Small is beautiful...

Energy goes where conscious attention flows ✨

“It took me a year just to get to 100 subscribers, and I earned every single person who subscribed to TransFriend. It was a growing community of really cool people who believed in what I was doing, and that felt great.”

Robin Taylor (he/him)

Russell Nohelty

and I recently guested over on

SmallStack

and it was SO much fun.

They opened a question thread open to celebrate our book and to connect with the community over there. I am SO impressed at how beautifully welcoming the

SmallStack

community is. If you have a publication with under 500 readers head on over?

I invited

Robin Taylor (he/him)

over to Sparkle to chat with you and he is also posting this over on

SmallStack

too. ¹

Before we get into it, I’d love to know…

Would you like to see more written interviews here?

✨

Why SmallStack? Not just the name, which is fun, but how did you know the need was out there for something like this? How did it all come to be?

I started writing on Substack in early 2023 with zero subscribers. It took me a year just to get to 100 subscribers, and I earned every single person who subscribed to TransFriend. It was a growing community of really cool people who believed in what I was doing, and that felt great.

When Notes got going, I started seeing a lot of bigger names celebrating with, “I just topped 1,000 subscribers! Look at me! Let me show you how!” I fell for it. I clicked, I read through, and nearly every time I discovered that the author had some sort of privilege they didn’t acknowledge. In a lot of cases they wrote something that went viral, Substack proper picked them up and made them a “featured publication,” and their future suddenly opened up to wild success. There is no amount of training or “let me show you how” that will make this work for anyone else, and it frustrated me deeply. So I took to Notes to speak out about it, and then I wrote my own piece expounding on the whole concept of taking pride in staying small.

I got a ton of visibility from that post (the irony of that isn’t lost on me). I think it struck a chord because this is how so many people feel, and we were all hungry for someone to come in, say it out loud, and create space where we could crowd-source solutions. There’s real value in being small with a small following, and no one else was affirming that. We were all tired of equating growth with greatness. Greatness exists at all sizes.

Calling it SmallStack was inevitable. And when I said it out loud, I clearly saw pancakes. I spent the next 24 hours designing a logo and drafting a single post to explain what SmallStack was about.

🥞 ✨

What does SmallStack do for its community members? And why should folx consider subscribing, free or paid? What are your prices and how did you come up with them?

SmallStack is a supportive community where you can show up as yourself and feel really good about having ten subscribers. Ten is awesome! In addition to a community that supports and cheers you on, SmallStack offers four big benefits for our subscribers:

1. The SmallStack Library — To help our community find one another, we’re creating a Library of publications with fewer than 1,000 subscribers. To date we’ve got over 1,800 entries looking to be listed! Unlike the category listings on Substack, our Library emphasizes creators who might just be starting out, folx who have small, dedicated audiences, and tight-knit communities showing up in some very personal ways for one another. If Substack is a big chain grocery store, we’re your local farmer’s market. You can connect with talented artists of all kinds, and you know that your support is meaningful to them.

2. Guest Posts — In the lead-up to our big Launch Week in September, we’ve been publishing a regular series of Guest Posts by SmallStack community members. Some of them have me in tears or laughing in pure joy, and it feels so good to showcase these amazing writers.

3. SmallTalk Threads — We have biweekly SmallTalk discussions on different topics like celebrating wins and sharing your favorite stacks. It’s been super fun! Folx are finding new friends and collaborators in the comments, we’re learning about each other, high-fives are exploding all over the place. 

4. Featured Posts — When Launch Week hits, we’ll be starting up our Featured Post series, which showcases great posts in our Library that have been curated by our volunteers. It’s kind of like the Staff Picks section at your favorite indie bookstore.

💸

We don’t apply paywalls to anything. All posts are public. For us to have the greatest impact, we need to keep our doors open wide. Money can be tight for a lot of folx, and we don’t want that to come between you and a great writer, podcaster, photographer, or poet. Likewise for creators, money isn’t a requirement to join our Library.

For those who are able, a paid subscription is an act of philanthropy, love, and belief in the mission of SmallStack to uplift small voices. Subscribers can join for $2.50 per month or $25 a year.

This opens up access to people who want to help but can’t afford much, and it also helps boost our Substack visibility by bringing in more paid subscribers. We’ve got even bigger dreams on the horizon, and paid subscriptions keep our dreams alive.

How do those showing up at SmallStack want or need to grow their own publications and what do their goals tend to be?

Lots of people show up feeling overwhelmed, neglected, or just plain lost in the enormity of Substack. There are so many established authors and cartoonists and poets here, and it can feel intimidating to compete with that. But figuring out how to show up and not burn out is its own part-time job. Most of us would rather focus on our art, not on self-promotion.

The Robins!

When I first came to Substack, I had no guidelines or example

s. A lot of the “advice” I saw either didn’t fit the context of my writing, or it assumed I was able to spend way more time, effort, or money than was available to me. And I’m not really unusual—I’m a working-class dad supporting a family of four plus a big, hairy dog. My time and budget are limited, and I don’t know much about web development or design. Many of our subscribers are in a similar boat.

🛶 💫

That disconnect is what makes the book you and Russell have created feel like a game-changer. A lot of us want to be successful in our publications—we want to reach an audience that cares about what we have to say, and we don’t have a bunch of time and money to dedicate to growth. I see this book as kind of like a cool, more experienced friend who can provide actionable tips and speed up the learning process. You’ve been in our shoes. You’ve walked our path, and now we get to benefit from your previous learnings and mistakes. What an amazing gift!

You’ve experienced some growth of your own since launching SmallStack. How has that felt?  What have been the peaks and troughs within being known online?

I didn’t start SmallStack to promote myself, but I think a lot of people were curious about the guy launching this movement. I acknowledge that I have a pretty different publication title than what you usually see. I mean, I am literally That Trans Friend You Didn’t Know You Needed.

A big fear for me was that folx would show up in either space and be unkind. And it’s true that some unkind comments and notes have surfaced. None of it has exceeded what I could handle. My expectations were way worse than reality in this case. I think it’s worth pointing out that I also haven’t ever tried to be something I’m not, and so I hope folx know what they’re getting when they sign up.

My brand is literally kindness, honesty, and vulnerability. And when you are your most authentic self, subscribers and followers will self-select in or out.

I recently tipped over the 1,000-subscriber mark myself, and that set off some really wild imposter syndrome for me. Those emotions were all over the place, especially the little voice that told me folx weren’t showing up because of who I am or what I write. And yet I can’t help but revel in my own growing community that’s proven to be nothing but supportive and engaging and exactly what I dreamed of all along. 

What has been the biggest surprise since launching SmallStack?

I honestly thought SmallStack was going to get like 50 or 100 people interested within the first month. I had no idea it would take off like it did. That was shocking and fun, but the fun quickly wore off when I saw all of those numbers staring back at me like I was responsible for helping them. And there was no plan at all. I just had a dream about a Library and some cool guest or featured posts. Nothing was built. Thankfully a couple of truly caring people reached out to offer a bit of mentoring and guidance—one of those was you, Claire!—and they helped me see how valuable a relationship with volunteers would be for me and for those willing to lend a hand. So… the hard part? Asking for help. I had to get over that discomfort quickly, because this workload was just too big to handle alone.

But as soon as Robin Cangie joined me and we started assembling the volunteer Team we now have, the whole world opened up. I cannot imagine where I would be without these ten amazing people walking through it with me, and I am in awe of their talent and dedication every single day that they show up.

What is one thing you believe about growing a community and how do you protect the beautiful community you are growing?

Kindness is our guiding value around SmallStack, even with ourselves. If we put kindness at the front of everything we do, every interaction we have, and every decision we make, then I think we’ll be heading in the right direction. And it’s not always easy to do that, but there’s merit in sticking with it when things get hard.

Growing a community isn’t about everyone agreeing. It’s about listening to the places where we collide and get hurt and then acknowledging those growing pains to foster something better, something possibly unexpected.

We also need spaces where we can show up and be our authentic selves, and when we do that the right people will show up beside us. I’ve seen it happen here, and it makes me excited for all the things that are coming next.

✨

---

THANKS to

Robin Taylor (he/him)

for this super insightful interview.

I’m sure Robin would LOVE to hear from you in the comments if anything resonated. I’m still recovering from

The Sparkle Summit - Substack x Publishing

- all the replays are over there if you want to catch up and I’m leaving the chat threads open for a week.

✨

1. For full transparency Robin invited us and then suggested this question and answer post for you. He wrote the questions and I tweaked them then he answered and sent them via email. It reminded me of the days where I used to think, why is no one inviting me to be on their podcast? Then I realised you have to pitch for that stuff or start your own!

You can always pitch new ways of collaborating out to your peers. Remember all the rules are made up. This is only the second interview I’ve done here on Sparkle - the first was with Russell about the book a couple of weeks ago.