访问 Stytch.com/lenny 进行注册，这就是带 Y 的 Stytch。

Sachin, welcome to the podcast.

萨钦，欢迎来到播客。

Lenny: I'm actually really excited to have you on.

莱尼：实际上我很高兴你能参加。

I've told you this before, I've told the founders before, Substack has changed my life in so many ways.

我之前已经告诉过你，我之前已经告诉过创始人，Substack 在很多方面改变了我的生活。

There's no way that I would be doing what I'm doing now if not for Substack and just like the magical combination of features that you all built.

如果没有 Substack 以及你们所构建的功能的神奇组合，我不可能做我现在正在做的事情。

I'm also just really curious about how you all build the platform, where it's going, how it all works behind the scenes.

我也很好奇你们是如何构建这个平台的，它的发展方向，以及它在幕后是如何运作的。

Again, thank you for being here.

再次感谢您来到这里。

Sachin Monga: I'm so happy to be here, and that's so great to hear.

Sachin Monga：我很高兴来到这里，听到这个消息真是太好了。

Lenny: Just to set a little context for folks, can you just talk about how you got to Substack?

Lenny：为了给大家介绍一下背景，您能谈谈您是如何进入 Substack 的吗？

You're currently head of product at Substack.

您目前担任 Substack 的产品主管。

What was that journey to Substack?

Substack 的旅程是什么？

Sachin Monga: I joined Substack around a year ago now exactly through an acquisition.

Sachin Monga：大约一年前，我通过一次收购加入了 Substack。

I'd started a company called Cocoon about three years prior to that with my good friend Alex Cornell.

大约三年前，我和我的好朋友亚历克斯·康奈尔 (Alex Cornell) 创办了一家名为 Cocoon 的公司。

Cocoon is not like Substack.

Cocoon 与 Substack 不同。

It was essentially a little photo sharing app for close friends and family, but there is a common thread which led us to Substack, which was prior to starting Cocoon, Alex and I had both worked at Facebook for a number of years and had worked on effectively the same problem of helping people share more with their friends and family and had all these ideas for what an idealized experience might look like.We just kept running into the wall that you run into when ultimately advertising is the business model that is powering this whole thing, and what that means is you need to accumulate a lot of time spent and attention and convert that into basically sellable eyeballs.

它本质上是一个供亲密朋友和家人使用的小照片共享应用程序，但有一个共同点引导我们使用 Substack，这是在创建 Cocoon 之前，Alex 和我都在 Facebook 工作了很多年，并且有效地解决了帮助人们与朋友和家人分享更多内容的相同问题，并且对理想化体验可能是什么样子有所有这些想法。花费大量的时间和注意力，并将其转化为基本上可销售的眼球。

But it's not that hard to imagine what a better solution would be.

但不难想象更好的解决方案是什么。

It's just that ads as the business model made it really hard to pull that off.

只是广告作为商业模式使其很难实现。

Cocoon was in a lot of ways like a journey to explore what that might look like for this one particular use case of just helping you feel close to a handful of people.

Cocoon 在很多方面就像一次旅程，探索这个特定用例可能会是什么样子，只是帮助你与少数人建立亲密关系。

Sachin Monga: We always looked up to Substack as a really good example of basically that same principle, which is if you imagine rewiring the internet around paid subscriptions, direct subscriptions between, in Substack's case, readers and writers, what could that unlock and could it unlock a clearly better user experience?

Sachin Monga：我们一直将 Substack 视为基本相同原理的一个很好的例子，也就是说，如果你想象围绕付费订阅重新连接互联网，在 Substack 的情况下，读者和作者之间直接订阅，这可以解锁什么，并且可以解锁明显更好的用户体验吗？

We looked at Substack as a real inspiration and an example of that really working out and got to know the founders pretty well and had a few conversations and realized that even though the blogging software and the photo sharing app are pretty different, our underlying motivations were really consistent.

我们将 Substack 视为真正的灵感和真正有效的例子，并且非常了解创始人并进行了几次对话，并意识到尽管博客软件和照片共享应用程序有很大不同，但我们的潜在动机确实是一致的。

Sachin Monga: It was a bit of a match made in heaven and the whole team joined Substack a year ago.

Sachin Monga：这有点天作之合，整个团队一年前就加入了 Substack。

I've been privileged enough to get to lead the product and design teams, and it's been a blast so far.

我很荣幸能够领导产品和设计团队，到目前为止，一切都很顺利。

Lenny: Before your startup, you're at Facebook for a number of years, is that right?

Lenny：在创业之前，您在 Facebook 工作了很多年，对吗？

Sachin Monga: Yes.

萨钦·蒙加：是的。

I started in 2011 there on the growth team and had the chance to work on a bunch of different teams there, growth, platform, ads, and then eventually the team we called Sharing, which was helping people share more in the main Facebook app.

我于 2011 年开始在增长团队工作，并有机会在那里的许多不同团队工作，包括增长、平台、广告，最后加入了我们称为“共享”的团队，该团队帮助人们在 Facebook 主应用程序中分享更多内容。

Lenny: Sweet.

莱尼：甜甜的。

I want to spend a little time on that, but coming back to Substack, I'm curious just how the product team runs.

我想花一点时间在这上面，但回到 Substack，我很好奇产品团队的运作方式。

How many PMs do y'all have?

你们有多少个 PM？

How is it structured?

它的结构如何？

How are you thinking it'll evolve as you scale?

您认为随着规模的扩大，它会如何发展？

What can you share there?

你可以在那里分享什么？

Sachin Monga: Sure.

萨钦·蒙加：当然。

Maybe to start from when I started at Substack, we had zero PMs.

也许从我开始在 Substack 开始，我们的 PM 为零。

We had a handful of designers.

我们有一些设计师。

We had maybe 15 or so engineers.

我们大约有 15 名左右的工程师。

I think we're coming to the close of this kind of one-time inflection point of becoming a product driven company and having a product process and structure and PMs and full stack product teams.

我认为我们即将成为一家产品驱动型公司并拥有产品流程和结构以及产品经理和全栈产品团队的一次性拐点。

When I started at Substack, there was really not much of this.

当我开始在 Substack 工作时，这样的事情真的不多。

We're still pretty early, but we have something going now.

我们还很早，但我们现在有事情要做。

Sachin Monga: We have four product managers in addition to myself, and we have three essentially kind of full stack product teams now that have a PM and an engineering manager, a data person or a designer, engineers and things are starting to roll.

Sachin Monga：除了我自己之外，我们还有四名产品经理，我们现在拥有三个基本上是全栈产品团队，其中有一名 PM 和一名工程经理、一名数据人员或设计师、工程师，一切都开始运转。

We're finally emerging from this transition phase and it's been super fun.

我们终于摆脱了这个过渡阶段，这非常有趣。

Sachin Monga: The three teams are: we have a writer team that serves writers, we have a reader team that serves readers, and we have a growth team that does growthy things.

Sachin Monga：三个团队是：我们有一个为作家服务的作家团队，我们有一个为读者服务的读者团队，还有一个做成长性事情的成长团队。

I should mention, we have a fourth engineering team that's like the systems team that doesn't have a product manager on it, but is keeping the lights on and helping us scale.

我应该提到的是，我们有第四个工程团队，就像系统团队一样，没有产品经理，但负责保持工作并帮助我们扩展规模。

Lenny: Awesome.

莱尼：太棒了。

That makes sense.

这是有道理的。

You currently align it around the type of user plus the platform stuff.

目前，您将其围绕用户类型和平台内容进行调整。

Do you have a sense of where this might evolve over the next few years just structure wise?

您是否知道未来几年在结构方面可能会发生什么变化？

Do you think it'll stick to that?

你认为它会坚持下去吗？

Do you have a plan of how this might radically shift as you grow?

您是否有计划随着您的成长而彻底改变这种情况？

Sachin Monga: Yeah.

萨钦·蒙加：是的。

I'm actually kind of shocked that it's lasted this long and stayed consistent.

事实上，我有点震惊它持续了这么长时间并且保持一致。

I remember at Facebook, we would change our team structure what felt like every three months or six months and just have a reorg every once in a while.

我记得在 Facebook，我们会每三个月或六个月改变一次团队结构，并且每隔一段时间就会进行一次重组。

Part of why I think it's remained pretty consistent is exactly what you mentioned, which is the teams aren't oriented around product surfaces.

我认为它保持相当一致的部分原因正是您提到的，即团队不以产品表面为导向。

We don't have a team that's like the app team or a team that's like the dashboard team or the podcasting team.

我们没有像应用程序团队或仪表板团队或播客团队这样的团队。

We have teams that are oriented around customers and solving bit of a timeless customer problem.

我们的团队以客户为导向，解决一些永恒的客户问题。

We'll never be done serving writers.

我们永远不会停止为作家服务。

Sachin Monga: We just started honestly having a concerted focus on serving readers.

Sachin Monga：我们刚刚开始诚实地集中精力为读者服务。

Growth is never a problem that you check the box off on.

增长从来都不是一个你可以勾选的问题。

I hope that we are able to maintain this general structure.

我希望我们能够维持这个总体结构。

I think as Substack grows and expands, I'm sure we'll have more than three teams.

我认为随着 Substack 的成长和扩展，我确信我们将拥有三个以上的团队。

This is where we're at right now, but I really like the focus on a customer and a timeless mission really rather than orienting around what might be a bit more of an ephemeral surface area or product de jour.

这就是我们现在所处的位置，但我真的很喜欢专注于客户和永恒的使命，而不是围绕可能更短暂的表面区域或日常产品。

Lenny: Awesome.

莱尼：太棒了。

Shout out to the writer team.

为编剧团队点赞。

Thanks for building all the awesome stuff that I get to use.

感谢您构建了我可以使用的所有很棒的东西。

It makes sense why you are more recently investing in the reader team because Substack has this magical advantage platforms have where your supply drives all your demand.

您最近投资读者团队是有道理的，因为 Substack 拥有这种神奇的优势平台，您的供应可以驱动您的所有需求。

I go out and promote my newsletter, people sign up for Substack.

我出去宣传我的时事通讯，人们注册了 Substack。

It makes sense why there's not initially a huge focus on the demand growth, but makes sense to get there.

最初并没有大力关注需求增长是有道理的，但实现这一目标却是有意义的。

It sounds like your app is awesome.

听起来你的应用程序很棒。

Lenny: One thing I wanted to touch on is you're kind of in this interesting position as a head of product at a small-ish company with a founder who's very product sense strong, and that's a classic challenge for a product leader to be in, where it's a smallish company, either a first PM or even a head of product, where the founder's very opinionated about the product.

Lenny：我想谈的一件事是，作为一家小型公司的产品负责人，你处于一个有趣的职位，创始人的产品意识非常强，这对于产品负责人来说是一个典型的挑战，在一家小型公司，无论是第一位产品经理，还是产品负责人，创始人对产品非常有自己的看法。

I'm curious what you've learned about how to work in that environment as a PM.

我很好奇您对于如何在那种环境中作为产品经理工作有何了解。

Sachin Monga: That's a great question.

Sachin Monga：这是一个很好的问题。

I don't know if I have the recipe for this, but I can just maybe share a few of the things that come to mind.

我不知道我是否有这方面的秘诀，但我也许可以分享一些我想到的事情。

I think the first thing was really treating my role in the beginning more as a facilitator than a decision maker when it comes to product.

我认为第一件事是，在产品方面，我从一开始就将自己的角色更多地视为促进者，而不是决策者。

I think the team was also small enough that everyone in theory could have a good sense of what everyone else was up to.

我认为团队规模也足够小，理论上每个人都可以很好地了解其他人在做什么。

A specific problem we had I think when I joined was that we were just getting to the point where we wouldn't have one weekly meeting where Chris could be in the room, Chris is the CEO of Substack and the person you're mentioning, and decide what we're doing in the next two weeks.

我认为，当我加入时，我们遇到的一个具体问题是，我们已经到了这样的地步：我们不会每周召开一次克里斯可以在场的会议，克里斯是 Substack 的首席执行官，也是你提到的那个人，并决定我们在接下来的两周内要做的事情。

Sachin Monga: We were just emerging from that phase.

Sachin Monga：我们刚刚摆脱那个阶段。

We had this problem which was all of a sudden, Chris didn't really know what all the teams were doing and the teams didn't really know what Chris had in mind for what they should do and what the vision was.

我们突然遇到了这个问题，克里斯并不真正知道所有团队在做什么，团队也不真正知道克里斯的想法是什么，他们应该做什么以及愿景是什么。

We were hiring really quickly and hiring people who might not have all of the context of being in the room with him for years and being in all of the all-hands meetings.

我们招聘的速度非常快，招聘的人可能不具备与他共事多年、参加所有全体会议的背景。

When I first joined, I felt like my main role was actually just solving that.

当我第一次加入时，我觉得我的主要角色实际上就是解决这个问题。

And if nothing else, if Chris could have a really good sense of what all the teams are doing and if the teams knew where he was coming from and could start to get better at modeling him and his vision, that would be a win.

如果不出意外的话，如果克里斯能够很好地了解所有团队正在做什么，并且团队知道他来自哪里，并且能够开始更好地为他和他的愿景建模，那将是一场胜利。

Sachin Monga: For the first couple months I'd say, that was all I tried to do.

Sachin Monga：我想说，在最初的几个月里，这就是我试图做的一切。

I think now Chris and I have some reps under our belt and the teams have some reps under their belts too, and that trust just starts to form.

我认为现在克里斯和我有一些代表，团队也有一些代表，这种信任才刚刚开始形成。

We start the week, Chris and I, we sit down for an hour.

我们开始新的一周，克里斯和我，我们坐下来一个小时。

We go through what do we feel like are the big problems to focus on this week, what are the things we're worried about.

我们会回顾一下我们认为本周需要关注的大问题是什么，我们担心的事情是什么。

We sit down at the end of the week and we check in again.

我们在周末坐下来再次登记。

There's just a lot of open communication.

有很多开放的沟通。

I think that helps a lot.

我认为这很有帮助。

Lenny: Got it.

莱尼：明白了。

It sounds like the core of this is building trust, which makes sense.

听起来这的核心是建立信任，这是有道理的。

The way that you've been building trust, one is just do it again and again and then Chris starts to trust, "Okay, Sachin's going to do the things that I think are probably the right things." And then you said you have this weekly meeting.

建立信任的方式就是一次又一次地这样做，然后克里斯开始信任，“好吧，萨钦会做我认为可能是正确的事情。”然后你说你有这个每周例会。

Is there anything else that either tactically you find as a really important component of this relationship or any other lessons you've learned about just how to keep this relationship healthy and constructive?

从战术上讲，您是否发现其他任何东西是这种关系的真正重要组成部分，或者您学到了有关如何保持这种关系健康和建设性的任何其他经验教训？

Sachin Monga: One thing that I think about a little bit because like any startup, there's going to be times that are really difficult, times that are really fun.

Sachin Monga：我会思考一件事，因为就像任何初创公司一样，会有非常困难的时候，也会有非常有趣的时候。

Substack is certainly going through this really transformative time, but we're really evolving in a lot of ways from a tool into a network.

Substack 确实正在经历这个真正的变革时期，但我们确实在很多方面从工具演变为网络。

We're in the thick of seeing this vision through in a lot of ways Chris has had in his mind for five years.

我们正在通过多种方式来实现这一愿景，克里斯五年来一直在他的脑海中思考着这个愿景。

We did a thing at an all-hands a little while ago where Substack went through Y Combinator I think it was maybe now six years ago and we watched the 60 second demo they pitched from 2017.

不久前，我们在全体会议上做了一件事，Substack 通过了 Y Combinator，我想那可能是六年前的事了，我们观看了他们从 2017 年开始推出的 60 秒演示。

Sachin Monga: What was so cool about that was we're actually doing all those things now that Chris got up on stage and talked about like, "One day in the future, Substack is going to get into podcasting, and we're going to have this network effect that helps writers grow by virtue of there being other writers in the platform." There's all these things that we kind of couldn't do until we earned our place at the table and the right to be able to do those things that we're doing now.

Sachin Monga：最酷的是我们现在正在做所有这些事情，克里斯站上台并谈到，“未来的一天，Substack 将进入播客领域，我们将拥有这种网络效应，通过平台上的其他作家来帮助作家成长。”在我们赢得谈判桌的位置以及能够做我们现在正在做的事情的权利之前，所有这些事情我们都无法做。

To go back to your question, I think a thing that I really try to be mindful of right now is, how do I catch up?

回到你的问题，我认为我现在真正要注意的一件事是，我如何赶上？

Sachin Monga: Chris has been thinking about this problem for five times as long as I have.

Sachin Monga：克里斯思考这个问题的时间比我长五倍。

If I can get a good sense of where his vision starts from and catch up those few years and help the teams do the same, that'll go a long way.

如果我能很好地了解他的愿景从哪里开始，并赶上这几年并帮助团队做同样的事情，那将大有帮助。

Because at the same time, everyone now is coming at it from a different perspective.

因为与此同时，现在每个人都从不同的角度来看待这个问题。

We've a lot more data and evidence.

我们有更多的数据和证据。

It's really good to have people on the team that have come from other companies and comply that perspective.

团队中有来自其他公司并遵守这一观点的人真是太好了。

It's a lot of, again, facilitation and I view that as a big part of my role.

这又是很多的便利，我认为这是我角色的重要组成部分。

Lenny: Awesome.

莱尼：太棒了。

I'm curious, what are the biggest challenges with being in the position you're in?

我很好奇，在你现在的职位上，最大的挑战是什么？

Are there any examples of a man that sucked?

有没有男人很烂的例子？

Or if you want to go in a different direction, is there a certain type of person that just isn't a good fit for this kind of role, had a product at a smallish company with a very product minded founder?

或者，如果你想朝不同的方向发展，是否有某种类型的人不适合这种角色，在一家小公司拥有一款产品，创始人非常注重产品？

Sachin Monga: Oh, let's start with the first one.

Sachin Monga：哦，让我们从第一个开始。

I think the biggest challenge with this role/company phase, like I mentioned, we're going through this one-time transition from not really having a product function or a product process to having one, is almost by definition any time you figure out how to do a thing, you'll now reach this next phase of growth and it'll be obsolete.

我认为这个角色/公司阶段的最大挑战，就像我提到的，我们正在经历从没有真正拥有产品功能或产品流程到拥有产品功能或产品流程的一次性过渡，几乎根据定义，任何时候你弄清楚如何做一件事，你现在就会进入下一阶段的增长，并且它将被淘汰。

Something that I've repeated a bunch of the teams is I'm never too worried if we have the perfect planning process or the perfect execution cadence or the perfect communication process, whatever our process is, we're never going to have a perfect one.

我在很多团队中重复过的话是，我永远不会太担心我们是否有完美的计划流程、完美的执行节奏或完美的沟通流程，无论我们的流程是什么，我们永远不会有一个完美的流程。

Sachin Monga: And even if we did, it would soon be obsolete because we did a really good job and now we've grown 2X or something and we have more people and the process needs to change.

Sachin Monga：即使我们这样做了，它很快就会过时，因为我们做得非常好，现在我们已经增长了 2 倍左右，我们有更多的人员，流程需要改变。

The main thing I care about is are we just getting better every week, every month, certainly every year.

我最关心的是我们每周、每月、当然每年都在进步。

I think that's easier said than done.

我认为说起来容易做起来难。

It sounds good in theory, but then when you're in the thick of it.

理论上听起来不错，但当你真正身处其中时。

you're constantly basically feeling like you don't know how to do the thing.

你总是感觉自己不知道如何做这件事。

Because as soon as you figure it out, it's obsolete.

因为一旦你弄清楚了，它就已经过时了。

It's just really hard.

这真的很难。

I think that's true of basically just startups in general, high growth companies.

我认为对于一般的高增长公司来说基本上都是如此。

Doing the thing well means that you're not going to know what you're doing.

做好这件事意味着你不会知道自己在做什么。

Sachin Monga: Maybe that leads into my answer to the second question, which is that's not really for everyone.

Sachin Monga：也许这引出了我对第二个问题的回答，即这并不适合所有人。

I think there's almost like a personality type that has to be okay with being humbled all the time and feeling like you don't know what you're doing.

我认为几乎有一种性格类型必须能够接受一直谦虚并感觉自己不知道自己在做什么。

I think you could be an amazing product manager at a company that is a bit more stable and consistent and get really good at what you're doing and someone who's going to be really good at a company that is on a bit of this trajectory, for folks who aren't watching the video, making a motion with my hand, that's not growing too fast, it's kind of a different job.

我认为你可以在一家更加稳定和一致的公司里成为一名出色的产品经理，并且真正擅长你正在做的事情，并且在一家处于这种轨道上的公司中真正擅长的人，对于那些不看视频、用手做动作的人来说，这不会增长太快，这是一份不同的工作。

The rate of change is a huge factor.

变化率是一个重要因素。

Lenny: The point you made about how things are going to keep changing as you grow is such an important point that I don't feel like comes up as much as I thought would come up on this podcast.

莱尼：你提出的关于随着你的成长，事情将如何不断变化的观点是如此重要，以至于我觉得在这个播客中出现的次数没有我想象的那么多。

People are always asking me for advice.

人们总是向我寻求建议。

How do I structure my product team?

如何构建我的产品团队？

How do I prioritize?

我如何确定优先顺序？

How do I do planning?

我该如何做规划？

The main thing I've learned is no matter what you end up with, it's going to change in three to six months anyway because you'll learn more.

我学到的最重要的一点是，无论你最终得到什么，它都会在三到六个月内发生变化，因为你会学到更多。

The advice is just do the best thing you can think of right now.

建议就是做你现在能想到的最好的事情。

Don't assume this will last anyway, and that's good enough.

不要以为这种情况会持续下去，这就足够了。

There's never the perfect way to do it.

从来没有完美的方法来做到这一点。

It's always the best way you could do it at this moment, and then you learn how to evolve it.

这始终是此时此刻您可以做到的最佳方式，然后您将学习如何改进它。

Lenny: You worked at Facebook for I think it was seven years.

莱尼：你在 Facebook 工作了七年。

I'm curious what were you able to take from that experience about how Facebook, in a massive company like that, builds product to a smaller company like Substack.

我很好奇你能从这次经历中得到什么关于 Facebook 如何在像这样的大公司中为像 Substack 这样的小公司构建产品的经历。

What translates well and then what just doesn't?

什么翻译得好，什么翻译不好？

Sachin Monga: Over time, I'm finding that less translates than I thought.

Sachin Monga：随着时间的推移，我发现翻译的内容比我想象的要少。

I don't know how much of that has to do with Facebook specifically though.

我不知道这与 Facebook 有多大关系。

I'll maybe mention one thing.

我也许会提到一件事。

Working on the core Facebook app, which was what I was working on for the bulk of my time there, Facebook may be the most extreme example of trying to solve so many different problems for so many different people in one tiny rectangle basically, that a big part of the product manager's job in a situation like that is going to be managing trade-offs.

Facebook 的核心应用程序是我在那里工作的大部分时间，它可能是最极端的例子，它试图在一个小矩形内为许多不同的人解决这么多不同的问题，基本上，在这种情况下，产品经理工作的很大一部分就是管理权衡。

It's a super fascinating intellectual problem.

这是一个超级迷人的智力问题。

Sachin Monga: I think going back to the previous point, a lot of people really thrive in that kind of environment, where if we do this thing really well, it is going to directly trade-off against doing this other thing.

Sachin Monga：我认为回到上一点，很多人确实在这种环境中茁壮成长，如果我们把这件事做得很好，就会直接权衡做另一件事。

It's not even a sequencing thing.

这甚至不是一个排序的事情。

When you think about prioritization, sometimes you think, we will do this, and then we'll do this, and then we'll do this.

当你考虑优先级时，有时你会想，我们会这样做，然后我们会这样做，然后我们会这样做。

In Facebook's case, sometimes it's, "Oh, if we do this, we just can't do this.

就 Facebook 而言，有时会出现这样的情况：“哦，如果我们这样做，我们就是做不到。

It's going to be bad for this other thing.

这对其他事情来说会很糟糕。

If we put a watch tab at the bottom, will that mean that people don't get a marketplace tab?

如果我们在底部放置一个“观看”选项卡，这是否意味着人们不会获得“市场”选项卡？

What does that mean for this whole org and what the product is?" I think when it comes to something like prioritization, it's a very different ballgame.

这对整个组织以及产品意味着什么？”我认为，当涉及到优先级之类的事情时，这是一个非常不同的游戏。

Sachin Monga: There's certainly some things that are consistent.

Sachin Monga：当然有一些事情是一致的。

You generally want to prioritize things that are going to be high impact, low effort.

您通常希望优先考虑那些影响大、工作量少的事情。

These types of product management frameworks, I think a lot of it can hold constant.

我认为这些类型的产品管理框架很多都可以保持不变。

But when you really get into the object level like what does your day look like, I think being a PM at a high growth...

但是，当你真正进入对象层面，比如你的一天是什么样子时，我认为成为一名高速增长的 PM ......

I can't generalize this, but the job at Substack right now, it looks quite different than what I recognized as my job from Facebook circa 2018.

我无法概括这一点，但目前 Substack 的工作看起来与 2018 年左右我在 Facebook 上的工作有很大不同。

I think it's maybe even gotten more the case that the PM's job in a situation like that will be navigating these types of internal trade-offs.

我认为，在这种情况下，首相的工作可能更可能是处理这些类型的内部权衡。

I think on something like prioritization, very different.

我认为诸如优先级之类的事情非常不同。

Lenny: Just to double click on that a little bit, the main difference you're saying is that at a Facebook, it's not like whether we do a thing, it's just like what comes first, second, third.

Lenny：双击一下，你所说的主要区别是，在 Facebook，这并不像我们是否做一件事，而只是像第一、第二、第三发生的事情一样。

At a Substack, it's like we probably won't get to this for a year if we don't prioritize it now.

在子堆栈中，如果我们现在不优先考虑它，我们可能一年内都无法实现这一点。

Is that how you think about it, just like the time scale on your trade-offs?

你是这么想的，就像你权衡的时间尺度一样吗？

Sachin Monga: No. I think actually at Facebook, it's not necessarily whether we do a thing.

Sachin Monga：不。我认为实际上在 Facebook，我们是否做某件事并不一定重要。

It's not like we do this now or we do this later.

这不像我们现在这样做或稍后再这样做。

It's doing this thing might mean we can't do this other thing at all, or it'll mean that instead of that chart being steady until we make the number go up, it might go down.

它做这件事可能意味着我们根本不能做另一件事，或者这意味着图表在我们使数字上升之前不会保持稳定，而是可能会下降。

By doing A, it might mean B is harder to do forever.

通过做 A，可能意味着 B 更难永远做。

Whereas at a startup, a lot of it is time.

而在初创公司，很多时间都是时间。

Time is the main variable.

时间是主要变量。

We can do this now and that means that we can't do this other thing until later.

我们现在就可以做这件事，这意味着我们稍后才能做其他事情。

There's also an element of sequencing that matters I think a lot at a company like Substack that is in this formative stage of becoming an entirely new thing in a lot of ways.

我认为，对于像 Substack 这样的公司来说，排序元素也很重要，该公司正处于在很多方面成为全新事物的形成阶段。

Sachin Monga: Substack started off like a single player tool for writers.

Sachin Monga：Substack 最初是为作家提供的单人游戏工具。

It was like software for writers.

它就像作家的软件。

If you describe Substack now as simply a newsletter tool, that would be reductive.

如果您现在将 Substack 描述为简单的新闻通讯工具，那就太简单了。

It's really now much more of this ecosystem that's evolving in all sorts of interesting ways.

现在这个生态系统确实以各种有趣的方式不断发展。

There is a bit of an order of operations at play here where doing something right now might unlock our ability to do something later.

这里有一些操作顺序在起作用，现在做某事可能会释放我们以后做某事的能力。

That matters a lot in a situation like we're in at Substack.

这对于我们在 Substack 所处的情况非常重要。

Lenny: Got it.

莱尼：明白了。

Essentially there's a lot more one-way doors at a larger company.

本质上，大公司有更多的单向门。

Here, you can make decisions more quickly partly, but also you can go back and there's not all these second order effects of decision you're making.

在这里，您可以部分更快地做出决策，但您也可以返回，并且您所做的决策不会产生所有这些二阶效应。

Sachin Monga: I think that's right, or at least there are different types of second order effects.

Sachin Monga：我认为这是对的，或者至少存在不同类型的二阶效应。

Lenny: Got it.

莱尼：明白了。

I know at Substack writers are like the beacon and the vision of making writers successful, helping people make a living writing.

我知道在 Substack 作家就像灯塔和让作家成功的愿景，帮助人们以写作为生。

I imagine writers are the North Star or helping writers be successful, but is there anything where you can share about how you prioritize things that you work on within Substack?

我认为作家是北极星或帮助作家取得成功，但是您可以分享一下您如何优先考虑在 Substack 中所做的事情吗？

How do you think about the North Star?

您如何看待北极星？

Sachin Monga: Going back to your question about Chris too, I think Chris and Hamish and Jay, the founders I think really start from a place of principle in a lot of ways.

Sachin Monga：回到你关于克里斯的问题，我认为克里斯、哈米什和杰伊，我认为创始人在很多方面都是从原则出发的。

Why are we even doing this thing?

我们为什么要做这件事？

It's not just to help writers make money.

这不仅仅是为了帮助作家赚钱。

It's not just to unlock these cool things.

这不仅仅是为了解锁这些很酷的东西。

It starts with an opinion for how the internet should work, where people should be in control over their destiny to a much greater extent than has ever really been the case over at least the last 10, 15 years, where all of a sudden, everyone just started spending all of their time in a handful of these public squares that were powered by ads.

它始于对互联网应该如何运作的看法，人们应该比过去 10、15 年更大程度地掌控自己的命运，突然之间，每个人都开始把所有时间花在少数几个由广告驱动的公共广场上。

Sachin Monga: When you think about what that means for Substack right now, that that means writers are in control over being able to deliver their best work on their terms to their audience, make money directly from their subscribers, and also that readers should be in control over their experience.

Sachin Monga：当你思考这对 Substack 现在意味着什么时，这意味着作家可以控制是否能够按照他们的条件向观众提供最好的作品，直接从订阅者那里赚钱，而且读者也应该控制他们的体验。

When you show up to Substack.com, that experience should be something that you have a much greater degree of agency over or if you download the app than if you maybe opened up TikTok or something.

当你出现在 Substack.com 上时，这种体验应该是你拥有更大程度的代理权的东西，或者如果你下载了应用程序，而不是打开 TikTok 或其他东西。

Sachin Monga: I think where that leads you down from a prioritization standpoint is often starting from, okay, if we could do something in a bunch of different ways, is there a way that provides more control to the writer or more control over the experience that the reader has to them?

Sachin Monga：我认为，从优先级的角度来看，这通常是从这样的角度开始的：好吧，如果我们可以用多种不同的方式做某事，是否有一种方法可以为作者提供更多的控制权，或者对读者的体验提供更多的控制权？

Is there a way that provides much less control?

有没有一种方法可以提供更少的控制？

All things equal, do the one that holds constant this principle of control.

在所有条件相同的情况下，坚持这一控制原则的人。

We could talk about a few other examples like this, but I think from a prioritization standpoint and from a strategic standpoint, Substack is a pretty principled company, and I think it's been really fun and interesting to get to work in an environment like this and also see how it actually can work.

我们可以讨论一些其他这样的例子，但我认为从优先级的角度和战略的角度来看，Substack 是一家非常有原则的公司，我认为在这样的环境中工作并了解它实际上是如何运作的真的很有趣。

Sachin Monga: You are excited about recommendations, the recommendations feature, and we can talk about that in more detail.

Sachin Monga：您对推荐、推荐功能感到很兴奋，我们可以更详细地讨论这一点。

I think that's a good example where there's certainly a way to do that where writers have the max amount of control.

我认为这是一个很好的例子，其中肯定有一种方法可以让作家拥有最大的控制权。

We picked that way even if it might seem harder to pull off.

我们选择了这种方式，即使它看起来更难实现。

And then that feedback loop of, "Oh, that actually worked," is really awesome to get to experience.

然后，“哦，这确实有效”的反馈循环真是太棒了。

Lenny: Yes, I definitely wanted to talk about this recommendation feature.

Lenny：是的，我确实想谈谈这个推荐功能。

I feel like it's maybe the most underappreciated radical shift in Substack and just platforms in general.

我觉得这可能是 Substack 和一般平台中最被低估的根本性转变。

I think this is going to go down as one of the most legendary impactful features of any platform or marketplace.

我认为这将成为任何平台或市场中最具传奇色彩和影响力的功能之一。

I'm just putting this out there.

我只是把这个放在那里。

It's such a huge deal and I don't think people appreciate this.

这是一件大事，我认为人们不会欣赏这一点。

Just to quickly summarize what this is, essentially you allowed writers like me to recommend other newsletters that I specifically pick.

只是为了快速总结这是什么，本质上你允许像我这样的作家推荐我专门挑选的其他新闻通讯。

I pick 10 newsletters that I think are awesome.

我挑选了 10 份我认为很棒的时事通讯。

Once someone subscribes to my newsletter, they see these 10 as, "Hey, you should check these out.

一旦有人订阅了我的时事通讯，他们就会看到这 10 条消息，“嘿，你应该看看这些。

I think these are awesome."

我认为这些太棒了。”

Lenny: It's very curated.

莱尼：这是精心策划的。

There's no algorithm involved, which to your point is Substack's I think vision and mission is just avoid algorithms as much as possible.

没有涉及算法，就你的观点而言，我认为 Substack 的愿景和使命就是尽可能避免算法。

The reason I think this is crazy and amazing is at this point, 70% of my growth is coming from this one feature.

我之所以认为这是疯狂且令人惊奇的，是因为在这一点上，我 70% 的成长都来自于这一功能。

There's something like 500 other newsletters recommending me.

还有大约 500 份其他时事通讯推荐我。

As soon as the feature launched and you look at my growth chart, it's just a hockey stick starting that day.

该功能一推出，你看看我的成长图表，从那天开始，它只是一根曲棍球棒。

I don't think people appreciate this enough, and I'm really excited to just chat about how this feature came to be.

我认为人们对此还不够重视，我很高兴能谈谈这个功能是如何诞生的。

Lenny: Coming back to a point we talked about earlier of Chris having a very strong opinion about how to build product, something I heard through a birdie is that Chris was not excited about this feature when it was proposed and it took a bit of pushing to get it out.

莱尼：回到我们之前讨论过的一点，克里斯对如何构建产品有非常强烈的意见，我通过小鸟听到的一点是，克里斯在提出这个功能时并不感到兴奋，并且花了一些力气才把它推出。

Maybe we start there.

也许我们从那里开始。

How did this come to be?

这是怎么发生的？

Sachin Monga: Sure.

萨钦·蒙加：当然。

The way it came to be was that we noticed this organic behavior emerging, which was that a lot of readers of Substacks were starting to discover Substacks, but the way that was happening was typically through the lens of that original writer.

它的形成方式是我们注意到这种有机行为的出现，即许多 Substacks 的读者开始发现 Substacks，但发生的方式通常是通过原始作者的镜头。

This could happen in a bunch of different ways, right?

这可以通过多种不同的方式发生，对吗？

I think you've used the guest post feature to have guests write post on your newsletter.

我认为您已经使用了访客发帖功能让访客在您的时事通讯上撰写帖子。

Obviously that is a really good way for your readers to go and discover some of these other writers in a way that you're curating.

显然，对于您的读者来说，这是一个非常好的方式，可以按照您策划的方式去发现其他一些作家。

There's some less obvious ways that this happens too.

还有一些不太明显的方式会导致这种情况发生。

Sachin Monga: If you have comments on, which I think you do, if I scroll down and click on the profile of someone who's commenting on your post, it'll show me the other Substack that person reads too.

Sachin Monga：如果你有评论，我认为你有评论，如果我向下滚动并点击评论你帖子的人的个人资料，它也会向我显示该人阅读的另一个子堆栈。

Again, this is a very personalized and very writer centric way of doing discovery.

同样，这是一种非常个性化且以作家为中心的发现方式。

At the same time, we talked about the supply and demand side of the marketplace.

同时我们也谈到了市场的供需双方。

The supply side of Substack has just grown over time consistently to the point where now there's a huge amount of amazing writers on the platform and a huge number of collective readers on the platform too that we knew that this sort of like cross-pollination, this discovery loop could be a really powerful thing.

Substack 的供应方随着时间的推移不断增长，现在平台上有大量令人惊叹的作家，平台上也有大量的集体读者，我们知道这种类似异花授粉的发现循环可能是一件非常强大的事情。

Sachin Monga: If you'd start from the first principles, you're like, "All right, how do we help readers discover more things?' The most obvious way to do this would be something like, "Here are some Substacks you might.

Sachin Monga：如果你从首要原则开始，你会想，“好吧，我们如何帮助读者发现更多东西？”最明显的方法是，“这里有一些您可能需要的子堆栈。

Based on what we know about your reading habits, here's like a few that Substack is just going to recommend you." This is the thing that worked really well.

根据我们对您的阅读习惯的了解，Substack 将向您推荐一些这样的内容。”这是非常有效的事情。

At Facebook in particular, I think when I joined in 2011, it was definitely still during the era...

特别是在 Facebook，我想当我 2011 年加入时，绝对还处于那个时代……

I think Facebook maybe had just over 500 million users and was on this path to a billion and beyond.

我认为 Facebook 可能拥有超过 5 亿用户，并且正在走向 10 亿甚至更多。

Sachin Monga: This thing that we called PYMK, which was People You May Know, this little unit that would show up in the newsfeed and it would just tell you that eight other people that you obviously know because you have million mutual friends.

Sachin Monga：这个东西我们称之为 PYMK，即“你可能认识的人”，这个小单位会出现在新闻源中，它只会告诉你你显然认识的另外八个人，因为你们有数百万共同的朋友。

That kind of thing drove a very non-trivial amount of Facebook growth in the early days.

这类事情在早期推动了 Facebook 的巨大增长。

Of course, lots of other products have done things like this.

当然，很多其他产品也做过类似的事情。

We could have done something like that.

我们本可以做类似的事情。

Sachin Monga: But then going back to that principle of like, okay, well, if we were to do that, let's say we were to insert it at the bottom of our post or in an email or something, it's clearly a thing now where the writer who owns that space is not really in control over what the experiences that they're offering their readers.

Sachin Monga：但回到这个原则，好吧，好吧，如果我们要这样做，假设我们将其插入到帖子的底部或电子邮件或其他东西中，显然现在拥有该空间的作者无法真正控制他们为读者提供的体验。

The reader who signed up for Lenny is now seeing these other things that have nothing to do with Lenny.

订阅莱尼的读者现在看到的是这些与莱尼无关的其他事情。

Does that break this control principle, like putting writers in charge, putting readers in charge?

这是否违反了这种控制原则，就像让作家负责、让读者负责一样？

Okay, so then back to the drawing board, what would be the most obvious maximal way to just put writers in control?

好吧，那么回到绘图板，让作家控制的最明显的最大方法是什么？

What is the simplest version of this?

最简单的版本是什么？

Sachin Monga: What if we just ask writers, who do you recommend?

Sachin Monga：如果我们只问作家，你推荐谁呢？

What if we just put that in the subscribe flow and just made it as simple as possible?

如果我们只是将其放入订阅流程中并使其尽可能简单怎么办？

I think Chris' reaction to that originally when that idea came up was that's probably just going to be really hard to pull off.

我认为，当这个想法出现时，克里斯最初的反应是，这可能很难实现。

There's a lot more things that have to be true.

还有很多事情必须是真实的。

You need writers to opt in.

您需要作家选择加入。

You need to pick good people.

你需要挑选好人。

You need to find a way to surface those recommendations to the readers in a way that's going to generate a good amount of surface area.

您需要找到一种方法向读者展示这些建议，从而产生大量的表面积。

I think it was a bit of skepticism that something like that could work, but we tried it and it took off really quickly.

我认为人们对这样的事情是否可行有些怀疑，但我们尝试了，而且它很快就取得了成功。

Sachin Monga: There was this virality at play now where when you recommend a bunch of people, those people will get an email that say, "Hey, Lenny's recommending you and here's all the readers that he's sending you." It created this goodwill viral loop, which was really interesting to see play out.

Sachin Monga：现在存在这种病毒式传播，当你推荐一群人时，这些人会收到一封电子邮件，上面写着：“嘿，莱尼正在推荐你，这是他发送给你的所有读者。”它创造了这种善意的病毒循环，这真的很有趣。

I think there was a bunch of interesting lessons in there.

我认为那里有很多有趣的教训。

We could stick into anything that seems interesting, but I think Chris' skepticism was not, should we do cross-pollination discovery?

我们可以坚持任何看起来有趣的事情，但我认为克里斯的怀疑不是，我们应该进行异花授粉发现吗？

Clearly this is something that's working, but is this kind of thing going to work given how many steps are required for it to be true that this becomes really impactful?

显然，这是一种有效的方法，但考虑到需要多少步骤才能真正产生影响，这种方法是否会有效？

It turned out that it took off way faster than I think we had imagined.

事实证明，它的起飞速度比我们想象的要快得多。

Lenny: Is there any stats you can share about just the impact it's having, what it's done to Substack?

Lenny：有什么统计数据可以分享一下它所产生的影响以及它对 Substack 造成的影响吗？

Sachin Monga: Yeah, sure.

萨钦·蒙加：是的，当然。

Recommendations specifically now have driven in the millions of new subscriptions for writers across the board, across I think like tens of thousands of unique writers that have received subscriptions from the recommendations feature.

现在，推荐已经为作家带来了数以百万计的新订阅，我认为有数以万计的独特作家通过推荐功能获得了订阅。

Of course, recommendations in particular are still just one component in this broader basket of network driven discovery.

当然，特别是推荐仍然只是这个更广泛的网络驱动发现篮子中的一个组成部分。

Sachin Monga: I think we recently shared the stat, more than one in three new subscriptions across Substack are coming from the Substack network and around one in 10 paid subscriptions now too.

Sachin Monga：我想我们最近分享了统计数据，Substack 中超过三分之一的新订阅来自 Substack 网络，现在也有大约十分之一的付费订阅。

But these numbers are just, as you can imagine, growing up and to the right, getting stronger every day, and I think we'll have some more interesting stats to share on that soon.

但正如你可以想象的那样，这些数字正在不断增长，并且每天都在变得更强，我认为我们很快就会有一些更有趣的统计数据可以分享。

Lenny: Awesome.

莱尼：太棒了。

One thing I wanted to acknowledge, I think some people worry about this feature that it drives lower intent users.

我想承认的一件事是，我认为有些人担心这个功能会吸引较低意愿的用户。

I find that not to be true.

我发现这不是真的。

They're definitely lower intent, but it's not meaningfully and significantly.

他们的意图肯定较低，但这并不有意义和显着。

The fact that 70% of my user growth comes from this feature and my open rates have only come down a little bit, it says a lot about it.

事实上，我 70% 的用户增长来自此功能，而我的打开率只下降了一点点，这说明了很多问题。

It's like useful really in tenfold people as much as it can be from someone that hasn't actually been planning to subscribe and just recently found out about it.

它对于十倍的人来说确实很有用，就像对于那些实际上没有计划订阅并且最近才发现它的人来说一样有用。

It's really impressive how high intent they are all things considered.

他们对所有事情的高度重视确实令人印象深刻。

Sachin Monga: You bring up a point too that leads into some of the next things we're thinking about here, which is that right now most of the subscriptions that come from recommendations are coming from one particular flow in the product, which is when someone subscribes to someone else on Substack, they will then see a recommendation for Lenny.

Sachin Monga：你也提出了一个观点，这导致了我们接下来要考虑的一些事情，那就是现在大多数来自推荐的订阅都来自产品中的一个特定流程，即当有人在 Substack 上订阅其他人时，他们就会看到 Lenny 的推荐。

It's being serviced to people at a moment where not only are they just hearing about you for the first time, but they might just be hearing about the recommending writer for the first time too.

它为人们提供服务的时刻，他们不仅是第一次听说你，而且可能也是第一次听说推荐作家。

They are new subscribers.

他们是新订阅者。

They don't have this long standing trusted relationship built up yet.

他们还没有建立这种长期的信任关系。

Sachin Monga: Of course, you have people now who've been subscribing to you for years and who trust you greatly and would probably take your recommendation very seriously, but the people that you're recommending are only getting these subscribers at the first moment that someone finds out about Lenny in many cases.

Sachin Monga：当然，现在有些人已经订阅了你很多年，并且非常信任你，并且可能会非常认真地对待你的推荐，但在很多情况下，你推荐的人只是在有人发现 Lenny 的第一时刻才获得这些订阅者。

A big part of the next step of this product now is thinking about recommendations less as a step of the flow and more like a really interesting social graph that is being built of goodwill and of influence.

现在，该产品下一步的一个重要部分是将推荐视为流程中的一个步骤，而不是一个真正有趣的社交图谱，该社交图谱是由善意和影响力构建的。

You now recommend a bunch of other writers.

您现在推荐了很多其他作家。

There's much more that could be done in the network than just show some of those writers in the subscribe flow of lennysnewsletter.com.

网络中可以做的事情不仅仅是在 lennysnewsletter.com 的订阅流程中显示其中一些作者。

Sachin Monga: There's a lot more we could do there.

Sachin Monga：我们还有很多事情可以做。

I'm curious if you have any ideas, but we've got a bunch of ideas that we're cooking up that I think will not only drive more subscriptions, but also probably higher intent ones as well, because these are going to be people that might already have been reading you for years who never right now would know who you're recommending.

我很好奇你是否有什么想法，但我们正在酝酿一堆想法，我认为这些想法不仅会推动更多的订阅，而且可能还会带来更高的订阅量，因为这些人可能已经阅读你的文章多年了，但现在永远不会知道你推荐的人是谁。

Lenny: No great ideas to share.

莱尼：没有什么好主意可以分享。

I do find since it's only free subscribers, I have to do more work to upsell them to try paid.

我确实发现，由于它只是免费订阅者，我必须做更多的工作来向他们追加销售以尝试付费。

On the other hand, having a huge pool of interested people that aren't ready to convert yet is only beneficial.

另一方面，拥有大量尚未准备好转换的感兴趣的人只会是有益的。

When I send a free post and mention, "Hey, I have a paid subscription.

当我发送免费帖子并提及：“嘿，我有付费订阅。

You can get more," it works really well.

你可以获得更多”，效果非常好。

Lenny: This episode is brought to you by Vanta, helping you streamline your security compliance to accelerate growth.

Lenny：本集由 Vanta 为您带来，可帮助您简化安全合规性以加速增长。

If your business stores any data in the cloud, then you've likely been asked or you're going to be asked about your SOC 2 compliance.

如果您的企业在云中存储任何数据，那么您可能会被询问或将被询问有关 SOC 2 合规性的问题。

SOC 2 is a way to prove your company's taking proper security measures to protect customer data and builds trust with customers and partners, especially those with serious security requirements.

SOC 2 是一种证明您的公司采取了适当的安全措施来保护客户数据并与客户和合作伙伴（尤其是那些有严格安全要求的客户和合作伙伴）建立信任的方法。

Also, if you want to sell to the enterprise, proving security is essential.

此外，如果你想向企业销售产品，证明安全性至关重要。

SOC 2 can either open the door for bigger and better deals, or it can put your business on hold.

SOC 2 可以为更大、更好的交易打开大门，也可以让您的业务陷入困境。

If you don't have a SOC 2, there's a good chance you won't even get a seat at the table.

如果您没有 SOC 2，您很可能甚至无法获得席位。

Lenny: Beginning a SOC 2 report can be a huge burden, especially for startups.

Lenny：开始 SOC 2 报告可能是一个巨大的负担，尤其是对于初创公司而言。

It's time consuming, tedious, and expensive.

这是耗时、乏味且昂贵的。

Enter Vanta.

输入万塔。

Over 3,000 fast growing companies use Vanta to automate up to 90% of the work involved with SOC 2.

超过 3,000 家快速发展的公司使用 Vanta 自动化 SOC 2 涉及的高达 90% 的工作。

Vanta can get you ready for security audits in weeks instead of months, less than a third of the time that it usually takes.

Vanta 可以让您在几周而不是几个月内为安全审核做好准备，不到通常所需时间的三分之一。

For a limited time, Lenny's Podcast listeners get $1,000 off Vanta.

在有限的时间内，Lenny's Podcast 听众可享受 Vanta 1,000 美元优惠。

Just go to vanta.com/lenny.

只需访问vanta.com/lenny。

That's V-A-N-T-A.com/lenny to learn more and to claim your discount.

请访问 V-A-N-T-A.com/lenny 了解更多信息并申请折扣。

Get started today.

今天就开始吧。

Lenny: Something else I'll mention that I've learned to do is I feel so fortunate being early on Substack and having this thing grow so much, especially from this recommendation feature that I'm actually getting pings from people regularly now of, "Hey, can you recommend my newsletter?" It's like a really good growth hack on Substack right now to try to get a lot of subscribers to recommend you.

Lenny：我要提到的是，我学会做的另一件事是，我很幸运能早年加入 Substack，并且这个东西发展得如此之快，特别是从这个推荐功能中，我现在经常收到人们的 ping，“嘿，你能推荐我的时事通讯吗？”这就像 Substack 上一个非常好的增长黑客，试图让很多订阅者推荐你。

My system right now is I want to share the wealth as much as I can, so I rotate through different newsletters.

我现在的系统是我想尽可能地分享财富，所以我轮流浏览不同的时事通讯。

Lenny: I help get them say a thousand subscribers, and then move on to the next one, assuming I like them.

莱尼：我帮助他们获得一千个订阅者，然后假设我喜欢他们，然后继续下一个订阅者。

It's not just any random user.

这不仅仅是任何随机用户。

So I can share the wealth with a lot of different newsletters and give people a platform, because I have this platform now and that's been working really well.

因此，我可以与许多不同的时事通讯分享财富，并为人们提供一个平台，因为我现在拥有这个平台，并且运作得非常好。

Lenny: Yeah, now I'm going to get all these DMs to recommend people.

莱尼：是的，现在我要让所有这些私信来推荐人。

If I'm unable to, I'm sorry.

如果我做不到，我很抱歉。

You talked about how Chris was worried that this would not work.

你谈到克里斯如何担心这行不通。

That's interesting.

那很有意思。

His point of there's so many steps that have to happen for this to be adopted is such a good one.

他的观点是，要采取这一点必须采取很多步骤，这一点非常好。

In my experience, getting users to do anything is so hard.

根据我的经验，让用户做任何事情都是非常困难的。

To get them to click some buttons and fill things out, that rarely works.

让他们点击一些按钮并填写内容，这很少奏效。

It's cool that it really did work.

很酷，它确实有效。

Lenny: I think it was part of the early beta, and I found that it was a really thoughtful approach to how it was all rolled out where there was a small group of users and writers that tried it out, see how went, see what the impact was, see if there was any negative impact.

Lenny：我认为这是早期测试版的一部分，我发现这是一种非常深思熟虑的方法，它的推出方式是由一小群用户和作家进行尝试，看看效果如何，看看有什么影响，看看是否有任何负面影响。

Is there anything you could share by just the way this was rolled out that you've learned about how to do this sort of thing?

通过这种方式的推出，您是否已经学会了如何做这类事情，有什么可以分享的吗？

Sachin Monga: I mentioned that we're going through this one-time transition of figuring out how to become a product driven company and how to ship products faster, better, et cetera.

Sachin Monga：我提到我们正在经历这一一次性转型，弄清楚如何成为一家产品驱动型公司，以及如何更快、更好地交付产品等等。

One of the principles I guess in this playbook that we're trying to write is we call it build with writers, build with readers.

我想在这本剧本中，我们试图编写的原则之一是我们称之为“与作家一起构建，与读者一起构建”。

In some ways now that I think about it, it's almost like a sub principle of the put readers in charge, put writers in charge.

现在我想起来，在某些方面，这几乎就像“让读者负责，让作家负责”的一个子原则。

How do you build product responsibly if you care deeply about that?

如果您非常关心这一点，您如何负责任地构建产品？

One way to do it would be to almost as a strong default, anytime we're going to make a fundamental change to how Substack works, do it in a way where we bring writers along.

一种方法是几乎作为一个强大的默认设置，任何时候我们要对 Substack 的工作方式进行根本性的改变，都以我们与作者一起的方式进行。

Sachin Monga: This is still an optional thing.

Sachin Monga：这仍然是一个可选的事情。

This isn't changing how Substack works for everyone, but this is we think a potentially profound enough thing that the way we did this was not just roll it out for everyone, put a little dialogue in the dashboard that says, "Hey, everyone, now go do this thing," it was like, okay, why don't we call up 10 writers who we think might be interested in this." It's not that hard to just mock up what this could look like, get some feedback.

这并没有改变 Substack 对每个人的工作方式，但我们认为这是一个潜在的足够深刻的事情，我们这样做的方式不仅仅是向每个人推出它，在仪表板上放一个小对话说，“嘿，大家，现在去做这件事，”这就像，好吧，为什么我们不打电话给我们认为可能对此感兴趣的 10 位作家。”模拟这可能是什么样子，获得一些反馈并不难。

This is the kind of thing that I think a lot of product teams would do.

我认为很多产品团队都会做这种事情。

But then maybe a lot of product teams would be like, "Okay, we got good feedback.

但也许很多产品团队会说，“好吧，我们得到了很好的反馈。

Let's just build the thing, ship the thing."

让我们建造这个东西，运送它。”

Sachin Monga: Instead, we just ran a little pilot.

Sachin Monga：相反，我们只是进行了一个小试点。

You and a few other writers were gracious enough to lend your time and talk us through how you would see this working and what you would want.

您和其他几位作家非常慷慨地抽出了您的时间，告诉我们您如何看待这项工作以及您想要什么。

We actually have now we've set up something called the Product Lab, which I'm really excited about.

事实上，我们现在已经建立了一个叫做产品实验室的东西，我对此感到非常兴奋。

I think you're a part of it.

我认为你是其中的一部分。

I hope we asked you.

我希望我们问过你。

Lenny: I'm curious to see where this all goes.

莱尼：我很好奇这一切会走向何方。

Sachin Monga: This is just an invite only little group of a hundred or so writers that we know are interested in being on the bleeding edge of what Substack is becoming.

Sachin Monga：这只是一个由一百名左右作家组成的小团体，我们知道他们有兴趣成为 Substack 正在发展的最前沿。

We're investing a lot in just tools to help writers grow.

我们在工具上投入了大量资金来帮助作家成长。

Now we've got this little lab where we can take a feature recommendations to writers and get quick feedback and ensure that we're never just rolling something out to everyone without going through this step first.

现在我们有了这个小实验室，我们可以在其中向作者提出功能建议并获得快速反馈，并确保我们永远不会在没有先完成此步骤的情况下向每个人推出某些内容。

It's just been super helpful to have a bit of this infrastructure in place.

拥有一些这样的基础设施非常有帮助。

Often the thing that we end up shipping on day one tends to be pretty different from what we had in mind before we went through this process.

通常，我们在第一天最终交付的东西往往与我们在完成此过程之前的想法有很大不同。

Lenny: I've been through a bunch of those experiences and it always goes super well.

莱尼：我经历过很多这样的经历，而且总是进展顺利。

I've been through a few features that just didn't go anywhere and then they, "Nope, we're going to move on and not try this thing." Something else that always comes to mind with Substack is it's often in the news.

我经历了一些没有任何进展的功能，然后他们说：“不，我们要继续前进，而不是尝试这个东西。”提到 Substack，人们总是会想到它经常出现在新闻中。

Substack is a very popular topic amongst reporters.

Substack 是记者中非常流行的话题。

Sachin Monga: Writers like to talk about writers.

Sachin Monga：作家喜欢谈论作家。

Lenny: That's right, especially a platform that might disrupt them someday or friends have gone on and they're maybe jealous about.

莱尼：没错，尤其是某个平台可能有一天会扰乱他们，或者朋友们继续前进，他们可能会嫉妒。

I'm curious, as a product leader, how you deal with bad press, angry attention, things like that, just keeping people focused, keeping people motivated.

我很好奇，作为一名产品负责人，你如何应对负面新闻、愤怒的关注等类似的事情，让人们保持专注，保持人们的积极性。

Do you discuss stuff?

你们讨论事情吗？

How do you approach stuff that comes out of like, "Oh man," and keep people excited?

你如何处理诸如“哦天哪”之类的事情并让人们感到兴奋？

Sachin Monga: The whole thing here is just parsing out the signal from the noise.

Sachin Monga：这里的全部内容只是从噪声中解析出信号。

There's very little chatter in the blogosphere media sphere that would actually impact our day-to-day when I think about it.

当我想到这一点时，博客圈媒体领域中很少有真正影响我们日常生活的讨论。

It's not zero, right?

它不是零，对吧？

Sometimes there'll be something that ends up blowing up or that people are talking about that we should really take seriously and see how that might impact our strategy.

有时，有些事情最终会爆发，或者人们正在谈论我们应该认真对待的事情，看看这可能会如何影响我们的战略。

But I'd say 90% of the chatter about Substack is going to probably ultimately just be a distraction to our product team at the end of the day that should just be focused on executing on the vision.

但我想说，关于 Substack 的 90% 的讨论最终可能只会分散我们产品团队的注意力，他们应该专注于执行愿景。

Sachin Monga: Maybe my skin got thickened from working at Facebook during a bunch of years that...

Sachin Monga：也许我的脸皮因为在 Facebook 工作了好几年而变厚了……

Actually when I started at Facebook, generally things were quite rosy in the press, but we certainly went through a bunch of different phases and a lot of the stuff.

事实上，当我刚开始在 Facebook 工作时，媒体报道的情况总体上非常乐观，但我们确实经历了许多不同的阶段和很多事情。

I worked on myself that Facebook ended up getting talked about a ton in the press negatively most of the time.

我对自己进行了研究，发现 Facebook 最终在大多数时候都受到了媒体的大量负面谈论。

You just learn to just keep your heads down and keep shipping.

你只需学会保持低调并继续前进。

Ultimately, that's all that matters.

最终，这才是最重要的。

I feel proud of the way that I think our culture is internally being formed right now.

我对我们的文化目前内部形成的方式感到自豪。

We tend to not get distracted.

我们往往不会分心。

Lenny: It seems to be the case.

莱尼：看来是这样。

I'm curious where you see Substack going as a product long-term.

我很好奇您认为 Substack 作为一个产品的长期发展方向如何。

What are you excited about?

你在兴奋什么？

Where are things heading?

事情将走向何方？

Sachin Monga: Maybe I'll answer that in two parts, one from a writer centric lens and one from a reader centric lens, which I mentioned is a bit of a newer thing for us.

Sachin Monga：也许我会分两部分来回答这个问题，一部分是从以作家为中心的角度，另一部分是从以读者为中心的角度，我提到这对我们来说是一个新事物。

From a writer centric lens, I really think that we're just starting into this golden era of what it might mean to be a writer on the internet.

从以作家为中心的角度来看，我真的认为我们才刚刚开始进入互联网作家的黄金时代。

Like I mentioned before, the economic model for supporting great writing on the internet has been generally pretty terrible for the entirety of the internet's history.

正如我之前提到的，在整个互联网的历史中，支持互联网上优秀写作的经济模式通常非常糟糕。

Sachin Monga: In the early days of Substack, there's a couple of these glimmers of hope where you'd have people like Matt Taibbi or Bill Bishop, some of the early writers on Substack that were really well established writers who were clearly just being undervalued and now could come to Substack and see their true value.

Sachin Monga：在 Substack 的早期，有一些希望的曙光，像 Matt Taibbi 或 Bill Bishop 这样的人，Substack 的一些早期作家，都是非常成熟的作家，他们显然只是被低估了，现在可以来到 Substack 并看到他们的真正价值。

That was awesome.

太棒了。

That was really cool to see.

看到这真是太酷了。

But in the last year or so, even in the last few months, I think there's been so many really interesting success stories now from writers who might not even consider themselves writers, let alone well established writers like Matt Taibbi or someone like that.

但在过去一年左右，甚至在过去几个月里，我认为现在有很多非常有趣的成功故事，这些故事来自那些甚至可能不认为自己是作家的作家，更不用说像马特·泰比这样的知名作家了。

Sachin Monga: People who are able to make a living, maybe even make a fortune just doing great work and not needing to have millions and millions of viewers or play the attention games of other networks, but just do really high quality work and have a relatively small number of people value it highly enough to pay for it.

Sachin Monga：那些能够谋生，甚至可能发财的人，只需做出色的工作，不需要拥有数以百万计的观众或玩其他网络的注意力游戏，但只需做真正高质量的工作，并且有相对少数的人足够重视它并为此付费。

That's like a new thing.

这就像一个新事物。

When I see the next one to two years play out for the writer side of the equation, a lot of what we're going to try to do is just make it much simpler to get started, to have your Substack.

当我看到接下来的一到两年对等式的编写者来说，我们要做的很多事情就是让你的子堆栈更容易上手。

Sachin Monga: If you have an audience anywhere, Substack's never going to be the place where have the biggest audience probably, but it certainly should be the place where your most valuable audience comes home to, where they get your best work.

Sachin Monga：如果你在任何地方都有观众，Substack 可能永远不会成为拥有最多观众的地方，但它肯定应该是你最有价值的观众回归的地方，在那里他们可以得到你最好的作品。

We're seeing a lot of really interesting success stories now of people that might have a big Instagram following or YouTube following and certainly Twitter following were able to use Substack now as this home base, this place to try to accumulate their most valuable audience that they own in the sense that they get their email address, they can export them at any time, and just build really simple tools to just help them deliver their best work.

我们现在看到了很多非常有趣的成功故事，那些可能拥有大量 Instagram 粉丝或 YouTube 粉丝，当然还有 Twitter 粉丝的人现在能够使用 Substack 作为这个大本营，这个地方试图积累他们拥有的最有价值的受众，因为他们可以获得他们的电子邮件地址，他们可以随时导出它们，并且只需构建非常简单的工具来帮助他们交付最好的作品。

Sachin Monga: It could be writing, could be a podcast, could be video.

Sachin Monga：可以是写作，可以是播客，也可以是视频。

We're investing a lot in some really interesting community features as well.

我们还在一些非常有趣的社区功能上投入了大量资金。

You're a great example of this.

你就是一个很好的例子。

To call Lenny's Newsletter simply a newsletter would be hilariously wrong at this point, right?

在这一点上，将《莱尼的时事通讯》简单地称为时事通讯是错误的，对吧？

I think you mentioned to me you had 30 meetups around the world last month or something like that.

我想你向我提到过你上个月在世界各地举办了 30 场聚会或类似的活动。

Sachin Monga: It's an impressive of run rate of meetups.

Sachin Monga：聚会的举办率令人印象深刻。

I think seeing that unfold and seeing how the platform can support that type of community behavior as well is a big thing that I'm excited about.

我认为看到这一点的展开以及平台如何支持这种类型的社区行为是一件令我兴奋的大事。

Just more.

只是更多。

On the reader's side, I think maybe to segue into that, I think we're again entering this little potential golden age of the internet for how you experience it as a consumer.

在读者方面，我认为也许可以继续讨论这一点，我认为我们再次进入了互联网的这个潜在的黄金时代，作为消费者如何体验它。

Where instead of just having a handful of feeds that are basically the same, that you could just scroll through and consume videos of random people doing random things.

您可以滚动浏览并观看随机人做随机事情的视频，而不是仅仅拥有一些基本相同的提要。

Not to say that's bad and that should go away.

并不是说这很糟糕并且应该消失。

Sachin Monga: I do my fair share of just scrolling through my phone and watching random videos too, but it'd be kind of nice to have another place you could go to as well where the best culture is being made and you have an extreme degree of control over what you see and who you choose to lead into that space.

Sachin Monga：我也只是滚动手机并观看随机视频，但如果能有另一个你可以去的地方，以及正在创造最好文化的地方，并且你对你所看到的内容以及你选择带领谁进入那个空间有极大程度的控制，那就太好了。

You might not spend two hours a day in there, and that's fine, but it might be the first place you go because it's where all the best stuff is and it's where your best communities are going to live too.

你可能不会每天在那里呆两个小时，这很好，但它可能是你去的第一个地方，因为它是所有最好的东西的地方，也是你最好的社区将居住的地方。

We kind of see Substack evolving not as some new type of social media, but true alternative to how you might spend that most valuable slice of your time.

我们认为 Substack 的发展并不是某种新型的社交媒体，而是您如何度过最宝贵的时间的真正替代方案。

Sachin Monga: We just launched an iPhone app, I guess now it's been six months ago, and it's going really well.

Sachin Monga：我们刚刚推出了一款 iPhone 应用程序，我想现在已经过去六个月了，而且进展非常顺利。

We're going to launch an Android app very shortly.

我们很快就会推出 Android 应用程序。

We're pushing really hard on this reader experience as well.

我们也非常努力地提升读者体验。

I think it'll be radically different and much better one or two years from now too.

我认为从现在起一两年后，情况也会发生根本性的变化，而且会好得多。

Lenny: It's been interesting to see a growing percentage of the great content that I come across be on Substack, and so I think that's a cool trend for y'all.

Lenny：很有趣的是，我遇到的优秀内容越来越多地出现在 Substack 上，所以我认为这对你们来说是一个很酷的趋势。

For writers that are thinking about starting a newsletter, thinking about joining Substack, what sorts of advice, tips, guidance do you have for folks that are thinking about getting into the Substack world?

对于正在考虑开始撰写时事通讯、考虑加入 Substack 的作家，您对正在考虑进入 Substack 世界的人们有哪些建议、技巧和指导？

Sachin Monga: My first piece of advice would be to just start it and see what happens.

Sachin Monga：我的第一条建议是立即开始，看看会发生什么。

Start it.

开始吧。

Have a way to start gathering subscribers.

有办法开始收集订阅者。

Put a link to it somewhere.

在某处放置一个链接。

Write one or two things.

写一两件事。

If you're not much of a writer, try posting a video, recording some audio, turn into a little podcast.

如果您不太擅长写作，请尝试发布视频、录制一些音频，然后制作成一个小播客。

Just start basically and see what happens and see what kind of interest there might be out there for what you have to say, especially if you already have a following on other platforms as well.

从根本上开始，看看会发生什么，看看人们对你所说的内容可能有什么样的兴趣，特别是如果你在其他平台上也已经有了追随者的话。

Sachin Monga: I think that there's a real risk that if your entire following is locked into one platform where you don't have a ton of control over, your ability to reach those people deterministically and certainly to monetize that in some way, it seems like it's a tenuous place to be in the current age of the internet.

Sachin Monga：我认为存在一个真正的风险，如果你的所有追随者都被锁定在一个平台上，而你没有太多的控制权，那么你有能力确定性地接触这些人，并肯定以某种方式将其货币化，那么在当前的互联网时代，这似乎是一个脆弱的地方。

I'd say just start.

我想说就开始吧。

It should be really easy.

这应该很容易。

Go to Substack.com, press the start your Substack button, and see what happens.

访问 Substack.com，按下启动 Substack 按钮，看看会发生什么。

Lenny: That advice may sound to people like, "Oh yeah, that's not actual advice." But I will say that is exactly what I did and that's exactly how I got to what I do now.

莱尼：这个建议对于人们来说可能听起来像是，“哦，是的，这不是真正的建议。”但我要说的是，这正是我所做的，也是我现在所做的事情的原因。

I had zero intention of ever doing this.

我这样做的意图为零。

Charging for writing that I'm writing, that's crazy.

我正在写的文章要收费，这太疯狂了。

Just the fact that Substack existed and let me try stuff out for free.

事实上 Substack 的存在让我可以免费尝试一些东西。

You sign up.

你报名吧。

You start it.

你开始吧。

My newsletter, it's called Lenny's Newsletter because that was like the default recommendation when I signed up, because I told them my name's Lenny and it's like Lenny's Newsletter, because I had no plan to do this.

我的时事通讯，它被称为莱尼的时事通讯，因为这就像我注册时的默认推荐，因为我告诉他们我的名字是莱尼，它就像莱尼的时事通讯，因为我没有计划这样做。

It was just like, let me just sign up and try blogging here for a little bit and that little path.

就像，让我注册并尝试在这里写博客，走一条小路。

Lenny: I think about Chris and Hamish and the founders mapping out a user journey of a vision of how somebody onboards to Substack, to go from never writing to doing it full-time.

Lenny：我想到了 Chris 和 Hamish 以及创始人规划了一个用户旅程，描绘了人们如何加入 Substack，从从不写作到全职写作的愿景。

I feel like I went through that exactly, if they even had that, where I sign up just to try it out.

我觉得我确实经历过这一点，如果他们有的话，我注册只是为了尝试一下。

I start writing consistently.

我开始坚持写作。

It starts going well, then I think about charging, and then I launch the paid plan, and then that goes well.

一开始进展顺利，然后我考虑充电，然后我推出付费计划，然后进展顺利。

It keeps growing, and then I do it full-time.

它不断增长，然后我全职做它。

That's exactly what I went down and there's no world where I would've done this if not for those magical combination of features of just a really simple blog a d newsletter and collecting emails and maybe monetizing down the road.

这正是我所经历的，如果不是一个非常简单的博客、新闻通讯和收集电子邮件以及未来可能货币化的功能的神奇组合，我不可能做到这一点。

Lenny: I think that just start advice is really spot on.

莱尼：我认为刚刚开始的建议非常正确。

Just try it out, see if it's something you want to do.

尝试一下，看看这是否是您想做的事情。

I will say, it's easy to start a newsletter, it's hard to continue a newsletter.

我想说的是，开始一个简讯很容易，继续一个简讯很难。

The continuing is the most important part, as Seinfeld would say in that clip, who rings the bell.

继续是最重要的部分，正如宋飞在敲响门铃的片段中所说的那样。

Sachin Monga: I will say though to that point too that I'm really excited for what Substack can do in the product to make that easier in a way that doesn't cheapen the experience.

Sachin Monga：对于这一点，我也想说，我对 Substack 在产品中所做的事情感到非常兴奋，它可以在不降低体验的情况下使这一切变得更容易。

There's a bunch of things we could do to.

我们可以做很多事情。

We could automatically post stuff to your readers.

我们可以自动向您的读者发布内容。

We could do a lot of things.

我们可以做很多事情。

Going back to the how do we do discovery, there's a bunch of things that would probably just work, but they would eventually kill what Substack is or have all these nasty second order effects and ruin this promise of putting writers in charge, putting readers in charge.

回到我们如何进行发现，有很多东西可能会起作用，但它们最终会扼杀 Substack 的本质，或者产生所有这些令人讨厌的二阶效应，并破坏让作者负责、让读者负责的承诺。

Sachin Monga: I'm really excited and I actually view your Substack as a vanguard, as a very leading edge example of this, of you have turned your Substack into not just this thriving community of readers, but also of contributors and creators.

Sachin Monga：我真的很兴奋，我实际上将您的 Substack 视为先锋，作为一个非常前沿的例子，您已经将您的 Substack 不仅变成了这个蓬勃发展的读者社区，而且还成为了贡献者和创作者的社区。

You've got these amazing people coming and doing guest posts.

这些了不起的人来发表客座文章。

You've got the podcast going.

你已经开始播放播客了。

You've got these meetups.

你有这些聚会。

You've I think in a lot of ways alleviated the burden of how hard it would be to just be writing a long form thing every day and doing that for the rest of your life.

我认为你在很多方面减轻了每天写一篇长篇文章并在余生中这样做是多么困难的负担。

That would be really hard.

那真的很难。

That would make it certainly much harder to keep going.

这肯定会让继续前进变得更加困难。

Sachin Monga: Not to say that it's easy now, I know how hard it is to do what you do.

Sachin Monga：并不是说现在很容易，我知道做你所做的事情有多难。

But I think Substack can do more to turn this ecosystem to funnel this energy into ways for people like you to feel more like a leader of a space and a curator in a lot of ways and still deliver this really valuable service to your audience without having to do all the work yourself.

但我认为 Substack 可以做更多的事情来转变这个生态系统，将这种能量转化为让像您这样的人在很多方面感觉更像是一个空间的领导者和策展人，并且仍然可以为您的受众提供这种真正有价值的服务，而无需自己完成所有工作。

I think we can do a lot more to support that kind of thing.

我认为我们可以做更多的事情来支持这类事情。

Lenny: Is there anything you could share about what sorts of things you're thinking there and what might be possible?

莱尼：关于你在那里的想法以及可能发生的事情，你有什么可以分享的吗？

Sachin Monga: Let's see.

萨钦·蒙加：让我们看看。

Guest posts are working really well, and I'll say that we have a bunch of ideas for how to make guest posts a much bigger thing.

客座帖子运作得非常好，我想说的是，我们有很多关于如何使客座帖子变得更大的想法。

Right now, the way guest posts work, kind of like an op-ed or something, like you invite someone to come and just write a post on your Substack.

现在，来宾帖子的工作方式有点像专栏之类的，就像你邀请某人来你的子堆栈上写一篇文章一样。

I think there's much more we can do without getting into some of the specifics and scooping the product team that we're working on that I think could make it feel more like you've got a bunch of people who are somewhat more fluidly able to contribute to your Substack and deliver value to your audience.

我认为我们可以做更多的事情，而不需要深入了解一些具体细节并挖掘我们正在开发的产品团队，我认为这会让你感觉更像是有一群人能够更流畅地为你的子堆栈做出贡献并为你的受众提供价值。

Sachin Monga: I've teased this community stuff that we're working on a little bit, but we're piloting a feature right now that's been working really well where writers can get a little bit of like a...

Sachin Monga：我已经对我们正在开发的社区内容进行了一些调侃，但我们现在正在试点一项功能，该功能运行得非常好，让作家可以有点像......

We view it as the pub at the back of your Substack where people can hang out and chat and the writer is still in control and sets the tone and sets the rules and norms for the space, but can create space for their subscribers to participate and hang out themselves too.

我们将其视为 Substack 后面的酒吧，人们可以在那里闲逛和聊天，作者仍然可以控制并为空间定下基调并设定规则和规范，但也可以为订阅者创造参与和闲逛的空间。

Those are two areas that we're investing in a fair bit right now.

这是我们目前正在大力投资的两个领域。

Lenny: Something that I imagine somebody suggested that I'd suggest you all look into a little bit is open AI assisted writing.

莱尼：我想有人建议我建议你们都研究一下开放式人工智能辅助写作。

I was playing with this product that is called Jasper and there's also Copy.ai.

我正在玩这个名为 Jasper 的产品，还有 Copy.ai。

I put in the title of the post I was about to write and it just generated a pretty good paragraph summary of what it could have been.

我输入了我要写的帖子的标题，它只是生成了一个非常好的段落摘要，说明了它可能是什么。

They have this whole feature where you just start typing and it autocompletes things smartly.

他们拥有整个功能，您只需开始输入，它就会智能地自动完成事情。

Lenny: That would be cool.

莱尼：那会很酷。

I don't know if you want to go there, but it's pretty good.

我不知道你是否想去那里，但那是相当不错的。

Sachin Monga: That seems like an interesting can of worms.

Sachin Monga：这似乎是一个有趣的蠕虫罐头。

Lenny: Right, an interesting can of worms.

莱尼：是的，一罐有趣的蠕虫。

Sachin Monga: We did talk about whether we should change our default publication.

Sachin Monga：我们确实讨论过是否应该更改默认出版物。

You know how your default name was just like Lenny's Newsletter and we probably gave you a little red square or something as your default publication logo originally.

您知道您的默认名称就像莱尼的时事通讯一样，我们最初可能给您一个小红色方块或其他东西作为您的默认出版物徽标。

A DALL-E generated publication logo service would be pretty cool.

DALL-E 生成的出版物徽标服务会非常酷。

Lenny: That would be cool.

莱尼：那会很酷。

If nothing else, it's just for ideas, but I would love that.

如果没有别的事，这只是为了想法，但我会喜欢的。

Coming back to the idea of someone starting a Substack, we talked about advice, which is the core advice is just start and see how you like it.

回到某人创建子堆栈的想法，我们讨论了建议，核心建议是开始，看看你喜欢它。

A big part of this is like, do you want to keep doing this?

其中很大一部分是这样的，你想继续这样做吗？

Because again, it's easy to start, hard to keep going, and also you may realize, "I've created this job for myself I don't like." That's something they should be thoughtful about.

因为，开始很容易，坚持下去很难，而且你可能会意识到，“我为自己创造了这份我不喜欢的工作。”这是他们应该深思的事情。

But on the flip side, do you see any common mistakes people make when they're starting on Substack that you suggest they try to avoid?

但另一方面，您是否发现人们在开始使用 Substack 时会犯一些您建议他们尽量避免的常见错误？

Sachin Monga: One thing that's interesting here that I think we have a big opportunity to improve in the product is that there's going to be obviously varying levels of intent that people have when they hit that start your Substack button.

Sachin Monga：这里有趣的一件事是，我认为我们有很大的机会改进产品，那就是当人们按下“启动子堆栈”按钮时，他们的意图明显会有所不同。

Some people might come in being like, "This is going to be my full-time job.

有些人可能会说：“这将是我的全职工作。

I want to make this work.

我想让这个工作成功。

I want to not just be a full-time writer, I want to build a media empire on Substack." There's certainly examples of that happening now.

我不仅想成为一名全职作家，我还想在 Substack 上建立一个媒体帝国。”现在确实有这样的例子发生。

You can imagine a version of our onboarding and set up flow that's like the media empire version of it.

您可以想象我们的入职和设置流程的一个版本，就像媒体帝国版本一样。

Sachin Monga: You could also imagine the version that's just, "Let me just write one thing.

Sachin Monga：你也可以想象这样的版本：“让我写一件事。

Don't make me make all these decisions.

不要让我做出所有这些决定。

I just want to get in the game." I think that in general, a mistake that people might make is...

我只是想参加比赛。”我认为一般来说，人们可能犯的错误是......

I'll maybe flip it back to an anecdote related to what I heard from Chris when I was chatting with him the other day, that he had to convince you pretty hard to turn on payments at all.

我可能会把它翻回一个轶事，与我前几天和克里斯聊天时听到的有关，他必须很难说服你打开付款。

Correct me if I'm spreading misinformation, but is that right?

如果我传播错误信息，请纠正我，但这是正确的吗？

Lenny: Yeah.

莱尼：是的。

And Hamish too.

还有哈米什。

Especially on how often I can take a break, he's always given me advice of, "You can take a break more often than you think," because I feel like I can never not do a week.

尤其是在我可以休息多久的问题上，他总是给我建议，“你可以比你想象的更频繁地休息”，因为我觉得我永远不能一周不做。

Both those pieces of advice.

这两条建议。

It took me a while to get over, maybe I could charge for this and then maybe I could take some weeks off.

我花了一段时间才恢复过来，也许我可以为此付费，然后也许我可以休息几周。

Sachin Monga: Right, right.

萨钦·蒙加：对，对。

I think there's a generalizable piece of advice here that might be my answer to the question of what's a common pitfall, which is people are really worried about how their audience will perceive them and really ultimately their own worth, right?

我认为这里有一条普遍适用的建议，这可能是我对常见陷阱问题的回答，即人们真的很担心观众会如何看待他们，以及最终他们自己的价值，对吗？

Should I send a newsletter three times a week into people's inbox?

我应该每周向人们的收件箱发送三次简讯吗？

Is that too much?

是不是太多了？

Should I ask anyone to pay me ever?

我应该要求任何人付钱给我吗？

Is that crazy?

这疯了吗？

Am I allowed to take a vacation ever given that I've got people paying on an ongoing basis?

鉴于有人持续支付我的费用，我是否可以休假？

And is that a bad service to provide if I'm taking a two week summer vacation?

如果我要休两周的暑假，那么提供这样的服务是不是很糟糕？

Sachin Monga: I think almost in all of those cases, and then you could imagine five more things like that, readers, especially the people that are subscribed to you who are paying you, are pretty forgiving and are really there to support you and want you to take that vacation.

Sachin Monga：我认为几乎在所有这些情况下，然后你可以想象另外五种类似的事情，读者，尤其是那些订阅你并付钱给你的人，非常宽容，并且真的在那里支持你并希望你去度假。

There's probably more people who would want to pay for you that just don't even know about you that would totally pay if they could.

可能有更多的人愿意为你付钱，只是他们根本不了解你，如果可以的话，他们会完全付钱。

Go back to that spectrum of, am I just trying to write a blog post?

回到那个范围，我只是想写一篇博客文章吗？

Am I trying to start a media empire?

我想建立一个媒体帝国吗？

It's kind of like many people won't know yet.

好像很多人还不知道。

Just open up optionality for yourself and see what happens.

只要为自己打开选择权，看看会发生什么。

Maybe don't be too worried about what your audience might think.

也许不必太担心观众的想法。

Sachin Monga: I think that maybe is one difference between Substack than something like Twitter or Instagram or something.

Sachin Monga：我认为这可能是 Substack 与 Twitter 或 Instagram 之类的东西的区别之一。

Subscribe as an action is pretty heavyweight.

订阅作为一个动作是相当重量级的。

It's like a costly signal, right?

这就像一个昂贵的信号，对吧？

It's not as easy as just matching the follow button on a bunch of accounts on Twitter or something like that.

这并不像匹配 Twitter 上的一堆帐户上的“关注”按钮或类似的东西那么简单。

If someone is subscribed to you, they're granting you write access to their brain is maybe the way I view it in a nerdy sense.

如果有人订阅了你，他们就会授予你对他们大脑的写入权限，这也许是我从书呆子的角度看待它的方式。

What that means is not just like, "I'll let you write your one long form thing once a week," but, "hey, you've got this other person that you think might have something interesting to say?

这意味着不仅仅是“我会让你每周写一次长篇文章”，而是“嘿，你认为另一个人可能有一些有趣的话要说？

Cool, let me know.

酷，请告诉我。

I'm here for it." I think writers underestimate that.

我就是为了这个而来的。”我认为作家们低估了这一点。

Lenny: Maybe three things I'll add to this just for folks that are thinking about, should I try this out?

莱尼：也许我会为那些正在思考的人添加三件事，我应该尝试一下吗？

Should I not?

我不应该吗？

One, when I joined Substack, I already felt like it was too late, and this was three years ago.

第一，当我加入 Substack 时，我已经觉得已经太晚了，那是三年前的事了。

I was like, "Nah, it's too late.

我当时想，“不，太晚了。

Everyone's already got their big newsletters.

每个人都已经收到了他们的大新闻通讯。

There's no way I'm going to make any dent." I think people feel that now, and I think it's also not true.

我不可能造成任何影响。”我认为人们现在也有这种感觉，但我认为这也不是真的。

I think there's so much opportunity.

我认为机会很多。

Lenny: Two, when I got to a thousand paid subscribers, which feels very doable, I was making around a 100K, which is exactly...

莱尼：第二，当我达到 1000 名付费订阅者时，这感觉非常可行，我赚了大约 10 万美元，这正是......

I think it was Kevin Kelly's 1000 True Fans.

我认为这是凯文·凯利的 1000 个忠实粉丝。

It was exactly like, "Oh wow!

简直就像是，“哇哦！

I could make a living with a thousand true fans for real." It's shocking how much you could make with so few people that really care about what you're doing.

我可以靠着一千名真正的粉丝来谋生。”令人震惊的是，只有很少的人真正关心你正在做的事情，你却能赚到这么多钱。

Think about is there a niche or something you're excited about that you can find a thousand people to pay you 10 bucks a month.

想一想是否有一个利基市场或一些你感兴趣的东西，你可以找到一千个人每月付给你 10 美元。

Sachin Monga: What's cool about that I think now with Substack and with the network effect is if there's a thousand people who are going to pay you 10 bucks a month, there's probably 2,000 and 5,000 and 10,000.

Sachin Monga：我认为现在 Substack 和网络效应的最酷之处在于，如果有 1000 个人每月付给你 10 美元，那么可能有 2,000 人、5,000 人和 10,000 人。

Lenny: That's exactly what happened to me.

莱尼：这正是发生在我身上的事。

I'm like, "If I hit a 100K, holy moly, I am good," and then it just kept growing.

我想，“如果我达到了 100K，天哪，我就很好了”，然后它就继续增长。

That's exactly right.

完全正确。

You think there's an out, but the markets for these things are huge.

你认为有出路，但这些东西的市场是巨大的。

The last point maybe is it took me nine months of doing it every week for free to get to a point where I felt like I can keep doing this.

最后一点也许是我花了九个月的时间每周免费做这件事才达到我觉得我可以继续这样做的地步。

I enjoy doing this.

我喜欢这样做。

People continue to value it, where I decided to turn on paid.

人们继续重视它，我决定开启付费。

It's a very slow and steady thing initially.

最初这是一件非常缓慢而稳定的事情。

Lenny: Don't expect it to just blow up.

莱尼：别指望它会爆炸。

Just do it every week.

只要每周做一次就可以了。

See how it goes.

看看进展如何。

See if you like it.

看看你是否喜欢它。

See people like it.

见人喜欢。

And if they do, keep going.

如果他们这样做了，请继续前进。

If not, you can stop.

如果没有，你可以停下来。

When I launched my newsletter, I tweeted.

当我发布时事通讯时，我发了推文。

I'm just going to experiment this thing.

我只是想尝试一下这个东西。

No idea where it's going to go.

不知道它会去哪里。

Just try it out, so you don't have to set the stakes high when you're starting out.

只需尝试一下，这样您就不必在开始时设置很高的赌注。

Sachin Monga: I think that's exactly right.

Sachin Monga：我认为这是完全正确的。

You mentioned Kevin Kelly's 1000 True Fans, which has become this canonical piece of writing on the internet now.

您提到了凯文·凯利的《1000个忠实粉丝》，它现在已经成为互联网上的经典文章。

My favorite Kevin Kelly blog post, that's my second favorite, my first favorite is a post that he wrote called You Are Not Late, which is exactly what you...

我最喜欢的凯文·凯利博客文章，这是我的第二个最喜欢的，我第一个最喜欢的是他写的一篇名为“你没有迟到”的文章，这正是你......

You can probably picture what he says, but it's such a compelling, persuasive argument for the thing you mentioned, which is like...

你或许可以想象他说的话，但对于你提到的事情来说，这是一个令人信服、有说服力的论据，就像……

Obviously he wasn't talking about Substack in his post, but he was talking about the internet and how in the grand scheme of things, how lucky we are to...

显然，他在帖子中并不是在谈论 Substack，而是在谈论互联网，以及在宏伟的计划中，我们是多么幸运......

Sachin Monga: I don't even know when he wrote it, maybe it was probably 10 years ago at this point, but certainly at a time where a lot of people were feeling, "Oh, Facebook and Google and the internet's done.

Sachin Monga：我什至不知道他什么时候写的，也许是 10 年前的这个时候，但肯定是在很多人感觉“哦，Facebook、谷歌和互联网已经完蛋了”的时候。

The battles have been won.

战斗已经胜利。

I wish I was coming of age.

我希望我已经成年了。

I wish I had graduated from Harvard in 2004 or something." It's just so wrong.

我希望我能在 2004 年从哈佛毕业或者什么的。”这是非常错误的。

We are so early when it comes to how the internet will play out that I think getting to work on that in any capacity right now, getting to shape how the internet is going to play out over the next 10, 20 years is so fun because we are not late.

当谈到互联网将如何发展时，我们还处于起步阶段，我认为现在就以任何身份开展工作，塑造互联网在未来 10 年、20 年的发展方式非常有趣，因为我们并没有迟到。

Lenny: Here, here.

莱尼：这里，这里。

I know Marc Andreessen mentioned those too when he moved to Silicon Valley in the '80s, "It's all over.

我知道 Marc Andreessen 在 80 年代搬到硅谷时也提到过这些，“一切都结束了。

It's too late.

太晚了。

I missed the gold rush of tech," and it was just the beginning.

我错过了科技的淘金热”，而这只是一个开始。

Well, we've reached our very exciting lightning round where I'm just going to ask you a bunch of questions real quick, share whatever comes up.

好吧，我们已经进入了非常激动人心的闪电回合，我将很快问你们一系列问题，分享出现的任何问题。

Sound good?

听起来不错吗？

Lenny: What are two or three books that you recommend most to other people?

莱尼：您最向其他人推荐的两三本书是什么？

Sachin Monga: I will plug some books that have nothing to do with the internet or software or tech, but have been the most informative or instructive books for me I think in my career as a product person working on software, which are books about architecture and urban planning.

Sachin Monga：我会插入一些与互联网、软件或技术无关的书籍，但我认为在我作为软件产品人员的职业生涯中，这些书籍对我来说是最有信息性或启发性的书籍，这些书籍是关于建筑和城市规划的书籍。

The reason why I find this field so fascinating is because for thousands of years, people have been figuring out how to build spaces that help people interact with each other and build good spaces to occupy.

我之所以觉得这个领域如此迷人，是因为几千年来，人们一直在研究如何建造空间，帮助人们彼此互动，并建造良好的居住空间。

We've only been doing this for, going back to the Kevin Kelly thing, for basically the blink of an eye on the internet and in the digital realm.

我们这样做只是为了，回到凯文凯利的事情，基本上是在互联网和数字领域的眨眼之间。

Sachin Monga: There's one book in particular by an architect named Christopher Alexander who sadly just passed away earlier this year.

Sachin Monga：有一本特别是由一位名叫克里斯托弗·亚历山大（Christopher Alexander）的建筑师写的书，他于今年早些时候不幸去世。

He wrote this book in the '70s.

他在 70 年代写了这本书。

It's called The Timeless Way of Building.

这就是所谓的“永恒的建筑方式”。

This is the book that I recommend to the most people I have.

这是我向最多人推荐的书。

I buy it in bulk and I just give it away to people.

我批量购买，然后送给人们。

The basic premise of the book is that in the '70s, we had just gone through a couple of decades of just mass produced cookie cutter suburban house development in the US.

这本书的基本前提是，在 70 年代，我们刚刚经历了美国几十年来大规模生产的千篇一律的郊区房屋开发。

His premise was like we've basically just lost the plot on this.

他的前提是我们基本上已经失去了这方面的情节。

No one likes living in these houses.

没有人喜欢住在这些房子里。

Sachin Monga: If you think about why these houses all feel bad to live in, it's because the people building the houses now for the first time ever are different than the people living in the house.

Sachin Monga：如果你想想为什么这些房子住起来都感觉很糟糕，那是因为现在第一次建造这些房子的人与住在房子里的人不同。

It's these developers, these real estate developers, these big companies, mass producing these houses.

正是这些开发商、这些房地产开发商、这些大公司，大规模生产了这些房子。

But for thousands of years, we've figured out what makes a good house.

但几千年来，我们已经弄清楚了什么才是好房子。

The people building the house are the people living in it and they get that, but now the incentive structure got changed and they messed everything up.

建造房子的人就是住在里面的人，他们明白这一点，但现在激励结构发生了变化，他们把一切都搞砸了。

Sachin Monga: I think there's a really interesting parallel there with the internet, specifically how the last decade or so has played out, where the people building the spaces that we occupy are operating under a very complicated incentive structure and it's leading to these suboptimal user experiences.

Sachin Monga：我认为这与互联网有一个非常有趣的相似之处，特别是在过去十年左右的时间里，建造我们占据的空间的人们在非常复杂的激励结构下运作，这导致了这些次优的用户体验。

This is what we work on at Substack.

这就是我们在 Substack 所做的工作。

This is what I think is fun to work on right now.

我认为现在做这件事很有趣。

If you're working on something like this, I would highly recommend The Timeless Way of Building by Christopher Alexander.

如果您正在从事类似的工作，我强烈推荐克里斯托弗·亚历山大（Christopher Alexander）写的《永恒的建筑方式》（The Timeless Way of Building）。

Lenny: Awesome.

莱尼：太棒了。

We're going to include that in the show notes for sure.

我们肯定会将其包含在演出笔记中。

What are two or three Substacks that you recommend most speaking of recommendation features?

就推荐功能而言，您最推荐的两个或三个子堆栈是什么？

Sachin Monga: I was just thinking about this as I don't write on stack certainly frequently, and so I don't use the recommendations feature, but who would I recommend if I did besides Lenny, of course?

Sachin Monga：我只是在想这个，因为我肯定不会经常在堆栈上写东西，所以我不使用推荐功能，但是如果我这样做，除了 Lenny 之外，我会推荐谁呢？

I'll share a couple of random examples maybe, again, outside of maybe the tech product world.

我可能会再次分享一些科技产品世界之外的随机示例。

There's this guy named Darryl Cooper who has a podcast on Substack called The Martyr Made Podcast that I've gone super deep into lately.

有一个名叫 Darryl Cooper 的人，他在 Substack 上有一个名为 The Martyr Made Podcast 的播客，我最近非常深入地研究了这个播客。

It's hard to describe.

很难描述。

He basically takes a topic and he will produce the single best explanation of that topic you will ever find, because you'll spend an insane amount, probably 10,000 hours per topic, figuring out getting to the bottom of this story.

他基本上会选择一个主题，然后为您提供该主题的最佳解释，因为您将花费大量时间（可能为每个主题花费 10,000 个小时）来弄清楚这个故事的真相。

Sachin Monga: He's doing a series right now in the labor movement in America.

Sachin Monga：他现在正在制作有关美国劳工运动的系列节目。

It sounds like a boring topic maybe, but he's just such an amazing storyteller.

这听起来可能是一个无聊的话题，但他真是一个了不起的讲故事的人。

He's I think a good example too of this could only really work if he finds his thousand true fans as people who are just like, "Yeah, I'll just pay for this." It would be a very bad advertising business for sure.

他是我认为这也是一个很好的例子，只有当他发现他的一千名真正的粉丝就像“是的，我会为此付出代价”的人时，这才能真正发挥作用。这肯定是一个非常糟糕的广告业务。

He publishes pretty infrequently, inconsistently, but it's just the highest quality stuff.

他发表的文章很少，而且不稳定，但都是最高质量的东西。

That's The Martyr Made Podcast.

这就是烈士制作的播客。

Since I know this is supposed to be a lightning round and I spent too much time on that, the two others that I'll just quickly throw out there, Colin Meloy is one of my favorite musicians.

因为我知道这应该是一场闪电般的比赛，而且我在这上面花了太多时间，所以我很快就会把另外两个人扔掉，科林·梅洛伊是我最喜欢的音乐家之一。

Sachin Monga: He's the lead singer of The Decemberists.

Sachin Monga：他是 The Decemberists 的主唱。

He's doing a really cool thing on his Substack right now of just a lot of interesting behind the scenes stuff on tour, publishing, audio and video.

他现在正在他的 Substack 上做一件非常酷的事情，其中包括巡演、出版、音频和视频等许多有趣的幕后内容。

It's been really good.

真是太好了。

If you're a fan of The Decemberists, I highly recommend.

如果你是十二月党的粉丝，我强烈推荐。

One more, let's see, I have been really excited about Ethan Strauss lately.

还有一点，让我们看看，最近我对伊桑·施特劳斯感到非常兴奋。

He writes a Substack called the House of Strauss.

他写了一个名为“施特劳斯之家”的子堆栈。

He's a basketball writer, but I think it's a cool example of like he just has subscribers now.

他是一名篮球作家，但我认为这是一个很酷的例子，就像他现在有了订阅者一样。

He can write whatever he wants.

他可以写任何他想写的东西。

He writes about a wide range of topics and they're all just really fascinating.

他写的主题非常广泛，而且都非常有趣。

I love to see that kind of thing happen on Substack and in general.

我喜欢看到这种事情发生在 Substack 上以及一般情况下。

Lenny: That's just reminding me, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar just recommended my newsletter in his Substack.

莱尼：这只是提醒我，卡里姆·阿卜杜勒·贾巴尔刚刚在他的子堆栈中推荐了我的时事通讯。

Sachin Monga: Oh man, congrats!

Sachin Monga：噢，恭喜！

That must be a life achievement right there.

那一定是人生的成就。

Lenny: Yeah.

莱尼：是的。

I'm like, what the hell?

我想，到底是什么？

Lenny: I don't know if he reads it.

莱尼：我不知道他是否读过。

I don't know.

我不知道。

I don't know what's going on.

我不知道发生了什么事。

I love it.

我喜欢它。

He has got a great Substack, by the way.

顺便说一句，他有一个很棒的子堆栈。

I think if you just Google Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Substack, you'll find it.

我想如果你用谷歌搜索 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Substack，你就会找到它。

On the recommendation feature, I was just thinking, do you want to shout out the folks that built it, the team?

关于推荐功能，我只是在想，你想大声喊出构建它的人、团队吗？

Sachin Monga: It's too many.

Sachin Monga：太多了。

It ended up being a company wide effort, but the product manager on my team, Dayne Rathbone, was specifically I think the spearhead behind the way that we built it, like you mentioned, that we went into.

这最终成为了全公司的努力，但我认为我团队的产品经理 Dayne Rathbone 是我们构建它的方式背后的先锋，正如你提到的，我们所采用的方式。

He was a really big proponent for that.

他是这一点的大力支持者。

Gabriel on our design team designed it and many engineers worked on it.

我们设计团队的加布里埃尔设计了它，许多工程师也参与了它的工作。

It'll be hard to shout them all out, but I'd shout out Dayne on my team because he ensured that we built it in the way that we ultimately needed to build it for it to work.

很难把他们全部喊出来，但我会在我的团队中大声喊出戴恩，因为他确保我们以我们最终需要的方式构建它并使其发挥作用。

Lenny: Thank you, Dayne and Gabriel.

莱尼：谢谢你们，戴恩和加布里埃尔。

Two final questions.

最后两个问题。

Do you have any favorite recent movies or TV shows that you watched that you love?

您最近看过哪些最喜欢的电影或电视节目？

Sachin Monga: Yeah.

萨钦·蒙加：是的。

I just finished the latest season of For All Mankind and loved it.

我刚刚看完最新一季的《为了全人类》，我很喜欢它。

Lenny: Yes.

莱尼：是的。

Oh my God!

天哪！

The last couple episodes, you're sitting on the edge of your seat.

最后几集，你坐在座位的边缘。

Sachin Monga: I feel like in this season, every episode was like its own standalone movie or something.

Sachin Monga：我觉得在这一季中，每一集都像是它自己的独立电影之类的。

It started slow the whole show.

整个演出开始都很慢。

I think the first season was a bit slow.

我觉得第一季有点慢。

When I recommend it to people, I'm like, "Just power through it," but they really found their groove.

当我向人们推荐它时，我会说，“只要通过它就可以了”，但他们确实找到了自己的最佳状态。

I don't know.

我不知道。

I'm stoked for the next season.

我对下一季充满期待。

Lenny: Same.

莱尼：一样。

Final question, what's a favorite interview question you like to ask folks when you're interviewing them?

最后一个问题，当你面试人们时，你最喜欢问他们的面试问题是什么？

Sachin Monga: I have a tough time answering this question because I have found that there's not one question that will get me the signal I actually want given how diverse the candidate's experiences might be in their context.

Sachin Monga：我很难回答这个问题，因为我发现，考虑到候选人的经历在他们的背景下可能有多么多样化，没有一个问题能让我得到我真正想要的信号。

If you're coming from a Facebook type place or coming from a startup, I might need to ask different questions in order to get the signal I want.

如果您来自 Facebook 类型的地方或来自初创公司，我可能需要提出不同的问题才能获得我想要的信号。

Maybe I'll answer it in that way, which is like these days, especially for Substack, what is the signal that I'm trying to get?

也许我会这样回答，就像现在，特别是对于 Substack，我想要获得的信号是什么？

Sachin Monga: I think really for early stage, fast growing startup, we talked so much about how different that is, we just need people who can run through walls to accomplish big goals.

Sachin Monga：我认为对于早期、快速发展的初创公司来说，我们谈论了很多关于它的不同之处，我们只需要能够冲破墙壁来实现大目标的人。

Maybe grit and endurance in some ways and drive are the words I would throw out there.

也许在某些方面，勇气、耐力和动力是我会抛出的词。

I find it's really hard to have one question that will get that signal.

我发现很难提出一个能够得到这一信号的问题。

We need to tailor it to that person's background.

我们需要根据该人的背景进行调整。

Lenny: All right, I'll accept that meta answer.

莱尼：好吧，我会接受这个元答案。

Sachin, thank you so much for being here.

萨钦，非常感谢你来到这里。

As you I've shared, Substack is very near and dear to my heart, and I'm really thankful that you spent the time to dig into a lot of these things that have been on my mind.

正如我所分享的，Substack 非常贴近我的心，我真的很感谢你花时间深入研究我一直在想的很多事情。

I imagine it will be helpful to a lot of other people.

我想这会对其他很多人有帮助。

Two final questions.

最后两个问题。

Where can folks find you online if they want to reach out, learn more?

如果人们想要联系、了解更多信息，可以在哪里找到您？

Are y'all hiring?

你们都招人了吗？

And then how can listeners be useful to you?

那么听众如何对你有用呢？

Sachin Monga: First of all, thank you, Lenny, for being such an amazing Substack example setter.

Sachin Monga：首先，谢谢你，Lenny，你是一个如此出色的 Substack 示例设置者。

We talk about you all the time, as you can imagine internally, and you've been so helpful to the company and to our product team.

正如您在内部可以想象的那样，我们一直在谈论您，您对公司和我们的产品团队非常有帮助。

It's been a real honor to get to come onto the pod and keep doing what you're doing.

能够加入这个团队并继续做你正在做的事情真是一种荣幸。

You can find me on all the various social media platforms.

您可以在所有各种社交媒体平台上找到我。

I'm not super active on them, I must admit, but maybe Twitter would be the one where I spend the most time, which is just Sachin Monga, my first name and last name, is my handle.

我必须承认，我对它们并不是很活跃，但也许 Twitter 是我花最多时间的地方，Sachin Monga 是我的名字和姓氏，是我的昵称。

Sachin Monga: I'll make one plug for a role that we're hiring for right at Substack, which is a senior data role with a product and growth analytics bent would be the specific archetype we're looking for in this role.

Sachin Monga：我将为我们正在 Substack 招聘的一个角色制作一个插件，该角色是一个高级数据角色，具有产品和增长分析倾向，这将是我们在这个角色中寻找的特定原型。

If you are listening to the pod and feel like that might be you, I would love to chat.

如果您正在听 Pod 并觉得那可能就是您，我很乐意与您聊天。

I think my email address too, I don't know if it would get shared, but it's just Sachin, my first name, @substackinc.com.

我想我的电子邮件地址也是如此，我不知道它是否会被共享，但这只是 Sachin，我的名字，@substackinc.com。

Feel free to send me a note anytime.

请随时给我留言。

Lenny: Awesome.

莱尼：太棒了。

We'll include that in the show notes.

我们会将其包含在演出笔记中。

Sounds like y'all are building some cool analytics features maybe based on that role.

听起来你们都在基于这个角色构建一些很酷的分析功能。

I'm excited for that.

我对此感到很兴奋。

Awesome, man.

太棒了，伙计。

Thank you for being here.

感谢您来到这里。

Sachin Monga: My pleasure.

萨钦·蒙加：我很荣幸。

Thank you so much for having me.

非常感谢你邀请我。

Lenny: Thank you so much for listening.

莱尼：非常感谢您的聆听。

If you found this valuable, you can subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app.

如果您发现这很有价值，您可以在 Apple Podcasts、Spotify 或您最喜欢的播客应用程序上订阅该节目。

Also, please consider giving us a rating or leaving a review as that really helps other listeners find the podcast.

另外，请考虑给我们评分或留下评论，因为这确实有助于其他听众找到播客。

You can find all past episodes or learn more about the show at lennyspodcast.com.

您可以在 lennyspodcast.com 上找到所有过去的剧集或了解有关该节目的更多信息。

See you in the next episode.

下一集见。