Six months in. Here's what worked, what didn't, and what's changing.
Products worked. The newsletter model didn't.
I launched StackContacts Intelligence in December 2025 with the idea of a newsletter that helps serious Substack creators turn their subscriber data into revenue.
Six months later, I have numbers. Some are good. Some are not.
Time to be honest about both.
The good
StackContacts and StackContacts Connect products now have 67 paying customers.
The products are working. I still run this on my own publication — the weekend loop that got past $30K. Sixty-seven customers are doing the same with the tools. That part is real.
This newsletter has 115 subscribers. Three of them pay for it — Phil, Max, and Tracy, who backed this before I’d earned it. I haven’t forgotten that.
Growth has been steady — about two-thirds came through the Substack ecosystem, mostly in-app discovery and Notes. Notes alone drove a quarter. Actual recommendations? Three people.
The collaborative posts worked better than anything I wrote solo. Cross-posting to Finn’sights newsletter did almost nothing.
What didn’t work
I underestimated what it takes to run two newsletters simultaneously.
I published monthly in March and April. Monthly. For a newsletter that promises ongoing insight. That’s not a newsletter; that’s a quarterly report.
The “office hours” idea for paid subscribers never got traction. The live teardown sessions never happened. The private community stayed quiet. I made promises I couldn’t keep at the scale I was operating at.
The honest diagnosis: I built a subscriber model around features that require a big, active community to work — and I have 115 subscribers. The math doesn’t support it yet.
What I learned
Here’s the thing that surprised me most.
I ran the numbers on my Substack DMs. Since August 2024, I’ve answered 5,346 messages across 506 threads from 343 different people — all asking questions about StackContacts, Substack growth, and how to use their data.
For free.
Every month, I send 350–450+ replies. That’s 12–15 replies a day, every working day. Technical questions, strategy questions, “why isn’t this working” questions.
The value I’ve been giving away in DMs is more than anything I’ve published.
That told me something important: the real product isn’t the newsletter. It’s access to someone who has spent two years building tools specifically for Substack creators and can help you figure out how to pull your data and what it actually means.
To be clear: the DMs aren’t going away. If you’re stuck, message me — that door stays open. What’s changing is that the deep, roll-up-your-sleeves work on your data now has a home, instead of living in my inbox at 11 pm.
What’s changing
I’ve rebuilt the subscription structure around what actually delivers value — not what sounds good in a bullet list.
Free — same as before.
AI prompts, product updates, public essays. Good for creators building their first 500 subscribers.
Paid — $19/month or $149/year
Every paid subscriber now gets the Starter Subscriber Bundle free — three tools worth $153 at retail:
Substack Pro Studio ($79) — schedule Notes, manage your publishing workflow
Substack Control Center ($25) — one-tab dashboard for growth, revenue, and content
StackContacts App Starter Edition ($49) — subscriber CRM for Mac or Windows, syncs your Substack data (up to 3 publications)
Plus: decision-focused breakdowns, new Claude Skills drops (AI prompts that work directly with your StackContacts data), and access to all premium posts and archives.
Annual at $149 means the Starter Bundle covers the subscription on day one.
V.I.P. Member — $299/year
For creators who want the full stack and direct access to the roadmap.
V.I.P. members get everything above, plus the VIP Subscriber Bundle — three more tools worth $218:
StackContacts Pro Edition ($149) — full CRM with advanced segmentation and revenue attribution, syncs your Substack and Gumroad data, up to 5 publications
StackContacts Connect ($20) — personalized DM campaigns inside Substack
Substack Notes for Claude Desktop ($49) — write and schedule Notes directly from Claude Desktop via MCP
Total tool suite: $371 free with V.I.P. membership.
Plus: an annual 1:1 session (60 min) to work through your specific data and growth problems, priority on new Claude Skills requests, and direct input on what gets built next.
Already bought something?
Then you helped fund this. I’m not going to pretend you’re a new customer.
If you already own one of these tools from Gumroad, I don’t want you paying twice for the same thing. Reply to this email and tell me what you’ve got — we’ll sort out the right fit so you’re not buying what you already have.
You backed this before it worked. That counts.
What I’m dropping
No more office hours. No more live tear-downs. No more private community promises.
Not because they’re bad ideas — because they require an audience size I don’t have yet. When the community is ready to support them, they’ll come back.
For now: great content, useful tools, and real access to me when you need it.
The offer
If you’ve been on the fence, this is a reasonable moment to try it.
Annual at $149 gets you $153 in tools before you read a single issue. The math is hard to argue with.
V.I.P. at $299/year: every tool ($371 included), one session on your data, and a seat at the roadmap table. For creators who want the whole thing.
The second half of 2026 is still ahead.
I’m not shutting anything down. I’m building something that can actually last — and being honest about what that looks like right now.
Thanks for reading. Reply and tell me what you’re trying to figure out.
— Finn
 | A guest post by
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Yes, I agree with you. There is a gold mine of wisdom in DMs. I also noticed that digital products work better for creators with small number of subscribers on Substack.
Oh darn, Finn.
You were running a consultancy out of your inbox.
Glad you finally put a door on it.