Are we done collaborating?

Thoughts on the future of CollabStack

If you’ve been hanging around here for awhile, you may have noticed it has been a few months since I last posted here on CollabStack. And to everyone who joined us during this time, I apologize for the silence and for this message being your entry point!

I didn’t initially intend to step back for so long, but I am now about 22 weeks into my third pregnancy, and I spent January through mid-March being quite nauseous. It was difficult for me to keep up with just my main publication here on Substack, so this one was put on pause.

But honestly, the future of CollabStack has been a question for me even before then, and that brings me to the title of this post: Are we done collaborating?

I hope the answer is no, but based on what I’ve seen over the last six or so months, the attitudes, habits, and needs of creators here have shifted.

Here’s everything I’ve been considering and that has caused me to rethink where this is going . . .

Declining Engagement

The declining numbers started last summer. There were fewer comments, fewer new subscribers, and fewer completed collaborations being shared by my Premium Members (until it eventually became zero shares several months in a row). And so in January, I turned off paid subscriptions and refunded anyone who still had an active membership. It didn’t feel right to have people paying for something they didn’t seem to be using much.

Good Idea. Right Person. Wrong Time.

I own that much of the lack of momentum around CollabStack has been on me. I am stretched too thin. CollabStack is a project I started on the side of running my main publication and being a stay-at-home mom to two children under the age of four (with zero childcare). I have not been able to put in the energy needed to market CollabStack—or at least certainly not the effort I could have given if I had started this before I had kids. I still feel I am the right person and that it’s a good idea at its core, but unfortunately the timing is not ideal for where I’m at personally in my life.

Less Excitement Around Substack

I also have to acknowledge that things have changed overall on Substack. When I had this idea, people were so excited about joining Substack and all the possibilities that it held. But then enthusiasm for the platform began to wane as more creators realized that they couldn’t earn as much money as quickly as they hoped, that they weren’t getting as many subscribers as they thought they would, and that overall their return on investment was low. I watched people slow their posting, go back to platforms they already had success on, or decide to try other platforms entirely. Many people I connected with back in October 2024, who were big supporters of CollabStack and who helped me promote it when I started, are now gone.

Flashy (Expensive) Alternatives

And then there’s another factor: Others are coming along with bigger budgets and more time, and they’re doing this concept better than I can. They’re using AI for matching and/or they’re giving people more personalized connections and attention. Of course though, these services are much pricier than what I was offering. And the CollabStack Directory is still free to all to browse.

I like to think that CollabStack can be that option that’s open to everyone, even if they don’t have a ton of time or money to invest in collaboration. It can be a simple entry point for collaboration on Substack.

What’s Next

Even with feeling like a lot is stacked against me, I do still think what we have here is valuable. And some of you have messaged me to tell me so—thank you! But I’ve also heard that many folks are struggling to find the time to do bigger collaborations or to make those solid connections that lead to the right collaborations.

I’ve spent some time thinking about what could make this an easier place to engage. A place with less pressure to do something big with someone else and to instead focus on making the connections first, which is really what I wanted this space to be about. I never wanted to be a Substack or collaboration guru or teacher, and I never wanted to have a publication focused on growth for the sake of growth. I just wanted to help people make genuine connections so they can potentially make something cool together (and maybe grow at the same time).

Below I’ve listed out a few possibilities, and I would love for you to jump into the comments with your thoughts:

• Do quarterly Call for Collaboration posts instead of monthly (this is where you jump into the comments and share how you’d like to collaborate, and then you browse the comments to connect with others who seem like a good fit). Participation was a bit low with it being monthly, so I’d like to try quarterly.

• Do some more of what I like to call “CollabLite” opportunities, which encourage you to get out there and meet new folks but without the pressure to do a big collaboration right away. These could include:

  • Continuing the monthly posts that invite you to share a long-form post/article of yours that you’re proud of and that you’d like to share with more people. See an example here.

  • Some Notes challenges (likely monthly) where we have a topic or prompt that we can all write on and then engage with each other on Notes. I could see inviting others to submit prompts to share so we can get some from across various genres that I can’t cover (such as fiction or poetry).

• Try out quarterly topics or themes that we can all use to write a post and then partner up with someone else to cross-post or do a bigger project on that theme (co-written post, interview, live chat, etc.)

I am open to ideas and suggestions, and please do let me know if any of these appeal to you!

For now, there will be no paid version of CollabStack. Instead of a paid membership, I am leaning toward offering featured spots in emails/posts for a small cost. This would help anyone who has a specific request or who really wants to stand out.

I also intend to keep the CollabStack Directory, though I am VERY behind on adding new folks—so sorry to anyone still waiting! I will be getting back to adding new entries soon, and I think I’ll lean more toward updating that directory quarterly rather than on a rolling basis.

Q2 Call for Collaboration Post/Thread

I will plan to post our Q2 Call for Collaboration next week, since we are into Q2 now. But in the future, I’d aim to send this out more at the beginning of each quarter. So if you’re ready to jump back into collaboration, watch for the post coming next week.

THANK YOU

And finally, thank you all for being here and for hanging in there with me. I apologize again for being quiet for so long, but I look forward to us all coming back together to collaborate—and I look forward to hearing your thoughts!

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Want to help keep CollabStack going? In addition to sharing your thoughts below, let me know you’re still interested in hanging out here by liking this post. You can also help me spread the word and share this post on Notes.