Phil PowisChief Wisdom Keeper @ Sacred Business Flow

Why he started charging #substack #shorts

27 May 2026 · 1 min

Watch on YouTube

1:23

In this YouTube short, the speaker reflects on his decision to shift his Substack newsletter from a free, open‑access model to a paid subscription. He explains that offering everything for free was undervaluing both his own work and that of other creators, prompting a personal, “soulful” discussion about what a paid product should look like. He settles on a series of monthly webinars that dive deep into what AI is and isn’t, offered exclusively to paid subscribers. Throughout the narrative, he shares his ongoing learning curve about building a business, mentioning concepts he only recently grasped such as B2B, B2C, sales funnels, and mail merges, and credits interactions with other Substack creators for his growth. The tone is conversational and reflective, with an optimistic sentiment toward monetization and personal development.

Chapters

and who's become a really dear friend to me through Substack. You know, she always just used to take the mick out of me saying, what are you doing? You're like, in the nicest possible way. And, you know, I originally started off by saying everything's going to be free, like open access. And then I kind of had this realization that I should probably start charging for stuff, not only because it would be good to make some money from this, but also because it was undervaluing the product. Not just of myself, but of other creators as well. So then I kind of had this really, I guess, like genuinely soulful discussion with myself in terms of what, what would a paid product look like? And there'd be some element of paywall, but I thought what I'd like to do is to create something that I could offer to people if they decided to become a paid subscriber. And that would be a series of monthly webinars where we really look in depth at what AI is and is not. And then, yeah, I've just been trying to build the brand from there and genuinely trying to learn about, like, from people such as yourselves, from other people on Substack, like, what it means to build a business, what B2B even means. I had no idea what B2B meant until about 6 months ago. Like, what a funnel is, what B2C is, what a, I don't know, like, what a mail merge is. All of this stuff. And it's been, uh, yeah.