white text on black background 'hubs and spokes'

The Banana Stand Ecosystem

‘Winners have systems. Losers have goals.’
Scott Adams

This website is part of a larger ecosystem which, for a working title, I call “The Banana Stand Ecosystem.’

Right now? It’s a work in progress.

I introduced this concept in the first introductory article, About thebananastand.co.

This article gives a little more detail.

The thesis

I intend to prove or disprove a thesis, and, if I’m right, to be the base design for a replicable structure of websites and newsletter platforms. The goal is to massively increases reader reach beyond what’s achievable in isolation.

The thesis is, ‘can we combine the relative strengths of each online platform into a coherent, efficient, and absurdly effective whole?’

I share this information because most people who visit thebananastand.co won’t ever read this far. And if they do, only a few will try to copy it.

Risky? Maybe.

Hubs and spokes

Many of you know the hub and spoke model for distribution of goods and services. It’s heinously efficient in real life, and I want to quantify how well it transfers when the main product is ‘attention.’

Quick overview. Hub and spoke is a distribution model where a main ‘hub’ location connects to many smaller ‘spoke’ locations. Everything gets streamlined by passing it all through the centre hub to be consolidated and distributed. The spokes don’t communicate with each other, only with the hub.

Amazon is the hub and spoke poster child. They take it next level. But for the rest of us, there are examples everywhere you look:

  • Logistics: central warehouse (hub), retail stores (spokes).
  • Airlines: big airport (hub), regional airports (spokes)
  • Offices: HQ (hub), satellite offices (spokes).

Information technology has hubs and spokes too. Think SaaS (used to be called client/ server before marketing got involved).

How I implement this

I write articles once a week and publish on each of these platforms, in order:

WordPress

Content published here first. This establishes canonical ownership and gets the content into Google and Bing.

Pros:

  • Good SEO capabilities
  • Canonical ownership of content
  • Plugins provide options and flexibility
  • Platform ownership.

Cons:

  • Complex
  • Low discoverability, even after SEO kicks in.

Medium

Slightly modified content published here next. Pray that the algorithm gods to take notice and promote to the people who may be interested. Medium’s huge domain authority means content is indexed quickly and the canonical version (WordPress) is reinforced.

Pros:

  • Simple publishing process
  • Huge community, great discoverability
  • Point article canonical to WordPress
  • Low cost.

Cons:

  • Can’t access subscriber details (after April 2025)
  • Frequent policy changes.

Substack

Slightly modified content published here last. And a heartfelt prayer to the algorithm gods. Support distribution with Substack Notes.

Pros:

  • Simple publishing process
  • Huge community, great discoverability
  • Subscriber list can be exported
  • No cost.

Cons:

  • Limited mailout functionality
  • No canonical recognition

Put them together

We potentially have an ecosystem that checks every box. Content ownership, great discoverability, subscriber access, low cost.

Hard to argues with that. If it works.

The end game

If my thesis is correct, I have an ecosystem that quickly generates attention for any content I write. This attention can be used for marketing and sales, for spreading ideas and opinions, and for coalescing support behind any new or undiscovered perspective.

That’s what thebananstand.co is all about.

Handwritten word, "mark"
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