Medium Growth Playbook
Where good ideas find you.
Design
Clean
Strategy
Network
The Spark
Evan Williams (Blogger and Twitter co-founder) saw that there was no platform for 'Medium-form' thought that prioritized quality over speed.
The Growth Engine
The 'Internal Network' Distribution Engine: Medium tacticaly won the 'Thought Leader' market by removing the need for a personal brand. Their growth engine is 'The Recommendation Algorithm'—identifying high-quality long-form writing and pushing it to a massive, built-in audience of millions. By focusing on 'Read Time' rather than 'Clicks,' they incentivized depth over bait. Their expansion into a 'Partner Program' created a sustainable ecosystem where writers could monetize their expertise without managing a paywall, turning Medium into the default portfolio for the world's most influential thinkers and essayists.