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CASE STUDY

CREATOR RETENTION @MEDIUM


Role: Group Product Manager, Creators
Timeline: May 2021–March 2022
Team: 12 people (cross-functional team across multiple initiatives)

  Demo reel for List / @medium 

︎  CHALLENGE
Medium was losing writers to Substack. Years of algorithm changes had eroded trust—writers saw their reach fluctuate unpredictably as the platform prioritized different signals (claps, read time, curation, publications). With payouts tied to traffic their articles generated, many creators felt they'd lost control over their livelihoods.

Writers wanted what Substack offered: guaranteed audience ownership and direct reader relationships, independent of algorithmic distribution.
This wasn’t just a creator problem—it was an existential threat. Medium is a lifeline for indie writers. With 700,000 paying subscribers and 85-100 million monthly readers in 2021, the platform’s value proposition depended on a thriving creator ecosystem. Without writers, we'd lose readership and community.


︎  MY ROLE
 I joined to lead the Creators initiatives, partnering with an incredible design leadership and UX research to understand writer needs and execute solutions. Many problems were known—my role was execution-focused: ship the right features fast, coordinate cross-functional work, and measure impact.


︎  APPROACH
Give writers audience ownership and control:

  1. Email Subscription Redesign – Let writers build direct newsletter subscriber relationships independent of the algorithm. See DEEP-DIVE below. (announcement)

  2. Referred Membership Program – Enable writers to get a revenue share from reader conversions, creating additional income beyond traffic-based payouts(Co-led with a monetization PM. The program was sunset in 2025) (announcement)

  3. Lists – Allow writers to curate a list of stories by topic, showcasing expertise and driving engagement (announcement)


  4. Customizable About Page – Better way to express their personal brand and differentiate themselves (announcement)

  5. Email List Import – Let writers bring readers from other platforms(help docs)

  6. Fix Follower Count  – Remove spam accounts to show writers their true fan base, rebuilding trust (announcement)



Deep-dive: Email Subscription Redesign


PROBLEM
Writers couldn't reach their most engaged readers, which threatened platform defensibility against Substack. Email subscription had launched 6 months before I joined, but struggled with adoption:
  • <10% of writers enabled it. <50% of those who enabled it sent newsletters
  • 55% of surveyed writers were unaware that the feature existed
  • Only 10K emails sent monthly out of 1.3M stories published

It wasn’t all bad news. We saw:
  • Writer emails had ~40% open rates (10 points above Medium's Digest Newsletter)
  • 50% of email subscribers read 3+ stories from subscribed writers in 90 days
  • Engaged readers existed—we just needed to connect them with writers
    
STRATEGIC BET
If we could give writers audience direct ownership within Medium, we could retain creators while maintaining our discovery advantages (curation, publications, built-in readership).

      
  1. Increase creator adoption by removing double opt-in requirements, increasing in-product awareness through onboarding prompts, and building educational content with Creator Relations.

  2. Improve subscriber conversion by redesigning subscribe CTAs across reading experience, personalizing subscription landing pages, and enabling email list import (shipped 6 months post-launch)

  3. Give writers feedback loop by building an audience dashboard showing followers and email subscribers, since writers checked post dashboard daily.

  4. Drive engagement between writers and their audiences by enabling reader replies to writer emails and integrating comments in the email experience. 


KEY CROSS-FUNCTION COLLABORATION
  • Partnered with Legal (double opt-in removal), Marketing (launch communications), Creator Relations (awareness campaigns), Customer Success (support training)
  • Recruited 6 engineers mid-sprint to increase capacity
  • Ran this in parallel with the referred membership program (different PM lead, shared resources)

︎  IMPACT

Improve Adoption of Email Subscription compared to before
  • Nearly 6× total active subscribers(350K → 2.06M)
  • 100× daily email volume (1,200 → 100K-200K subscribers receiving emails)
  • 70× monthly email sends (10K → 726K), massively increasing writer distribution
  • Double-digit percentage of writer base activated and sending regularly
  • Maintained ~40% open rates at scale

Increase Writer Engagement on Platform
  • Over half of subscribers read 3+ stories from subscribed writers in 90 days
  • Writers checked audience dashboard daily  
  • Writers organically promoted email subscriptions in their stories
  • Positive post-launch survey results

For Broader Creator Initiatives
  • Referred membership program created new revenue stream for ~20% of writers
  • Lists enabled content curation and topic expertise showcase
  • Customizable About pages gave writers brand differentiation
  • Follower cleanup rebuilt trust in authenticity metrics


︎  LEARNING
Rebuilding trust is harder than building a product. With writers already skeptical after years of algorithm changes, shipping feature parity wasn't enough. We had to earn back their trust. This meant investing heavily in the detail from product marketing, detailed help documentation, Creator Relations outreach, and authentic communication. Working alongside the Product Design, Product Marketing, and Creator Relations teams, who shared our commitment to writers, taught me that trust requires relentless effort and true cross-functional collaboration.

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