Ben Thompson started his blog in 2013, & it took him 2 years to build his audience to 2000 subscribers, but these days he’s estimated to have over 26,000 paid subscribers, all of whom pay him $120/year for the privilege of reading his blogs on tech strategies for businesses & startups.
Called Stratechery, it reportedly generates US $3 million per annum, & is built on the WordPress platform. In a recent post on his Site, Ben explained he had to combine several paid services to bring together an effective email outreach campaign to build his subscription service. Due to this, he decided to launch Passport, a service for creators, which simplifies the process of creating Content & reaching an audience for both free & paid subscribers.
Passport is a tool creators can employ to reduce their subscription overload, & offer their users the opportunity to receive Content on any platform that supports OAuth & the service that they use by choice. Ben writes that Passport “has the ability to fully customize a Website, a powerful template system & a single sign-on capability.” In his words “Passport is enterprise software for creators”.
The idea is that Passport combines communication channels such as SMS & email into a single service, which creates a seamless experience for both creators & their audience. To initiate the service, subscribers need to select how they want to receive Content & via which medium. This would take place on a member app. In this manner Passport enables personal communication with subscribers at scale, across all open protocols available to creators, with subscribers satisfied that they only receive what they’re after via the most appropriate medium under a single login.
Passport would allow member Sites to create “Visas” for other services under their control, allowing subscribers to, for instance, receive a discount by subscribing to additional offerings such as a podcast in tandem with written Content. The platform can be used for subscription management, but it’s not a subscription management tool, per se.
Passport is powered by Stripe, & can work with any subscription management service. For instance, it could work with in-app purchasing, an existing subscription management system, or other subscription management services. Passport’s integration is between member management & open communications tools, everything else attaches via API such as a fully fledged Content Management System.
As an example, if a subscriber receives Content, by choice, via Spotify, they’d be able to use Passport to receive Ben’s podcast on Spotify by selecting the option at the beginning, when they subscribe.
Image credit: Passport
