Emily Sundberg got laid off at Meta. Now her Feed Me is a thriving one-person media business.
There are lots of Emily Sundbergs in New York City — striving young people who show up intent on making a name for themselves in media, finance, or fashion.
But there's only one actual Emily Sundberg, who has turned that ethos into a one-person media company: Her Feed Me newsletter has become an increasingly popular read for people who want to know what people with money and ambition are spending their money on — and who also want to know about the businesses that cater to those people.
Sundberg started her Substack when she had a full-time job in business marketing at Meta — which she described as "basically being, 'You're a small business in Miami. You should use Instagram ads.'" Then she lost her gig during a 2022 layoff round, and eventually turned Feed Me into her full-time thing.
Now she's doing well enough that she says she can easily shrug off offers from investors. Earlier this year, The New York Times pegged her subscription revenue at least $400,000 a year, and it's likely well above that now; she also says ads — which she sells herself — contribute about a third of her revenue.
I talked to Sundberg in a recent edition of my Channels podcast about her origin story, her ambitions to launch new stuff, and the balance between being the face of her company and keeping parts of her life private. The following is an edited excerpt of our conversation:
Peter Kafka: When you started FeedMe, you were also consulting and working on other projects. Were you thinking that the newsletter would just be one of those projects, or were you always hoping to turn it into a full-time business?
Emily Sundberg: The data I was receiving from Substack was so positive. The growth was crazier than anything I'd ever worked on before. And I was also green-lighting all of my ideas — and other places that I was working for weren't green-lighting my ideas.
It was a lesson in trusting myself, and my gut and intuition, and making something in a white space that didn't exist.
So I was like: "OK, I'm onto something. I'm trusting myself. I'm gonna lean into this."
How did you think about making yourself the face/brand/main character of your work?
At the beginning of my newsletter, I did have a selfie on it every day. I'm not sure if selfies were popular on LinkedIn at the time, so I do think that I got an initial bump in traffic. Because people were like, "She's talking about the credit restructuring of Rent the Runway, and she's a young woman, and there's anime hearts around this selfie of her. What is going on?"
I think that helped at the beginning. And then, a year ago, I did a proper branding of the letter. The selfies went away. I had too many weird interactions in the city.
That can be a double-edged sword, right? You've attained some sort of status/celebrity notoriety. On the other hand, you have creeps coming up in the street.
I'm really happy that I stopped doing the photos.
But it's funny — as I'm doing the ad sales now, I'm noticing business brands are like "Are we treating you like a New York Magazine, or are we treating you like an influencer? Are we doing a photo shoot with you? Or just a big banner ad at the top of your newsletter?"
And I've noticed that I'm not as comfortable smiling for a photo shoot. I don't want to do that. I don't want to show people my house or my closet or my life like that.
Why not?
A very wise person in this industry, who's quite public, once told me: "Once you turn certain levers on, you can't turn them back off."
That doesn't mean you never turn them on — but you should be strategic about when you do. And I don't need to right now. Everything's working. I don't need to give more of my personal life.
But I've never met you before, and I know a bit about you, because there are profiles and stories about you. I know where you got married.
It seems like you've kind of dialed in exactly how much of yourself you want to show and not show. Are you doing those calculations all the time? Like: This can go up on Instagram, but this one is too personal. Or: I don't want you to know where I live.
I mean, everybody knows I live in [Brooklyn's] South Slope because I say that a lot, and I have a favorite bar.
But this is an interesting story: I did write about my wedding on my newsletter, which is probably the most personal thing I ever wrote on there.
And it was the highest conversion from free to paid readers I'd ever seen. Ever. The wedding was almost paid for after that. It was crazy.
This is a one-person operation. There's a lot of advantage to that: Every dollar you make, you get to keep. The flip side is: How do you scale that? Do you want to scale that?
The scaling thing is top of mind. Also, I don't know if a newsroom is supposed to be one person. Sometimes I wish I had somebody to bounce these ideas off of more during the day, or even a legal team or an editor.
I feel like the newsletter's in a good place. I would like to play around with audio. I've made a movie before, I've made a podcast before. I had a podcast about poker over COVID with my ex and his friend. It's pretty easy to make.
Don't tell anyone!
I understand how to do it. I understand how to edit video, I understand how to edit audio. So I think I'd like to play around with making a podcast this year.
I'm interested in not being the face of that. I would like to produce a podcast with a host [that isn't] me.
You don't want to be the face of that because of time, or because you don't want everything that comes out of Feed Me to be Emily Sundberg?
The latter. I also don't think that's the best idea that I could put together: Me saying, "OK, you just read my newsletter and now we're gonna talk about it."
Because the counter would be: You are the product. People want to hear from you, they want to see you, you are the thing. They don't want ancillary Emily stuff. They want Emily.
Which I think is totally fair, but I actually think that I'm a better producer than a host. We'll see.
Do you think that a year from now, this is still a one-person company? Or at some point, are you going to have to start hiring people full time?
Substack does a lot, I will say. Things that I would normally be hiring for. Their team is super-helpful to me and the other top newsletters on that platform.
Maybe a chief of staff/on-the-ground assistant kind of person could be helpful. But I like to keep my overhead low. It feels very doable right now.
I'm sure people are always trying to invest in you, and telling you their capital and resources can help you grow.
Not interested.
There's a recurring conversation about Substacks and all these one-person companies, and whether it would make sense to bundle them. Are you interested in being part of a Substack bundle?
Why? I don't need it. But I would be interested if there are writers on Substack and they were interested in being part of the Feed Me universe.
I've talked about this with a few writers on Substack, so we'll see how that shakes out.
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