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Nathan Baschez is the cofounder and CEO of AI word processor Lex. He cofounded Every, was the first employee at Substack, and co-created Product Hunt.
The Consumer Social innovator on how audiences become communities — and how you should monetize them
Aug 27, 2020 · 3 min readUpdated Dec 17, 2025
Welcome to another edition of Means of Creation, by Li Jin and Nathan Baschez.
Means of Creation is a part of the Everything bundle of business newsletters. You’re getting this because you signed up for one of our newsletters: Superorganizers, Divinations, Praxis, Napkin Math, and Talk Therapy. To control which newsletters you get, click here.
Two weeks ago, we had Adam Davidson on the show in a special episode where he and Li talked about how they independently developed the passion economy thesis. We didn’t a chance to answer many reader questions, and at the end of the conversation everyone wanted us to do a part 2: so we’re doing a part 2!
It’s this Friday at 11am pacific, 2pm eastern. Join us!
Every Friday, Li and Nathan interview a guest in the passion economy — founders, creators and operators who are carving their own paths. For the second installment, they spoke to 5by and Islands founder Greg Isenberg about the value of unbundling vertical communities. It’s one of many topics Greg is covering in his newsletter, Late Checkout, where he’s been passing out great advice to anyone interested in internet communities.
This is a preview of our subscribers-only write-up of the key parts of the conversation. If you want, you can listen to the full talk in your podcast app, or watch it on YouTube.
Enjoy!
Greg Isenberg has been building in the consumer social space since before that was even a term. He sold his previous company, video aggregator 5by to StumbleUpon in 2012. His recent venture, the college-based social network Islands, was acquired by WeWork. Today, Greg is the founder of a product studio called Late Checkout, which designs, creates and acquires internet communities. It’s no accident that Greg’s work tends to connect people to one another: community is core to who he is as an individual. And that, in turn, informs how he thinks about others. “When like-minded people come together,” he says, “it unlocks potential” — in person and online. “Community is in our DNA.”
Greg sees consumer social in 2020 as undergoing a shift “from me to we,” moving away from an emphasis on static individual profiles and towards community. If Facebook and Instagram were about curating an online identity and building out one’s profile, then the next generation of successful consumer social platforms will be the ones that bring people together, help them meet like-minded individuals, and support their engagement with each other.
Of course, it’s hard for major social networks to truly address that need.
The written summaries of our conversations are for paying Everything subscribers only. If you’re interested in subscribing but not sure what all you’ll get in exchange, click here to learn more.
If you want a subscription but can’t afford one, reach out, and we’ll work something out!
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