Hello from New York. A Norway recap, City Guide updates and a big roundup of food and dining takes are coming soon. But after teasing my new project a couple weeks ago, I wanted to share a full update now that it’s official. Last week, Catherine Valentine and I launched Spur, a growth agency and product lab for media founders. Emily Sundberg broke the news in Feed Me:
I called Austin last week to learn more about the agency. He told me, “The thing we’re solving for independent-ish media founders is the feeling of being overwhelmed operationally and then overwhelmed with the question of: ‘What levers can I pull to grow?’ Across subscriptions, brand partnerships, events, and (the thing I’m most excited about) new product launches, like the Feed Me job board and Lenny’s product pass, there’s no one-size-fits-all way to support that. We’re bringing enterprise solutions to the enterprise media businesses of the future.”
Austin, who left his role of Head of Business Development at Substack last year, said that at Substack, he and Catherine were the people responsible for consulting with the creators who made the most money and had the biggest explosions in growth. They also led brand moments through events like the annual New Media Party in D.C.
“Catherine ushered in the independent journalism era in Washington when Substack wasn’t known, helping many of the people you see atop Substack’s politics leaderboards quickly cross seven figures in revenue,” Austin told me. “We are confident we can take these kinds of media empires to the next level, no matter the vertical or platforms they use.”
And I had a blast talking to Julia Alexander of Puck in more depth about the product lab side of the business.
As we enter the agentic era of A.I. aggregation, the wheel is turning yet again. And for the new class of creator-journalists building D.T.C. businesses, basic subscription packages are no longer enough. That’s the thesis proffered by Austin Tedesco and Catherine Valentine, two former Substack executives who are launching their own consultancy called Spur with a dire warning: As A.I. threatens to eat the web, the path forward must include higher-value membership perks beyond dinners or conferences or live tapings—benefits like apps, games, and services that too can be cheaply built with A.I.
When we caught up last week, Tedesco proffered that creators are increasingly going to use A.I. to generate personalized, interactive tools to engage with their archived work. The New York Times is already pursuing a similar capability, with an A.I.-enabled internal archive search tool, as Dylan reported the other week. But there are plenty of adjacent opportunities: think recipes from food creators, or Spotify-style playlists cultivated via mentions by top Substackers …
This is the kind of shift I’ve long thought the industry was ripe for—one in which creators don’t just reimagine how content gets delivered, but also what’s possible for independent media outlets to build in the first place. Now, in theory, small budgets and a lack of engineering experience are no longer constraints on creativity—and even the wildest product ideas no longer need to die at the brainstorming stage. That’s ultimately Tedesco and Valentine’s pitch to clients: “Let us build the tools to think about growth for you in what we think will be the highest-leverage way—not just the way that is generally recommended,” Tedesco said.
You can listen to Julia and Dylan Byers chat about what this means for the creator economy here on The Grill Room (around the 44-minute mark):
We’re just getting rolling, but I’m thrilled by the early projects we’ve started building. If you have an upcoming launch or crazy product idea you want to chat about, hit us up at hello@spur.partners.