Now we level up.

I’m gonna how you how I create a hyper-realistic AI clone of myself and use it to create talking head social media videos that look like these:

Perfect for educational Shorts for YouTube, TikTok, Instagram and Facebook.

You can put yourself into any background and turn this into a talking head video using your AI avatar that looks, talks and moves like you.

I managed to squeeze the process of creation to about 15 minutes, which makes it very doable to post a daily video especially for someone with a 9-5 like me.

What this automation does?

→ shows how to build a consistent avatar for talking head videos

→ turns an article or an email into a video script using a Claude skill from Unplugged Toolbox

→ publishes your video automatically to TikTok, Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram

PREREQUISITES:

• You have 20+ high quality images of yourself

• You have 2+ hours of high quality audio recorded

TECH STACK (some affiliate links):

• Paid plan to Higgsfield for consistent avatar image generation

• Paid plan to Elevenlabs for cloning your voice professionally

• Claude for writing your script

• Paid plan to Heygen for compiling everything into a talking head video

• (optional) Descript for adding captions and final tweaks

• Make.com account

• Gemini for writing the social media post within make

• Paid plan to Blotato and connected social media accounts in it (to be able to share to multiple social media from just one subscription - saves money from Buffer, extends the coverage of social media)

And here’s the Make blueprint automation template, the Claude skill for video script generator and the prompts I made for you:

Read more

Substack’s own guidance says 5 to 10%, with 10% as the rate to aim for.

I have analyzed 100+ successful paid newsletters and the highest I’ve seen goes beyond 20% (yes, not a joke!).

Others have pulled together real publication data from what authors share publicly (Casandra Campbell’s running dataset is the best public one I’ve found), and the median lands around 3%, and only about 1 in 5 publications clears 5%. So the honest band for most of us is 2 to 5%.

Which is close to the industry average of 1% to 3%.

Ok, that’s the headline. Now the part that took me longer to understand.

Free to paid conversion rate is the share of your free subscribers who upgrade to a paid subscription.

Most people calculate it as one blended number: total paid divided by total free. I stopped doing that a while ago, because the blended number was hiding the only thing worth knowing - how this breaks down by acquisition channel.

I calculate it by where the subscriber came from.

And the spread between channels is so wide that the word “average” almost stops meaning anything.

My free to paid conversion rate, by acquisition channel

Here’s 13 weeks of my own data, split across the three places my subscribers actually come from.

Three lines, three completely different stories.

Notes & App sits around 9.3% on average. It has dipped to 8.1% and once hit 11.7%. This is people who found me on Substack itself, read a Note, clicked through, and subscribed because something I wrote made them want more. These people are looking to subscribe and upgrade to paid. That’s the beauty of the community on Substack. And that’s why Substack doesn’t mislead you by saying it’s 5% average with 10% being the one to aim for.

Other Network and Recommendations averages about 4.4%. These are subscribers who came through another writer’s recommendation or the broader Substack network. Warm, but a step removed. They subscribed partly because of me and partly because the path was easy.

Imported accounts (external audience I imported, mostly social media) averages about 1.2%. These are people I brought in from off-platform. Lowest intent by a wide margin and that’s what I expect. These people are not into subscriptions.

So my best channel converts roughly seven to nine times better than my weakest one. Same publication, offer, paywall and writing.

The only variable is how the person arrived.

This is why I take it with a grain of salt when someone quotes a single “Substack average.”

Your number is a weighted blend of how your traffic splits across high-intent and low-intent sources.

Change the mix and the blend moves, even if your actual offer never changed.

Why the channel matters more than the average

The pattern behind all three lines is intent.

Someone who reads a Note, likes how I think, and clicks through to my publication is already half-sold. They came looking. By the time they hit a paywall, the question in their head is “is this worth it,” not “who is this person.”

Someone who got pulled in by a one-click recommendation after subscribing to a different newsletter is curious but uncommitted. And some don’t even notice they subscribe to you. They didn’t go looking for you. They said yes to a low-friction prompt.

Someone I imported from social media is the coldest of the three. They followed me somewhere else, for some other reason, and an email subscription was never the thing they signed up for. That type of import I don’t do anymore, I found a better way to grow from social media, but more on that in my monthly round-ups where I my exact revenue and growth numbers and what I do to get there.

Substack keeps adding features that make subscribing frictionless: one-click subscribe from Notes, recommendations at checkout, the shared logged-in account.

They’re all useful, but the easier you make it to subscribe, the lower the average intent of the people walking in. You grow your free list faster and your blended conversion rate drifts down at the same time. Both things are true at once.

So. When you understand the channel mix, you stop panic about the average, and stop comparing your number to the wrong benchmark.

What’s actually a good free to paid conversion rate on Substack?

Here’s how I read the bands, using my data, the public reports together and having in mind the industry averages:

• Under 2% usually points at a weak or unclear paid offer, or a list that’s mostly low-intent subscribers.

• 2 to 5% is normal. This is where most publications actually live, including the median I’ve seen around 3%.

• 5 to 8% is good. You have a real offer and a reasonably warm audience.

• 8 to 11% is strong. My Notes & App channel runs here. It takes high-intent traffic and a paid offer people genuinely want.

• Beyond 11%, and in rare cases past 20%, happens with a small, tight, high-intent audience and a paid offer that’s closer to a product than a paywall. These are outliers. There are some exceptions of course. Real, but outliers. If you’re at 3% and someone is at 22%, you are not running the same kind of publication, and copying their tactics won’t move you there.

So. If you’re sitting at 3%, you’re average. That’s the literal definition. The million dollar question is do you want to stay there? That’s the core problem I help people solve in my coaching program.

How to increase your free to paid conversion rate

Four levers move this number. Most people only pull one.

By the way, if you’re looking to increase yoru conversion rate, here’s my blueprint:

Now, here are the levers…

Lever one: convert from your high-intent channels

If your Notes audience converts at 9% and your imported social audience converts at 1%, the fastest gain is getting more of your growth to come through the 9% channel. For me that means writing more on Substack itself, in Notes and in posts, instead of pouring energy into importing cold followers from elsewhere or running paid ads (unless they convert at rates above 3%). The volume looks smaller. The paid revenue per subscriber is far higher.

The best way to grow a Substack native audience is to stay active on the platform. The biggest growth sources are Notes and recommendations - so write Notes every day, I’d say 3-5 Notes per day. Then make sure you answer your comments and start engaging with others - like, comment, restack their Notes.

Subscribe and recommend them, some will recommend back.

Stay active in bigger newsletter’s chats - the whole point is to get more exposure to your profile so that people start noticing you and subscribe.

You can also reach out to people in the DMs and explore a potential collaboration. The best conversation starter would be about something they wrote recently.

I go deep into this here:

Track by channel and this becomes obvious. Track only the blended number and you’ll keep working on the wrong thing.

Lever two: build a paid offer people actually want, then ask for the upgrade in the right places.

Locking your posts behind a paywall is not the same as having an offer. “More of my posts, but locked” converts poorly because the reader can’t tell what they’re buying.

A strong paid offer is specific. A named series. A working tool or template. A monthly thing they’d miss. Something where a free reader can describe what they get the second they pay.

Then make the ask, not directly, but with a soft, specific line at the moment a reader is most convinced, usually at the end of a post that already gave them something useful. Give the value first, ask second. The ask converts because the value already landed. Here’s how I do it:

Lever three: let automation do the asking, so conversion doesn’t depend on your memory.

The problem with asking by hand is that you forget. Or you get shy. Or you get busy and three weeks of new free subscribers never hear about the paid version at all.

Problem is, they get colder. And you lose momentum on conversions.

An automated welcome sequence fixes that. Every new free subscriber gets the same set of emails that introduce you, give them something useful, and make the case for upgrading, on a schedule, with you not touching it. The conversion happens whether you wrote anything that week or not.

I built a Claude skill to write the whole sequence for me, so a new subscriber gets walked from “who is this” to “I want the paid version” over their first couple of weeks, in my voice. You can get that skill here:

Lever four: set your Substack up to convert before you chase more traffic.

A lot of the conversion is decided before anyone reads a single post. Your About page. Your welcome page. How your paid offer is described on the subscribe screen. Where your paywalls sit. What a free reader sees in the first ten seconds. If those are vague, even high-intent traffic leaks out before it ever reaches the upgrade button. I help people do that in my coaching program and the results are visible.

When the levers work together, the number climbs on its own. More high-intent traffic, meeting an offer worth paying for, on a Substack set up to convert, with the asking handled in the background.

How do I calculate my free to paid conversion rate?

Inside Substack: go to Dashboard, then Stats, then Network. You can see subscribers grouped by source. Take your paid subscribers from a channel, divide by your total subscribers from that channel, and you have the conversion rate for that channel.

Do it for each source, not just the total. The blended number tells you where you stand. The channel numbers tell you what to do about it.

In short

The average Substack free to paid conversion rate is around 3%, and 2 to 5% is normal, well below the 5 to 10% Substack quotes.

But that single average hides the channel split that drives it.

Mine moves from about 9.3% on high-intent Notes & App traffic down to 1.2% on imported social, with the same writing and the same paywall. So benchmark against your own channels, not one headline figure.

To move the number: send more of your growth through high-intent channels, give people a paid offer they can describe in one sentence, let an automated welcome sequence do the asking, and set your Substack up to convert before you chase more traffic.

Get those four working and 8 to 11% is reachable. Past that is rare, and that’s fine.

TL;DR

• Substack’s official guidance is 5 to 10%. The median across public data is around 3%, and most publications convert 2 to 5% of free subscribers to paid.

• Your conversion rate depends heavily on where subscribers come from. My free to paid conversion rate runs about 9.3% from Notes & App, 4.4% from network and recommendations, and 1.2% from imported social traffic.

• Strong publications hit 8 to 11%. Past 20% happens, but it’s rare and usually means a small, high-intent audience with a product-grade paid offer.

• Four ways to raise it: pull more growth from your high-intent channels, build a paid offer people can actually describe, automate the asking with a welcome sequence, and set your Substack up to convert before chasing more traffic.

FAQ

What is the average Substack free to paid conversion rate? Around 3% as a median across public data. Most publications fall between 2 and 5%. Substack’s official guidance of 5 to 10% sits above what the typical publication actually sees.

What’s a good free to paid conversion rate on Substack? 3 to 5% is solid and normal. 5 to 8% is good. 8 to 11% is strong and usually needs high-intent traffic plus a real paid offer. Past 20% is rare and tends to be small, niche publications with product-grade offers.

Why is my Substack conversion rate low? Usually one of three reasons. Your audience is mostly low-intent (imported from social, or one-click network subscribers), or your paid offer is vague and readers can’t tell what they’re buying, or you’re not promoting it enough. Often a combination of all of this.

Can you really hit an 11% free to paid conversion rate? Yes. My Notes & App channel has, and runs near 9% most months. It takes traffic from people who found you on purpose and a paid offer they want. It’s a lot harder to hit across a blended list that includes cold imports.

Yana

P.S. If Substack still feels overwhelming, check out this link.

Kickstart Your Substack Growth:

• Get Your FREE High Converting Substack Blueprint

• Get a FREE 10-Day Substack crash course to grow your first 1000 subscribers

• Join my FREE Masterclass on how to start making consistent $5,000/month

• Join the One and Only Substack Quest to build a high-converting Substack

• Work with me to get your Substack up and growing

Save Tons of Time! Use My Custom GPTs:

• The Title Generator that gives me headlines that stop the scroll

• The Notes Writer that writes Viral Notes, bringing me and my paid members hundreds of subs

• The Writer Pro that turns my Notes into >90% human drafts (here’s the free version).

Or get the bundle with all the tools, now at a very special price ;)

Become an Affiliate:

Earn 30% from each sale. Apply below, I approve everyone.

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More from me:

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Wall of Love

If you’re serious about your Substack monetization, make this post your daily engagement routine. Share your posts, then read and join the conversation in the comments of the other members’ posts. This is how we grow!

If you’re not yet in the Writing Challenge, NOW IS the best time to join.

VIPs: You have new gifts, so that you write for engagement, for conversion and for discoverability 👇

Here’s what you need to do now:

1. Add yourself to the Accountability tracker, so that you have a chance to win the award (a spotlight with me to get more exposure of your Substack)

2. Share a link to your posts in the comments below so that we can find it, read, comment, like, and share it!

3. Make this challenge for your daily engagement workflow - Check other people’s posts in the comments of this post. Find something you like to read more about and give it a like, comment and share - that’s how you grow faster (and you help others grow too).

Anyone from the Unplugged community can participate.

Let’s do this!!

Subscribe now

Share your link now 👇

P.S. If it doesn’t challenge you, it won’t change you. If you haven’t already, Join the Writing Challenge if you’re serious about growing on Substack.

P.S.S. If you’re not taking the Challenges, you can opt-out from receiving these weekly posts without unsubscribing for the rest of the content - do this from your settings here:

If you’re serious about your Substack growth, make this post your daily engagement routine. Share your Notes, then read and join the conversation in the comments on the other members’ Notes. It will help you and them grow.

Notes are essential for your Substack growth. If you’re not yet in the Notes Challenge, NOW is the best time to join.

Here’s what you need to do now:

1. Add yourself to the Accountability tracker so that I consider you for the prizes.

2. Share a link to your Notes in the comments below so that we can find it, read, comment, like, and restock it!

3. Check other people’s Notes in the comments. Find something you like to read more about and give it a like, comment, and share. Make this challenge your daily engagement routine - it helps you, as well as the other members in the community, grow faster.

PLUS: if you have a Note with 100+ likes, DM me with a link, so that I can add it in the Unplugged Hall of Fame :)

You can share your Notes here throughout the whole week, until the next sharing post on Saturday.

Anyone from the Unplugged community can participate.

Subscribe now

Let’s do this!!

Share your link now 👇

P.S. If you haven’t already, Join the Notes30 Challenge if you’re serious about growing on Substack.

P.S.S. If you’re not taking the Notes Challenge, you can opt-out from receiving these weekly posts without unsubscribing for the rest of the content - do this from your settings here:

You grow your free list. You write something people love. And then, every month, you have to turn around and sell again. With a paid newsletter, that never stops. Grow free subscribers, convert them to paid, deliver enough that they stay. Three jobs, on repeat, forever.

I’ve spent almost 20 years in marketing and sales, and even I don’t enjoy selling directly every single month. But I also know I need to do it.

So I automated it.

I went deep into researching the email sequence model that converts at the highest rates. Tested several different models, looked into the data, and finally built something that converts free to paid subscribers for me on autopilot.

I implemented the first version of it in December’24, and I never had to promote my paid membership manually ever since.

In the last 30 days, I got more than 139 paid members and about half of them came from this sequence. Most of the rest upgrade on the spot

I’ve already described how I do build the automation in the QUEST LABS. I even ran a workshop helping three people structure their sequence based on my model with a single prompt.

But I never actually shared how to write the exact emails. And people kept asking me for this. But I hesitated.

Why?

Because I could write the emails for me, but I’m not into ghostwriting. Of course I could do a custom GPT, but it’s tough to personalize it so that it sounds like you.

And it HAS to sound like you, if you want to sell. Because sales come from trust.

But Claude made this possible.

So today I’m giving you the ONLY tool you need to replicate my model, AND actually write the emails that sound like you.

The best part is that it can now build a sequence not only for a paid newsletter, but for any product you plan to sell.

What it is

I built a Claude skill called the Sales Sequence Generator.

It writes a complete 25-email automated sales sequence for any digital product, course, membership, coaching offer, or paid newsletter. In your voice. Using your own content as the raw material.

It has:

• 10 emails that build trust. Most people have 3 and stop here.

• 10 emails that sell the offer and handle objections before they occur. Most people send just one email and hope for sales.

• 5 emails that catch people who clicked but didn’t buy. Most people sleep on this, but here’s where the money comes. Big part of it actually.

It runs on the same two things behind everything I publish: it uses my PPSA formula. and my anti-AI writing rules (brand-new Claude skill I built - soon to be available in the Unplugged Toolbox).

It’s the exact engine I now use to write the sequences that convert free subscribers to paid for my own newsletter - the ones that helped me go from 20 paying subscribers to over 700 and a stable income of about $5,000/month, now scaling beyond $10,000/month.

I used to write those emails by hand. I don’t anymore.

Why this structure

But Yana, 25 emails are too much.

I get that a lot.

Look. The buyer journey starts when they subscribe to you. The next 1 month, the chances to convert are highest. Most people just send one welcome email.

67% of my paid members converted in the first one month after subscribing. That’s why this sequence has 25 emails and you need to send them within the first month.

Or leave your money on the table.

Your call.

Will people leave?

Yes.

People will unsubscribe you and some will send you nasty emails.

Let them go. They are not your people. They will never buy from you.

You actually need to let them go - you don’t want to pay for them to Kit, right?

This sequence is you filter for a high-quality audience. An audience of buyers.

Which tools you need to use this?

Use Claude Opus with this skill to write your emails.

For the actual automation, in order to get the most out of it, I use Kit (my affiliate link). It allows you to send the last set of 5 emails properly - to people who clicked and didn’t buy.

It also integrates with a lot of other platforms so that you know when someone has purchased your product, and you can exclude them automatically from the automation.

To automatically import Substack emails to Kit I use make.com and gmail. Full guide available here.

Of course, you can use any tool that allows automations.

If you only aim to convert free to paid subscribers, you can use a Substack with a drip campaign. As of today, you still have to be a Substack bestseller to be able to do this. And the last set of 5 emails is still not possible to implement.

What people say about it

I gave it to a few people in my coaching and VIP programs before telling anyone about it. Here’s what Larry sent me the next day:

“It made me want to buy my own product.” That’s the most important test you need to pass.

Why you need this?

This is a real asset. It generated thousands of dollars on autopilot for me and the people I work with in my coaching program.

It will pay for itself multiple times the same month after you install the automation.

How to use it

It works in 4 stages, and it walks you through each one.

1. You feed it your context. Upload whatever you already have: a sales page, a course outline, a product description, a workshop transcript, or your free lead magnet. Then tell it who your audience is, what they’re stuck on, the outcome you deliver, and how you’re different. Give it 1 to 3 samples of your writing so it learns your voice.

2. It plans the whole sequence first. Before it writes a single email, it shows you the full 25-email structure with your product name and offer baked in. You approve it or change it. Nothing gets written until you’re happy with the plan.

3. It writes one email at a time. You see each email as it’s built, in your voice, with your stories. You review and adjust as it goes, so you’re never handed a wall of text to fix at the end.

You get all 25 emails in one document, ready to be plugged into your automations.

That’s it. You go from a blank page to a finished, ready-to-send sequence in an afternoon.

Why it sounds like you and not like AI

This is the part I care about most.

Every email runs on my PPSA formula (pain, proof, solution, action). It opens with the reader’s real problem, backs it with proof, shows the way through, and asks for one clear next step. No exaggerated hype, no manufactured urgency, zero sales pressure.

You don’t ask for the money. You help people. You show them how, so they trust you.

And it’s built on my full anti-AI writing rules. No em dashes. No “unlock your potential.” No fake depth, no AI fluff, no rule-of-three filler, no robotic rhythm.

For best results: make sure you have a writing skill installed in Claude designed to let Claude write like you. Use this skill together with the sales sequence generator skill.

If you need help building such skill and/or installing and customizing Claude, here are more details about how I can help you.

Where to get it

The Sales Sequence Generator is now available on Gumroad for everyone.

Get the Claude Skill Here

You get the skill, plus the instructions to set it up and run your first sequence.

This skill is part of the Unplugged Toolbox (I’ll share more). As a VIP member, you get everything in the Unplugged Toolbox for free, so here’s your 100% OFF discount code:

Read more

That’s why this Challenge is so important.

Ok, so let’s now announce the winner from last month!

WINNER AWARDS

First, I want to personally congratulate all of the members who took their growth seriously last month and were active:

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Congrats to all of you! You’re ABSOLUTELY amazing!

Now, to select the winners, I have to see you in the Accountability tracker AND in the comment section of the weekly sharing posts, and since not all of you added yourselves to the tracker, I’m gonna honor that and select ONLY among the ones who did.

Ok, so the winner is….

….drumrolls please.…

Winner from last month Writing Challenge:

→ ←

BIG Congrats to Cat !!! I can’t wait to jump into the session with her again and talk about her amazing Substack and her mission inside of it! Looking forward to it!

The Spotlight Session Award

→ #1 Award is a Spotlight Session to talk about your Substack and more. To give you and your Substack more exposure, I will share this session:

• all subscribers

• my YouTube channel

• my BiTES atomic newsletter

• my other social media accounts

→ Watch all previous spotlight sessions here.

Subscribe now

Time to kick off the ALL-NEW WRITING Challenge!

If you haven’t already, take my new data-driven online writing course to convert at higher rates and make your writing contagious:

And the all-new data-driven copywriting course to make your paid offer sell itself:

As well as the all-new data-driven SEO & AI SEO course to get AI recommended:

This new Challenge comes with a trio bundle of my all-new Data-Driven Courses designed to help you sell (without selling). It’s short, it’s essential, and it’s zero fluff. For you, if you’re still struggling to “find your voice” or to get high-quality output from AI.

Why a Writing Challenge?

It’s clear: posts do get you new subscribers. And sales.

But it might be challenging to stay consistent.

And it’s often hard to find who or what to engage with to grow faster, especially when you search for a good read.

That’s why this challenge exists.

Within Unplugged, you have everything you need to build a high-converitng Substack:

• the monthly Notes30 Challenge where you grow your free subscribers,

• the weekly Write2Sell column where you convert them to paid and keep them paying,

• the Substack Quest to bring you to your first (or next) bestseller badge faster,

• the QUEST LABS with all the AI and automations, which helps you grow while you sleep, and…

• this monthly Writing Challenge where you apply the knowledge from the Write2Sell column and the Quest in practice and actually work to grow your paid subscribers,

• the new trio of data-driven courses - to write for engagement, for conversion, and for discoverability from AI and search engines,

• and: the AI tools you can use to grow easier and faster (find the links below). I’m enabling all my custom GPTs for Claude, with Notes writer being the first, more coming soon.

What is it?

It’s a challenge for writing.

But not just writing.

It’s built to help you convert more subscribers, applying everything from the Write2Sell column, and the Quest in practice, and feed your automations with more sales. Because learning how to do things is nothing if you don’t take action.

So, in this challenge, we’ll take action.

The Challenge:

PARTICIPANTS:

The weekly sharing boost posts are for ALL UNPLUGGED MEMBERS - you can all add yourself to the accountability tracker and participate in the sharing posts, but all training materials, AI tools, and AWARDS are reserved for PAID MEMBERS ONLY.

As usual, Paid and V.I.P. members have their private access to the GPTs, and the Data-Driven Online Writing Course, the Data-Driven Copywriting Course and the Data-Driven SEO & AI SEO Course with all templates, cheat sheets, formulas, checklists, data banks, and supporting materials.

What you need to do:

• Write and publish at least 1 post per week.

• Join the challenge by adding yourself to the Accountability tracker

• Make this challenge your daily engagement workflow: share your posts in the weekly thread (you can do that every day until the next post comes on Sunday), read, like and comment on other people’s posts - it helps them, AND YOU grow.

How to do that (faster)?

• Take the ALL-NEW Data-Driven, NLP-infused, Online Writing Course, the Data-Driven Copywriting Course, and the Data-Driven SEO & AI SEO Course to make your writing contagious, AND make sure it sells for you (without selling).

• Watch the Positioning, the Product, and the Content Strategies from the QUEST: to make sure your content matches your audience's needs.

• Use my custom GPT the CREATIVETECH Writer Pro (free for paid members - use the link below) for outlines. I give my GPT one of my notes and ask it to expand it into a 1000-word article. I then edit and post for free. It works.

• Make sure you add links to other posts, so that people keep reading (or start buying if they are paywalled - that’s what I did)

• Add a compelling headline, one that opens a curiosity gap. Use my custom GPT the TITLE Generator (link below) - give it your entire article and it will come up with 10 titles suggestions.

• Make sure you have a CTA at the end of your post, selling your product in a non-salesy way. How? Use my brand new custom GPT High Converting CTAs Writer (link below). Just give it the product description and it will generate you 10 non-salesy CTAs that convert. If you don’t have products to sell, become my affiliate and earn 30% from each sale. Apply here for my AI tools and here for the SUBSTACK QUEST (I approve everyone).

• Make the weekly boost posts your daily engaging routine:

  • Share a quote from your post on Notes (select some shareable sentence & restack quote)

  • Share a link to it on the Weekly Writing Challenge Sharing post: I will publish one every Sunday - it will arrive in your inbox.

  • Read, like, comment and restack some of the other posts you like. Make this Challenge your daily engagement routine - it will help YOU and other Unplugged members grow faster.

• Track your consistency: add yourself to the Accountability Tracker. I have a Prize for the most active!

The GOAL?

Real CA$H!!

Sales is what I do best, and in this newsletter, I help you do it too, without the fear of failure or alienating our audience. It’s all in the Quest.

WINNERS AWARDS:

Spotlight Session with me to talk about you and your Substack.

Rules for the winners’ selection:

• I’ll select one of the most active participants in the Challenge based on the Accountability Tracker and your activity in the sharing posts. Rules:

  • 1. must be in the Accountability tracker and stay active in the weekly sharing posts

  • 2. must have completed the challenge (at least one post a week)

  • 3. you can win the same challenge more than once but in different months

  • 4. you can’t win both Writing and Notes challenges in the same month. If you do, I’ll invite the next most active person for a session

• Priority of selecting winners:

  • 1. most active among the VIP members

  • 2. most active among the annual paid members

  • 3. most active among the monthly paid members

• Announcement of the winners: start of next Challenge - 2nd day of next month

• When do we do the spotlight: during next month upon your availability. We’ll do the session only if you’re willing to. If not, I’ll invite the next most active member until I get a “yes”.

• How do we do the spotlight: over Zoom. I ask you questions (we initially agree on the list), and we discuss :). You can prepare slides if you want to (not a must, nobody did so far :D). I’ll do the spotlight sessions monthly after the Challenge finishes.

• To give you and your Substack more exposure, I will share the spotlight session:

  • all subscribers

  • my YouTube channel

  • my BiTES atomic newsletter

  • my other social media accounts

The Challenge includes (download links at the end of this post):

• Link to the Accountability Tracker. If you haven’t already, add yourself now!

• ALL-NEW Data-Driven, NLP-infused, Online Writing Course and the Data-Driven Copywriting Course to make your writing contagious, AND make sure it sells for you (without selling)

• Training courses from the Substack Quest: everything you need to nail positioning, product, growth, and sales.

• A mini workshop on how to Generate Stunning Midjourney Images without Prompting (link below)

• My custom personalized GPT CREATIVETECH Writer PRO trained on my viral stories to write high-quality long-form articles. Just updated with new training data. (link below)

• My custom GPT TITLE Generator 2.0 trained on 1000+ viral titles on Medium to generate titles that drive clicks. Just updated with new training data. (link below)

• My custom GPT High Converting CTAs Writer trained to turn your product descriptions into non-salesy CTAs you can use in your posts. Just updated with new training data. (link below)

• Dedicated Weekly Writing Challenge Sharing Post. I’ll ask you to share links to your posts, so that it can get even more traction. Comes every Sunday, you can share through the entire week. Make sure you also check other’s posts - that’s how we grow together!

Find the links below. Use this knowledge. Adapt the templates and guidelines to your niche and style.

Ready?

Let’s do this!

Here’s your Challenge pack of resources:

Link to Challenge Resources

Read more

And I’m SO excited, because the Viral Notes Writer GPT went to Claude, aaaand you can now schedule your Notes directly from the chat thanks to , aaaand it already brought new subscribers to the most committed members. Here’s where to find it:

Now. First things first - let’s announce the WINNER from the previous month 🤩

WINNERS AWARDS

Before I announce the winner, I want to personally congratulate all of the members who took their growth seriously last month and were so active:

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Congrats to ALL of you! I see you! You ARE ALL AMAZING!

Now, to select the winner, I also have to see you in the Accountability tracker, and since not all of you added yourselves, I’m gonna honor that and select ONLY among the ones who did.

As a reminder, I select the winners based on the Accountability tracker AND activity on the weekly sharing posts. Thanks to and his StackContacts I can now very easily extract the data and see who was the most active in my comment section.

Ok, so the winner is….

….drumrolls please.…

Winner from last month’s Notes Challenge:

→ ←

BIG Congrats to Judy!!! I see her active for so long in my challenges, it was about time to make it to the TOP! I can’t wait to jump into the session to talk about her amazing Substack! Looking forward to it!

The Spotlight Session Award

→ #1 Award is a Spotlight Session to talk about your Substack and more. To give you and your Substack more exposure, I will share this session:

• all subscribers

• my YouTube channel

• my BiTES atomic newsletter

• my other social media accounts

→ Watch all previous spotlight sessions here.

Time to kick off the new Challenge!

Challenge PARTICIPANTS:

The weekly sharing boost posts are for ALL UNPLUGGED MEMBERS - you can all add yourself to the accountability tracker and participate in the sharing posts, but all training materials, AI tools, and AWARDS are reserved for PAID MEMBERS ONLY.

As usual, Paid and V.I.P. members also have their private access to the GPT, and the Viral Notes Writer Course with EVERYTHING below. Now also available on Claude.

So this month, you have a fully automated workflow for Notes (paid members only):

1. [NEW] Write and schedule Notes directly from the chat in Claude using my brand-new skill and the tool from Finn Tropy.

2. You can also write with my custom GPT using the Viral Notes Writer System

3. You can also schedule using Orel’s Write Stack or Finn’s Studio Pro - now you don’t have to keep your PC active.

4. Automatically re-post to social media using my automation app so you can grow even beyond Substack

What you need to do (short version):

• Join the challenge by adding yourself to the Accountability tracker

• Use my Claude skill or custom GPT to write and publish at least 3 Notes per day.

• Share your Notes in the weekly thread posts and make them your daily engagement routine - interact with others (you can do that every day until the next post comes on Saturday). The more activity, the greater the chances to win a Spotlight.

WINNERS AWARDS:

I’m gonna select 1 from the most active people who will win a Spotlight with me.

Rules for the winners selection:

• I’ll select the most active participants in the Challenge based on the Accountability Tracker and the activity on the sharing posts. Rules:

  • 1. must be in the Accountability tracker AND be active in the sharing posts (the more you share AND interact with others, the higher chances you have). I now extract data automatically (thanks to ), so there’s zero chance for error.

  • 2. must have completed the challenge (at least three Notes every day)

  • 3. you can win the same challenge more than once but in different months

  • 4. you can’t win both Writing and Notes challenges in the same month. If you do, I’ll invite the next most active person for a session

• Priority of selecting winners:

  • 1. most active among the VIP members

  • 2. most active among the annual paid members

  • 3. most active among the monthly paid members

• Announcement of the winners: start of next Challenge - 1st day of next month

• When do we do the spotlight: during next month upon your availability. We’ll do the session only if you’re willing to. If not, I’ll invite the next most active member until I get a “yes”.

• How do we do the spotlight: over Zoom or Substack Live — whichever you prefer. I ask you questions (we initially agree on the list), and we discuss :). You can prepare slides if you want to (not a must, nobody did so far :D). I’ll do the spotlight sessions monthly after the Challenge finishes.

• To give you and your Substack more exposure, I will share the spotlight session:

  • all subscribers

  • my YouTube channel

  • my BiTES atomic newsletter

  • my other social media accounts

The Substack Notes30 Monthly Challenge - Full Description

Your fully automated Notes Growth Engine step by step:

• Add yourself to the Accountability tracker.

• Post at least THREE Notes every day. One is not enough, especially if you’re new to the platform. If you have a few thousand subscribers, you can do one/day - you’ll still grow, but you’ll grow much FASTER if you post more. The effect compounds. As you saw in my examples from above, I get just a few subscribers from each Note => MORE Notes = MORE Subscribers!

• Take the Viral Notes Writer course. It’s beginner-friendly and it’s only 3 hours of bite-sized easy to digest lessons.

• Take the SUBSTACK QUEST Growth strategies - because it all works together as one engine.

• Use my brand new Claude skill or custom Viral Notes Writer GPT the way I described in this video. It will turn your idea into multiple viral-ready Notes, you only need to edit and publish. Takes less than 15 minutes/day. Brings you subscribers (as many of you reported).

• Use the Notes for Claude bundle, Write Stack, or Substack Pro Studio GPT Bundle to schedule and analyze, optimize and schedule your Notes. Posting in the right times is crucial. No need to keep your computer active.

• Engage daily with at least 5 to 10 Substack members. Apply everything described in this video from the course, and this video from the QUEST.

• Share your Notes in the weekly Notes boost post: I will post one each Saturday, you’ll get it in your inbox. The next one comes next Saturday (post on the most recent one till then). I also share it in the chat. And remember to read, like, comment and restack some of the other Notes you like. Make this challenge your daily engagement routine - it helps YOU and other members grow faster.

• Use this automation to repost them to social media, so that you grow even more from external sources (as recommended by Substack).

• And if you have a Note with 100+ likes, DM me with a link, and I’ll add you to the Unplugged Hall of Fame.

If you follow all of the above, I’m confident you’ll pump your subscriber growth and you’ll see the effect immediately. People who do already report significant progress.

The goal?

To gain subscribers who are engaged with your writing and who can (and will) be converted to paid subscribers later.

How?

Follow my system from this short but powerful course: The Viral Notes Writer System. I created it for you. It’s how I get to that high conversion rate. It now runs on both - ChatGPT and Claude.

The Challenge includes (links at the end of this post):

We’ll simplify everything with the course, now you have only 3 things:

• Link to the Accountability Tracker. Add yourself now!

• PAID MEMBERS ONLY: The Unplugged Hall of Fame (link at the end of the post) - I’ve set a place to display all Notes from the Unplugged paid member community that received 100+ likes. If you have a Note with 100+ likes, DM me with a link, and I’ll add you.

• PAID MEMBERS ONLY: Link to the The Viral Notes Writer System course - it’s only 3 hours, and it has EVERYTHING you need to implement my system. In it you’ll find:

  • My exact system I used to triple my subscribers growth in a month (takes just 15 minutes per day to write the Notes).

  • How to use my custom GPT to adapt it to your niche and audience (+ prompts)

  • How to use my custom GPT to grow outside of Substack (+ prompts)

  • As well as:

    • [NEW] My brand new Claude skill for writing viral Notes

    • My custom GPT Notes Writer trained to write Substack Notes that go viral. I just upgraded its training using tons of data to sharpen it even more.

    • The right way to use the Notes Writer in order to turn likes into subscribers (like me, Jeff and Daniel and many more). Three SIMPLE steps to achieve it (you do the first two only once).

    • AI Prompting Strategy to help you write more relatable Notes based on data collected for your audience.

    • My Content Strategy: what type of Notes get the most traction - I incorporated this in the custom GPT.

    • My Engagement Strategy to attract new subscribers that are convertible to paid. You’ll have three modes:

      • EASY: engage with at least 5 new accounts per day

      • HARD: engage with at least 10 new accounts per day

      • TURBO: engage with at least 15 new accounts per day

    • A set of 11 Notes Templates (including the one that got me 10 200 likes and 167 subscribers) I’m using with a short guide on how to write them and an example from my Notes:

      • Image [with Canva template]

      • Opinion

      • Mini story

      • Mini listicle

      • Mini how-to

      • Mini analysis

      • Success story

      • Personal update

      • Personal Story (based on my first viral Note with 10k+ likes)

      • Journey (based on my second viral Note with 2k+ likes)

      • Comparison

      • Plus all the templates I incorporate in the Viral Notes Writer Claude skill

      Image with simple text are performing well. They are highly re-stackable. I’ve prepared a Canva template you can easily edit (see resources below).

    • My Notes Guiding Principles on how to use Notes to gain convertible subscribers. A set of short rules about:

      • How to write powerful hooks

      • What types of Notes to write currently

      • How to engage with others on the platform

    • List of 17 types of Notes Ideas you can easily craft. If you don’t want to stick to my templates, you can use these as references in case you get stuck.

    • My list of 17 Rules of Short Form Writing I’ve proven to be working on Substack. I used them to train the GPT and to create the Claude skill. The majority of these rules also work on Medium, X, LinkedIn, Quora. You can use them anywhere.

    • And how to use the Viral Notes Writer for X, Bluesky and LinkedIn

• Link to the automation template that helps you automatically repost Notes to social media.

You have all this packed in The Viral Notes Writer System course (value $197).

Here’s your Challenge pack of resources:

Links to Resources for Paid Members:

Read more

If you’re serious about your Substack monetization, make this post your daily engagement routine. Share your posts, then read and join the conversation in the comments of the other members’ posts. This is how we grow!

If you’re not yet in the Writing Challenge, NOW IS the best time to join.

VIPs: You have new gifts, so that you write for engagement, for conversion and for discoverability 👇

Here’s what you need to do now:

1. Add yourself to the Accountability tracker, so that you have a chance to win the award (a spotlight with me to get more exposure of your Substack)

2. Share a link to your posts in the comments below so that we can find it, read, comment, like, and share it!

3. Make this challenge for your daily engagement workflow - Check other people’s posts in the comments of this post. Find something you like to read more about and give it a like, comment and share - that’s how you grow faster (and you help others grow too).

Anyone from the Unplugged community can participate.

Let’s do this!!

Subscribe now

Share your link now 👇

P.S. If it doesn’t challenge you, it won’t change you. If you haven’t already, Join the Writing Challenge if you’re serious about growing on Substack.

P.S.S. If you’re not taking the Challenges, you can opt-out from receiving these weekly posts without unsubscribing for the rest of the content - do this from your settings here:

If you’re serious about your Substack growth, make this post your daily engagement routine. Share your Notes, then read and join the conversation in the comments on the other members’ Notes. It will help you and them grow.

Notes are essential for your Substack growth. If you’re not yet in the Notes Challenge, NOW is the best time to join.

Here’s what you need to do now:

1. Add yourself to the Accountability tracker so that I consider you for the prizes.

2. Share a link to your Notes in the comments below so that we can find it, read, comment, like, and restock it!

3. Check other people’s Notes in the comments. Find something you like to read more about and give it a like, comment, and share. Make this challenge your daily engagement routine - it helps you, as well as the other members in the community, grow faster.

PLUS: if you have a Note with 100+ likes, DM me with a link, so that I can add it in the Unplugged Hall of Fame :)

You can share your Notes here throughout the whole week, until the next sharing post on Saturday.

Anyone from the Unplugged community can participate.

Subscribe now

Let’s do this!!

Share your link now 👇

P.S. If you haven’t already, Join the Notes30 Challenge if you’re serious about growing on Substack.

P.S.S. If you’re not taking the Notes Challenge, you can opt-out from receiving these weekly posts without unsubscribing for the rest of the content - do this from your settings here:

In a nutshell:

• Welcomed some new VIP Members , , , ,

• What works for engagement to grow your subscribers - I shared my workflow, and others did as well. We talked about automation as well.

• To pick a niche or write broad an see what sticks - everyone shared what worked on their side, and we discussed the QUEST frameworks

• How to grow as a fiction writer on Substack - ’s great example of how she uses Notes to grow faster

• As per ’s request, I showed how you can take your latest Instagram copy, turn it into a Substack post and post it automatically using Claude code (mind the quality)

• Walkthrough my process of creating my AI clone talking head video - all four apps I used and how I set them to get the best quality

• and so much more…

This is the place where we share lessons, best practices, find collaborations, and help each other with anything that’s on our plate right now. We grow faster. Together.

Read more

How do I start writing?

They want a format. A first post idea. A schedule. Something they can do today. Anything they simply don’t know.

And I get it. Writing feels like the obvious first move. You’re on a writing platform. So you write.

But every time I’m asked this, I give an answer that gives them an a-ha moment.

I don’t tell them what to write.

Three Substacks, three different sets of rules

There isn’t one Substack. There are at least three, and they barely have anything in common.

The first one is a hobby. You write because you like writing. You want a small corner of the internet that’s yours. No pressure, no offer, no targets. That’s a real and good reason to be here, and if that’s you, most monetization advice you read will just stress you out for no reason.

The second one is social. You’re here to read other people, leave comments, find your people, build a few real friendships. Also learn new things. The newsletter is almost a side effect.

The third one is a business. You want this to earn money. Maybe a little, maybe enough to matter.

These three look identical from the outside, but the person running a hobby and the person building a business should make a very important decision on day one.

So before you write anything, pick which one you’re building.

The writing comes later than you think

If you picked option 1 or 2 - don’t ask me for advice, I’m a business person. And you’re free to do whatever you like - Substack is a great place for hobbies too.

But if you picked the third one, you want this to make money, right?

This is where most people go wrong.

They start writing, build an audience, get a few hundred subscribers, and then start asking “ok, how do I make money from this?”

By then it’s hard. Because they’ve spent months attracting readers who have no idea what I was selling.

Guess what?

When I finally made an offer, I got zero sales.

Zero.

Because if you want to build a business, writing without an offer is like advertising a store without products. A huge waste of money, and energy.

So the order I’d give you is this:

Figure out how you’ll make money first. Paid subscriptions? A course? Coaching? Then design that offer, even roughly. Then write content that’s connected to it.

It feels backwards, but it isn’t. Writing about your offer is what pulls in the readers who’ll actually buy from you later.

You don’t need the offer fully built before post 1. You need to know what it is. A direction is enough to start. That’s how you make sure you build the right audience.

So, how do you start writing on Substack?

You don’t, yet.

Figure what you’ll sell and then start writing about the problems it solves.

First you decide what Substack is for you. Hobby, social, or business. Three different things with three different rule books.

If it’s a hobby, write whatever you want. You’re already doing it right.

If it’s social, go live in Notes and stop worrying about your post schedule.

If it’s a business, work out how you’ll make money before you write, and then write toward that.

The blank page isn’t your first problem. The undecided strategy is.

Pick your one, and the writing gets a lot easier.

Yana

P.S. In this post I break down exactly how to start a $5k/month Substack with a blueprint you can print and start implementing today.

Kickstart Your Substack Growth:

• Get Your FREE High Converting Substack Blueprint

• Get a FREE 10-Day Substack crash course to grow your first 1000 subscribers

• Join my FREE Masterclass on how to start making consistent $5,000+/month

• Join the One and Only Substack Quest to build a high-converting Substack

• Work with me to get your Substack up and growing

Save Tons of Time! Use My Custom GPTs:

• The Title Generator that gives me headlines that stop the scroll

• The Notes Writer that writes Viral Notes, bringing me and my paid members hundreds of subs

• The Writer Pro that turns my Notes into >90% human drafts (here’s the free version).

Or get the bundle with all the tools, now at a very special price ;)

Become an Affiliate:

Earn 30% from each sale. Apply below, I approve everyone.

• Apply here for my AI tools & templates

• Apply here for the SUBSTACK QUEST courses

Become a sponsor:

• Reach thousands of engaged buyers.

More from me:

• FREE Daily BiTES: A daily mail with just 3 bullets from the most helpful things I read about writing and making money online with AI

• Unplugged: The place to be if you want to grow an AI-powered paid newsletter and create content that sells itself.

Wall of Love

If you’re serious about your Substack monetization, make this post your daily engagement routine. Share your posts, then read and join the conversation in the comments of the other members’ posts. This is how we grow!

If you’re not yet in the Writing Challenge, NOW IS the best time to join.

VIPs: You have new gifts, so that you write for engagement, for conversion and for discoverability 👇

Here’s what you need to do now:

1. Add yourself to the Accountability tracker, so that you have a chance to win the award (a spotlight with me to get more exposure of your Substack)

2. Share a link to your posts in the comments below so that we can find it, read, comment, like, and share it!

3. Make this challenge for your daily engagement workflow - Check other people’s posts in the comments of this post. Find something you like to read more about and give it a like, comment and share - that’s how you grow faster (and you help others grow too).

Anyone from the Unplugged community can participate.

Let’s do this!!

Subscribe now

Share your link now 👇

P.S. If it doesn’t challenge you, it won’t change you. If you haven’t already, Join the Writing Challenge if you’re serious about growing on Substack.

P.S.S. If you’re not taking the Challenges, you can opt-out from receiving these weekly posts without unsubscribing for the rest of the content - do this from your settings here:

If you’re serious about your Substack growth, make this post your daily engagement routine. Share your Notes, then read and join the conversation in the comments of the other members’ Notes. It will help you and them grow.

Notes are essential for your Substack growth. If you’re not yet in the Notes Challenge, NOW is the best time to join.

Here’s what you need to do now:

1. Add yourself to the Accountability tracker so that I consider you for the prizes.

2. Share a link to your Notes in the comments below so that we can find it, read, comment, like, and restock it!

3. Check other people’s Notes in the comments. Find something you like to read more about and give it a like, comment, and share. Make this challenge your daily engagement routine - it helps you, as well as the other members in the community, grow faster.

PLUS: if you have a Note with 100+ likes, DM me with a link, so that I can add it in the Unplugged Hall of Fame :)

You can share your Notes here throughout the whole week, until the next sharing post on Saturday.

Anyone from the Unplugged community can participate.

Subscribe now

Let’s do this!!

Share your link now 👇

P.S. If you haven’t already, Join the Notes30 Challenge if you’re serious about growing on Substack.

P.S.S. If you’re not taking the Notes Challenge, you can opt-out from receiving these weekly posts without unsubscribing for the rest of the content - do this from your settings here:

That’s a Substack Note I posted on May 5. Just twenty-five words. No link. No CTA. No sales pitch. I almost didn’t publish it. The wording sounded too aggressive in my head. I sat with it for a minute, then hit post anyway.

43 likes. 9 replies. 2 restacks. Definitely not viral.

By the next morning, that Note had brought me a founding member.

Look. I’ve had Notes pull thousands of likes. This wasn’t one of them. The question is this: would you rather have 10,000 likes or one founding member?

Here’s what most writers do with Notes

They chase likes. They chase restacks. They study what went viral this week and copy the structure. They post motivational opinions, screenshot quotes from their favourite books, and write “controversial takes” that aren’t actually controversial. They watch the heart count climb.

But they don’t convert.

And so they conclude Notes don’t work.

Notes work. The way most writers use them is the problem.

I ran a deep analysis of my own Notes data using my StackContacts database by .

The pattern is clear: the Notes that get the most likes are almost never the Notes that bring the most subscribers.

Engagement and conversion don’t predict each other.

This is key.

If you write for engagement, you get engagement. If you write for conversion, you get subscribers. They’re two different things.

What converting Notes feel like

You stop refreshing for hearts. You start checking for new subscribers and paid member notifications.

Every Note becomes an opportunity to pull someone into your paid world. Even if they become free subscribers, your funnel will do the rest. Some upgrade on the spot. Others within a few days.

A 43-like Notes can pay a few bills.

The viral ones are a bonus.

My 3-pillar Substack Notes framework that brings subscribers consistently

Here’s my three pillar system that brings consistent subscribers growth:

1. The right format - what’s actually in the Note

2. The right volume and timing - how often you post and when

3. The right visibility - where you spend the rest of your time

Most writers get one of these right and wonder why nothing’s working. Get all three right and the math starts mathing. Fast.

The full breakdown is below. And I made you the printable one-pager so you don’t have to remember any of this. Keep it open every time you sit down to write a Note.

Pillar 1: The right format

This is where most Notes lose their conversion power.

Writers post quick takes. Motivational lines. Random thoughts. Stuff that gets hearts because it’s easy to scroll past and double-tap.

That works if you want hearts. Subscribers act on a different format.

Here’s the checklist for every Note I publish.

The “converting Note” checklist

1) No links. No sales pitches. No CTAs. Substack’s algorithm doesn’t punish links in Notes, but they just don’t convert. And a “Subscribe!” prompt repels the exact reader you want. Be interesting enough that they go find your Substack on their own.

2) Pull snippets from your latest paid post. Your paid posts are the meatiest content you produce. Tease them. Quote them. Show a paragraph and let the reader decide they need the rest. This single move turns Notes into a paid-post promotion machine that doesn’t feel like promotion.

If you want my full workflow for turning one idea or a paid post into 21 Notes with my Claude skill, here’s the walkthrough:

3) Hit the same problems your paid offers solve. Every Note should orbit the problems your paid product addresses. If you write about fitness for busy parents, every Note should touch tiredness, time scarcity, identity loss, or kids derailing your routine. Stay in your lane. AI and humans both learn faster what you’re about when you stop wandering.

4) Show milestones with screenshots. Revenue screenshots. Subscriber jumps (this attracts new subscribers to you, even if you don’t write about Substack growth). Course sales. A great comment from a buyer. Specific, dated, real. This is your social proof working without you saying “look at my social proof.”

5) Use conversation starters that filter. A good Note attracts your ideal reader and repels the wrong one. The May 5 Note above actively filtered. Writers who want to “polish” their work scrolled past. Writers who want to be remembered stopped and replied. The 9 replies were exactly the right people.

6) Stories, stats, contrarian tips. Then opinions. Opinions get hearts. Stories, stats, and tips bring subscribers. A specific moment from your week with a concrete takeaway converts. “Hot take: hustle culture is dead” doesn’t. Lead with the specific. The opinion only earns attention after the specific has done its job.

I built this format into my Claude skill and my Custom GPT for writing Notes.

Pillar 2: The right volume and timing

Most Substack gurus say 3 to 5 Notes per day.

I post 10.

Here’s the truth:

Every Note is an opportunity for a new subscriber. If you post 3, you get 3 opportunities. If you post 10, you get 10. The maths is brutal.

Now. You can’t post 10 thoughtful Notes per day from a blank page. That’s a full-time job. I don’t have time for it and neither do you.

What I actually do: I batch. Once or twice a week I sit down, generate 30 to 50 Note ideas from my existing paid posts using my Custom GPT and Claude skill, write them out, and schedule them.

Simple rule: every Note in the batch should map (not link) to a specific paid post or a specific problem your reader cares about.

The scheduling:

I schedule Notes in US active hours, roughly 8am to 9pm EST. That’s where the bulk of paying Substack readers live. My time zone in Europe is irrelevant. Their time zone is everything.

Even when I’m asleep, my Notes are showing up in feeds in New York, Chicago, and LA. That’s when conversion happens.

I use Finn’s Substack Studio Pro to analyze best times to post.

Pillar 3: The right visibility

This is the pillar nobody talks about. And it’s the reason most writers stay invisible no matter how good their Notes are.

You have to help your Notes, especially if you have a small audience. This is my breakdown about how Notes get traction or don’t:

Posting a Note isn’t visibility. It’s publishing. Two different things. Here’s what visibility actually means.

Stay active in chats of big newsletters in your niche. Find the 10 to 15 newsletters with the biggest paid audiences in your space. Subscribe to their chats. Show up. Add real value, ask real questions. People click your name from the chat and land on your Substack. Some read your Notes. Some subscribe immediately.

Search for your ideal paid subscribers and help them. Substack’s search works. Type the problem your paid offer solves. Find people posting Notes about that problem, searching for help. Or find other newsletters that talk about similar problems and see what happens in their chat space. Reply with a genuinely useful answer. They click. They subscribe. Some convert on the spot.

Like, comment, and restack their Notes and posts. Pick a few writers whose readers overlap with yours. Engage with their stuff every day. Real engagement, not spray-and-pray. They notice. Their readers start mentioning you in their own comments.

Subscribe to and recommend others. Recommendations are the most underrated Substack growth lever. Go and recommend people you love. Some recommend back. That’s where free subscribers come from in volume. And free subscribers become paid subscribers when you have the right conversion engine.

Answer every comment. Every single one. People subscribe to people, not to publications. If someone takes 30 seconds to comment on your Note, you owe them 30 seconds back. Those people are your future paid subscribers far more than the silent likers.

Bottom line

Notes convert when you stop writing for likes and start writing for the right reader.

Format filters the wrong readers out. Volume gives the algorithm enough data to find your people. Visibility puts you in front of writers whose audiences are already paying for content in your niche.

My 43-like Note from May 5 isn’t an outlier. It’s a system working as designed. Most of the people become free subscribers, some become paid. This Note is the proof.

The format filtered. The timing put it in front of US readers. The visibility I’d built over the previous weeks meant a founding-member-ready reader was already in my orbit when they saw it.

That’s it.

FAQ — Substack Notes that convert paid subscribers

Do Substack Notes actually bring paid subscribers? Yes, as the Note above. Even if they bring mostly free subscribers, these subscribers are your goldmine. My current free-to-paid conversion rate is 9.2% and the highest I’ve seen is 11.7%, well above the typical Substack average.

How many Substack Notes should I post per day to grow paid subscribers? Substack gurus recommend 3 to 5 Notes per day. I post 10. Every Note is an opportunity for a new subscriber, so volume matters. But only if you batch the work and run a format system. Posting 10 unsystematised Notes per day burns you out by week three.

What’s the difference between Substack Notes that get likes and Notes that convert? Engagement and conversion don’t predict each other. The Notes that get the most likes are almost never the Notes that bring the most subscribers. Likes-Notes are usually opinions and motivational lines. Converting Notes are specific stories, stats, and contrarian tips that filter the right reader and tease snippets from your paid content. My AI tools are designed to help with both, but I mostly use them for Notes that convert.

When should I schedule Substack Notes for maximum conversion? Schedule in US active hours, roughly 8am to 9pm EST, regardless of your own time zone. That’s where the bulk of paying Substack readers live. I’m in Europe. My Notes still convert best on US time.

Should I include links or CTAs in my Substack Notes? No. Substack’s algorithm doesn’t punish links in Notes but they simply don’t convert. And a “Subscribe!” CTA repels the exact reader you want. Make the Note interesting enough that the right reader goes finding your Substack on their own.

Yana

P.S. Remember to get the Viral Notes Writer Claude skill and use Opus model to get the best high-converting Notes drafted for you in seconds.

Kickstart Your Substack Growth:

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• Get a FREE 10-Day Substack crash course to grow your first 1000 subscribers

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• Work with me to get your Substack up and growing

Save Tons of Time! Use My Custom GPTs:

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Or get the bundle with all the tools, now at a very special price ;)

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Wall of Love

He won one of my monthly challenges, which is how I get to meet challenge winners and share what’s actually working for them on the platform.

Chad has been in online marketing since 2005. Twenty years. Web design, agency work, affiliate marketing, freelancing, deal-making. He’s seen every iteration of how creators monetize online.

He has fewer than 100 Substack subscribers right now, but he is just getting started.

He’s also generated $3,000 so far through one bonus he added to someone else’s product offer.

If those two numbers feel like they shouldn’t belong in the same paragraph, that’s the point of this article. Most of what you’ve been told about Substack monetization is built on the assumption that you need a big audience and your own product. Chad’s proof that neither is true.

Here’s what he’s actually doing.

The strategy that pulled $3,000

About a year ago, Chad watched 200 people in his community buy into a licensing offer. The product was a set of templates. The seller offered them with one specific setup in mind.

Chad looked at the offer and noticed something missing.

He uses Systeme.io for his own email and funnel building. The templates the seller offered weren’t built for Systeme.io. There was a gap between the product 200 people had just bought and the tool a chunk of them were already using.

So Chad rebuilt the templates in Systeme.io himself. Then he offered them as a free bonus to anyone who signed up for Systeme.io through his affiliate link.

Then he sat back and watched what happened.

“I ended up getting a lot of people coming over to Systeme and signing up for paid accounts. I cracked my first thousand through Systeme, and now I’m about $3,000 now.”

$3,000 from one bonus he created.

Here’s the thing.

Chad didn’t create the original product. Someone else did. He didn’t build the offer. Someone else did. He didn’t even build the audience the offer was selling to. The original seller had already done that work.

What Chad did was identify the friction point between the original product and the way real users wanted to use it. Then he filled that gap with a small, targeted, free bonus that triggered a paid action on a different platform he gets affiliate commission from.

That’s his entire mechanic.

You don’t have to build the engine. You have to find an engine that’s already running and add the part that’s missing.

The ALF principle

Halfway through our spotlight, Chad gave me an analogy I’m not going to forget. He’s a toy collector. So he framed it through toys.

There’s a company that makes action figures. They don’t invent their own characters. They license popular brands or older brands that people still love. They take ALF. They take old cartoon characters. They make them as collectibles using their own production skills.

“And then people like me come along like, ‘Oh my goodness, there’s an ALF sitting on the shelf. I gotta have this in my collection.’”

The company doesn’t own the IP. They license it. They use their own skill (production quality, design, distribution) on top of someone else’s existing recognition and emotional pull.

The result is a real business. A profitable one. Built entirely on other people’s creative work.

Chad calls his version of this “piggybanking.” He says it’s how he’s structuring his whole Substack going forward. Find successful IP, license it, use his own skills to build something around it.

I think that’s genius.

If you’ve been stuck on Substack waiting for the right original idea to hit you so you can launch your paid newsletter, this is the reframe you might need.

The right idea might not be yours.

The right idea might be someone else’s idea you’ve noticed is underbuilt, mistranslated, missing a feature, or not reaching its full audience.

If you’re with me for a while, you know I lean on data. And the data on Substack monetization is brutal on this point. The fastest paths to revenue almost never involve creating something brand new. They involve identifying something that’s already working and finding the gap where you can add value to it.

The way to be different is to find an old thing and make it easier, faster, or cheaper for the buyer. That’s what multibillion-dollar companies are doing all the time.

The Brazilian translation case study

Chad gave a real example.

There’s a guy called Travis Sago who has a book in English. He got a reader who noticed there was no Portuguese translation. So he got the licensing rights, did the translation work, and put the book into the Brazilian market.

He’s sold over 1,000 copies. Done over $5,000 in revenue in a few months. He pays Travis a licensing commission and keeps the rest.

Read that again. The guy didn’t write the book. He didn’t build Travis’s audience. He didn’t create the marketing system. He found the gap (no Portuguese version), got permission, did the work, and now has a real income stream.

This is what piggybanking looks like in practice.

If you’re sitting on language skills, design skills, technical skills, regional knowledge, or any niche expertise, there’s almost certainly a successful product out there that’s incomplete for the audience you can reach. Your job isn’t to invent the thing. Your job is to spot what’s missing and propose the partnership.

Why this can work on Substack specifically

Substack might be the best platform ever built for this kind of business.

Here’s why.

When you build a relationship with an audience on Substack, you’re building it under your name. Not behind a logo, not as a faceless brand. People subscribe to YOU. So when you say “I found this product and I think it’s worth your attention,” your audience responds differently than they would to a paid ad or an SEO-optimized affiliate review.

Chad doesn’t need 10,000 subscribers to make this work. He needs the right people who trust him enough to follow his recommendations.

This is the difference between trying to monetize attention (which requires scale) and monetizing trust (which requires depth). Chad’s model is built on the second one.

Most creators want to be known for their own original work. Their own framework. Their own product. The piggybanking model says maybe you don’t need to be. Maybe the most profitable thing you can build is a position where you’re the trusted curator and packager of other people’s work, with deals that pay you for the role.

That’s a different identity than “thought leader.” But it might be a more sustainable business.

The mindset shift Chad named

Near the end of our spotlight, we were talking about why most creators don’t make money fast enough to sustain themselves.

He said this:

“When I do something for the money, it doesn’t do nearly as good as when it’s not about the money. When it’s about genuinely helping people, the money kind of comes.”

That line could land as a platitude. It doesn’t, when you look at his actual business.

The Brazilian guy didn’t translate Travis’s book to make money. He did it because the gap existed and he could fill it. The money followed.

Chad didn’t create the Systeme.io bonus to extract commissions. He did it because he saw 200 people who’d just bought something incomplete, and he wanted to help them complete it. The $3,000 followed.

This is the actual mechanic underneath all of his stories. Find the gap. Fill the gap. The money is a lagging indicator.

When you make money the leading indicator, you stop seeing the gaps. You only see the transactions. And the transactions don’t happen, because nobody trusts a creator whose primary motivation is visible to them.

The TL;DR version

If you take one thing from this spotlight with Chad, take this:

You don’t need to create your own product to make money online. Most of the fastest paths to revenue involve licensing, packaging, translating, repurposing, or adding bonuses to products other people have already built.

Find the gaps. Look at successful offers and notice what’s missing for a specific subset of buyers. Then build the bridge piece. The bridge piece is often where the real money is, not the original product.

Piggybanking is a real business model. Toy companies do it with IP. Translators do it with books. Affiliate marketers do it with bonuses. Substack creators can do it in multiple ways, he’s about to cover in his newsletter .

Stop chasing the subscriber count and start chasing the deals. Chad’s fewer than 100 subscribers don’t matter when he made $3,000, a Skool community, and 50/50 revenue splits with product creators. Subscriber count is one metric, but it’s not the only one.

And money is a lagging indicator. Find the gaps. The money follows.

Watch the full spotlight session above for the parts I couldn’t fit in here. Chad goes deeper on his Skool community (PiggyBanking Brand Creators), the integration between Substack and Skool (I’m closely watching), his thoughts on deal-making vs freelancing, and the framework he’s using to shift his whole business away from trading time for money.

Go subscribe to Chad’s Substack, No Paycheck Needed. If you’re a freelancer or service provider who’s tired of trading time for money, his content is built for you.

Subscribe to Chad’s Substack to find more ideas how make real money online:

Yana

P.S. Chad shared three books that shaped his approach (with my Amazon affiliate links):

• Dotcom Secrets by Russell Brunson (the book that shifted his marketing thinking; still relevant even though it came out in 2015)

• Make Them Beg to Buy From You by Travis Sago (this book is the source of the “piggy banking” concept Chad uses)

• Deals Over Clients by Tony Teegarden and Travis Sago (the framework for moving from trading time for money to making deals)

And one creator he mentioned worth following: , who travels around the US doing missionary work with elderly people and writes about it on Substack. Chad’s a subscriber. So am I.

Kickstart Your Substack Growth:

• Get Your FREE High Converting Substack Blueprint

• Get a FREE 10-Day Substack crash course to grow your first 1000 subscribers

• Join my FREE Masterclass on how to start making consistent $5,000/month

• Join the One and Only Substack Quest to build a high-converting Substack

• Work with me to get your Substack up and growing

Save Tons of Time! Use My Custom GPTs:

• The Title Generator that gives me headlines that stop the scroll

• The Notes Writer that writes Viral Notes, bringing me and my paid members hundreds of subs

• The Writer Pro that turns my Notes into >90% human drafts (here’s the free version).

Or get the bundle with all the tools, now at a very special price ;)

Become an Affiliate:

Earn 30% from each sale. Apply below, I approve everyone.

• Apply here for my AI tools & templates

• Apply here for the SUBSTACK QUEST courses

Become a sponsor:

• Reach thousands of engaged buyers.

More from me:

• FREE Daily BiTES: A daily mail with just 3 bullets from the most helpful things I read about writing and making money online with AI

• Unplugged: The place to be if you want to grow an AI-powered paid newsletter and create content that sells itself.

Wall of Love

had never written a word online and said she hated writing but her mental health Substack grew from 245 to 22,291 subscribers. We started working in June 2025, building Substack from scratch. In January 2026, it generated $6,079 in revenue. This is the full story of what we built together and how my Substack QUEST monetization model works.

“I hate writing.”

That’s the first thing she told me.

“I’m nervous about it” would have been fair. “I’m not sure I’m good at it” would have made sense. But Ellen had never written a single piece online and she was honest about it.

What she had was a thriving private therapy practice. Clients she had worked with for years. A deep, research and science backed approach and a license to help people. And a problem: trading hours for dollars has a ceiling, and she had hit it.

She wanted to build something that could grow without her booking every hour. Something that could keep going while she slept. Something that did not require her to show up for every single person individually.

She wanted Substack.

And honestly, when she told me she hated writing, my first thought was not doubt. It was relief. That meant she would not have any bad habits to unlearn.

We started working together in June 2025.

What we were working against

Mental health is a brutal niche - on Substack and on the Internet in general.

There is a massive audience for it. And there’s a flood of content. The problem is the writers. Almost everyone in the space is scared. Scared to write with any edge. Scared to have opinions. Scared their licensing board is watching. Scared to say anything that could be misconstrued as advice. Scared to be bold.

The result? Most mental health content sounds exactly the same. Safe. Warm. Beige. Honestly - plain boring. “Here are 5 ways to manage stress.” “Breathe deeply.” “It’s okay not to be okay.”

Ellen is a licensed therapist with 20+ years of experience. She could write circles around most people on the clinical stuff. But clinical was boring too.

The play was what she actually lived and believed. The story of her divorce. What she had seen in her practice. What she thought the mental health world got wrong, what it got right, and what it completely missed.

The play was her.

So that is what we built.

The grind phase (yes, there’s always one)

Ellen posted consistently for months. She hated it but she had to do it.

Good posts. Thoughtful posts. Posts that took real work to write.

And she got to around 200 subscribers.

I’ll be honest about this because a lot of people show you the hockey stick and skip the flat line before it. The flat line is real. It happens to everyone. It is not a sign your strategy is wrong. It’s just a phase you have to push through.

Ellen kept showing up even when it felt like writing into a void. She kept learning how to write for the format. She kept improving. She kept implementing everything we worked on.

Then on November 13, 2025, she published this:

Life Branches

Aging Out of Fucks: The Neuroscience of Why You Suddenly Can’t Pretend Anymore

You’re in a meeting. Someone says something objectively wrong. And instead of doing your usual dance—the soft correction, the diplomatic phrasing, the careful preservation of everyone’s feelings—you just... say it…

Read more

7 months ago · 26607 likes · 2737 comments · Ellen Scherr

The subtitle: “Your brain’s middle finger to people-pleasing.”

It went viral. On the Internet, not only on Substack - got shared to social media and on other sites.

By the end of the month, the post had tens of thousands of likes, thousands of restacks, and Oprah Daily picked it up.

Oprah Daily.

From a therapist who said she hated writing six months earlier.

What the numbers look like now

22,475 subscribers.

In the mental health niche. With a founder who had never written online before and hated writing.

But here is the number that matters most to me, because it is not just a subscriber count. It is a business.

In January 2026, Ellen’s Substack generated $6,079 in revenue.

It’s when she enabled her paid subscription (finally), but that revenue came from three sources compounding together: paid memberships, digital products, and 1:1 therapy work booked directly through her Substack funnel.

That’s the model. The therapy work stays. We made it the premium tier of a layered offer stack, where the Substack handles the relationship-building and the trust. The funnel goes to Kit.

Today, almost every post she publishes gets 100+ likes. Almost every Note she writes goes viral. Her audience does more than read her. They share her.

What actually made this work

This is not a story about one viral post.

The viral post only amplified what was already there - the conversion engine.

By the time that post hit, Ellen had a Substack ready for the traffic. A proper welcome sequence. A clear offer stack. And a clear idea for a paid subscription that was worth upgrading to.

A positioning that made her instantly distinct in a sea of beige mental health content.

Without that infrastructure in place, viral traffic bounces. You get a spike on your analytics dashboard, and then everyone leaves because there is nothing there to hold them.

The post went viral because Ellen finally wrote something unapologetically hers. The subscribers stayed and converted because of what we had built underneath it.

Here is what we built. And how you can apply the same framework to your own niche.

The model, piece by piece

Ellen’s results came from five components of the QUEST framework working together. Remove any one of them and the outcome is different. Here is what each one looks like in practice.

#1 Positioning: stop being a therapist, start being a voice

Most mental health creators on Substack position themselves as therapists. Which means they write like therapists. Cautious. Neutral. Careful. And honestly? Boring…

Ellen is a licensed mental health therapist. But that is not her positioning.

Her positioning is the person who tells you the uncomfortable neurological truth about why you are the way you are, without judgment, without jargon, without making you feel broken.

That is a completely different thing.

We built this by going through what she actually believed, and lived - her divorce. The stuff most people in her field would not say out loud. And she wouldn’t too in the beginning.

I remember she told me “I haven’t got a good story to tell, it’s all boring”. Turns out she did have one - and it surfaced very clearly during the positioning work. It was her first post:

Life Branches

What Do You Do When Life Explodes at 46?

The call to adventure came disguised as a midlife crisis…

Read more

a year ago · 221 likes · 56 comments

It got more than 200 likes and a lot of heated comments. That’s when we knew we’re on to something.

The things she told clients in session that made them go quiet and then say, “I’ve never heard anyone explain it that way.”

That is your positioning. Your edge.

Your credentials are context. Your modality is method. Your edge is what makes the writing yours.

For Ellen, the edge was: “your brain is not broken, your circumstances trained it, and here is the science that proves it.”

That exploded.

Once we had that, every piece of content had a clear filter. Does this sound like Ellen, or does it sound like a textbook?

#2 The setup: funnel first, content second

Most people build a Substack like this: write posts, hope people subscribe, figure out the rest later.

That is backwards.

Before Ellen published her tenth post, we had built the full infrastructure:

• A Welcome email that established her voice and set clear expectations

• A Start Here page that told new subscribers exactly what Life Branches was about and who it was for

• An About page with real social proof: her clinical background, her philosophy, her actual opinions

• A simple offer stack made of a freebie, a low-tier ebook, a mid-tier product and a high-tier therapy offer

• A funnel in Kit designed to monetize at a high conversion rate

• And content engine designed to bring in new subscribers

When I checked her analytics the week after the viral post hit, the email open rates were above 50%. Usually it’s normal if you have 10-ish new subscribers per day, but she had 100+.

That told me everything.

The model did its job. New subscribers were not bouncing. They were landing in a funnel that was ready for them.

If your Welcome email says “thanks for subscribing, I’ll be in touch,” you are wasting the warmest moment in the relationship. That is the moment a new subscriber is most likely to engage, upgrade, and stay.

Simple rule: treat your Substack like a product, not a blog. In my model, every touchpoint is designed to convert. Every page, every post, every Note has a job.

Optimize for a high conversion rate: that is my superpower. That’s what I help people build.

#3 The growth engine that compounds

One viral post means nothing if you can’t replicate it.

And Ellen did, multiple times. That’s what kept her growing, long after the virality happened.

How?

She listened to the data signals and double downed on what worked. No matter how uncomfortable it was. She did the work that needed to be done.

A “fuck” in the headline? Check.

A vulnerable story about a painful divorce? Check.

Controversial Notes that challenge common beliefs? Check.

You can have a viral moment and then stagnate. Or you can have a viral moment and build a compounding engine. The difference is whether you treat your content as an afterthought or as a core part of your strategy.

Because when you do, you don’t need virality. Your content will convert.

Here’s what Ellen said about working with me:

The thing nobody wants to hear

Ellen implemented all of it.

She rewrote her About page multiple times. She built I don’t know how many Welcome emails when most people have zero. She wrote Notes and posts consistently even when they did not go anywhere. She kept publishing for months at 200 subscribers, when the easier thing would have been to decide it was not working.

Did she make it because of working with me? No. I only showed her the fastest route.

Did she make it because of a viral post? No. It only amplified what she already had in place.

She made it because she knew the work has to be done. And she did it. On time. And she’s still doing it.

Even at 71 years of age. Even when she was moving between states. Even after she had a painful surgery. Even when she felt exhausted from another meeting with a client.

Everyone has excuses. Few people have the grit to work through them and actually make things happen. Even after it starts growing.

Because growth is also a trap.

Many people decide to take a rest when it finally worked. But that’s exactly the moment when they turned their growth to decline.

My QUEST framework works.

I’ve extracted it from 20+ years of building and selling products on subscription in one of the largest telco groups in the world.

I applied it on my Substack and it worked.

I helped Ellen apply it and it worked.

I’ve seen many of my paid members apply it and grow, some even beyond my size.

I’ve seen it work across multiple niches: AI, product development, finance, data science, leadership, marketing, mental health, food, medicine, podcasts, even physical products. The pattern holds.

Because I developed it from a real business, that makes billions of dollars, not just my trial and error or experiments online.

But it only works for people who implement it. Who iterate when something does not land. Who keep going past the point where most people stop.

Ellen is one of those people.

Building a real Substack business is heavy work. The people who stick with it are the ones who stop looking for the light version.

Ellen still says she hates writing sometimes. But in January 2026, her words generated $6,079. That is what happens when the strategy is right and the person doing it does not quit.

Yana

P.S. If you think you have the balls to do what Ellen did, this is where it all started.

If you’re serious about your Substack monetization, make this post your daily engagement routine. Share your posts, then read and join the conversation in the comments of the other members’ posts. This is how we grow!

If you’re not yet in the Writing Challenge, NOW IS the best time to join.

VIPs: You have new gifts, so that you write for engagement, for conversion and for discoverability 👇

Here’s what you need to do now:

1. Add yourself to the Accountability tracker, so that you have a chance to win the award (a spotlight with me to get more exposure of your Substack)

2. Share a link to your posts in the comments below so that we can find it, read, comment, like, and share it!

3. Make this challenge for your daily engagement workflow - Check other people’s posts in the comments of this post. Find something you like to read more about and give it a like, comment and share - that’s how you grow faster (and you help others grow too).

Anyone from the Unplugged community can participate.

Let’s do this!!

Subscribe now

Share your link now 👇

P.S. If it doesn’t challenge you, it won’t change you. If you haven’t already, Join the Writing Challenge if you’re serious about growing on Substack.

P.S.S. If you’re not taking the Challenges, you can opt-out from receiving these weekly posts without unsubscribing for the rest of the content - do this from your settings here:

If you’re serious about your Substack growth, make this post your daily engagement routine. Share your Notes, then read and join the conversation in the comments of the other members’ Notes. It will help you and them grow.

Notes are essential for your Substack growth. If you’re not yet in the Notes Challenge, NOW is the best time to join.

Here’s what you need to do now:

1. Add yourself to the Accountability tracker so that I consider you for the prizes.

2. Share a link to your Notes in the comments below so that we can find it, read, comment, like, and restock it!

3. Check other people’s Notes in the comments. Find something you like to read more about and give it a like, comment, and share. Make this challenge your daily engagement routine - it helps you, as well as the other members in the community, grow faster.

PLUS: if you have a Note with 100+ likes, DM me with a link, so that I can add it in the Unplugged Hall of Fame :)

You can share your Notes here throughout the whole week, until the next sharing post on Saturday.

Anyone from the Unplugged community can participate.

Subscribe now

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Share your link now 👇

P.S. If you haven’t already, Join the Notes30 Challenge if you’re serious about growing on Substack.

P.S.S. If you’re not taking the Notes Challenge, you can opt-out from receiving these weekly posts without unsubscribing for the rest of the content - do this from your settings here:

Vinayak is a biomedical research scientist working full-time in Japan. He’s originally from India. He started his Substack, The Sustainable Solopreneur, in January of this year. That’s four months on the platform.

He crossed 300 Substack subscribers in 90 days. That was his six-month target. He hit it in half the time.

How?

Here’s his secret:

“For the past two months, all the articles from my side are collaborative articles. I have not written any solo articles for the past two months.”

Gurus say that growth on Substack comes from publishing consistently under your own name, building your authority, and earning your audience one post at a time, but Vinayak’s been doing the opposite. And it’s working.

What collaboration actually unlocks

So a solo post reaches your existing subscribers and whoever the algorithm decides to push you to. But a collab post reaches YOUR subscribers, AND THE OTHER writer’s subscribers, AND whoever the algorithm pushes you both to.

Why?

Because a Substack collab post publishes to both writers’ lists simultaneously. Both audiences don’t get an email, but they do see it in the app. The post appears under both profiles.

Vinayak figured out something most new writers haven’t. The fastest way to grow when you’re small is to borrow audiences before you’ve earned them.

Every collab you publish adds new readers to your list who came through warm context (another writer they already trust), not cold acquisition. This is why conversion from these subscribers is higher, and my data confirms that.

But you have to do this right.

Collab posts require relationships. You can’t just DM five writers and expect three to say yes. You have to actually engage with their work, comment on their posts, build genuine back-and-forth, and earn the right to propose a collab. The strategy looks easy on paper. The relationship layer is the real work.

Which brings me to Vinayak’s second system.

The give-and-take engagement loop

When I asked Vinayak how he was getting his early growth, he didn’t say notes virality. He didn’t say SEO. He didn’t say recommendations from bigger writers.

He said this:

“Whenever people comment on my notes, I go and reply back. Even if I reply one to two days late, I make sure I reply to all the comments. And at the same time, I go back to their profile, scroll through their profile, and engage back.”

He calls it a give-and-take policy.

Why this works? When you then visit their profile and engage with their content, it’s a connection forming. People become curious, so they come back to your profile because of your engagement.

This kind of loop closing is what Substack’s algorithm is built to reward.

Most writers do one half of this. They reply to comments on their own posts and stop there. Vinayak does both halves, which doubles the algorithmic weight and, more importantly, builds the relationships that turn into collab opportunities later.

I do this as well - every now and then, I visit people’s profiles and engage further is something catches my attention.

The give-and-take loop and the collab strategy aren’t separate strategies. They’re the same strategy at two different stages. You engage with someone genuinely for weeks. You build a real connection. Then a collab becomes natural to propose, because you’ve already done the work of being someone they want to write with.

This is the thing nobody tells new creators clearly. Early growth on Substack isn’t about posting more or working harder, but building a small network of writers who actively want to amplify each other.

What he lost before he found Substack

I want to zoom out here, because there’s a backstory to Vinayak’s discipline that matters.

Before Substack, Vinayak ran twelve YouTube channels. Faceless content, AI-generated voiceovers, paid editors, the full automation stack. At his peak he was running four channels at once, making $2,000 to $3,000 a month, while spending $700 to $800 monthly on tools, editors, and a high-ticket mastermind.

Then in November and December last year, YouTube cracked down on AI-generated content.

One of his channels got a strike for “inauthentic content.” Within days, all his other channels got hit too, because they were connected to the same AdSense account. He lost monetization on all of them. Twelve channels. Gone.

That can happen all the time when you build an audience that’s not truly yours. It happened to me too.

A few weeks ago, my X account got suspended. I think it’s because I talk too much about Substack and ChatGPT and Claude, and not enough about X itself. I filed an appeal and I was not optimistic, but they reinstated my account. Guess how much I trust this platform now.

So when Vinayak talks about building something “sustainable,” he doesn’t mean it in the soft creator-economy way. He means it in the way someone who’s lost everything twice means it.

“I left those client works and started writing my own stuff online,” he said. “I do not want to focus on too much of platforms at once. So for the first three months I did only Substack.”

He’s been wiped out by platform algorithms enough times to know that diversifying too early kills focus, and that focusing on one platform until it’s working is the only sane move.

Make it work on one platform. Then expand.

On accountability

There’s one more thing Vinayak said that I want to flag for anyone who keeps falling off their own consistency.

He told me my Notes Challenge was part of his daily routine.

“It’s kind of a daily ritual for me, just like how I eat and sleep. I have to go to that sheet and put a check mark besides my name.”

Vinayak is a biomedical research scientist with a demanding full-time job (like me). He’s running a Substack business on the side. He has no spare cognitive load. And what he discovered is that the accountability of an external checklist was the thing that turned posting into automatic behavior rather than a decision he had to make every day.

Decisions cost willpower. Rituals don’t.

If your daily writing is still a decision you’re making every morning, you’re going to lose that decision more days than you win it. Eventually life gets in. Burnout creeps in. Someone ends up in the hospital. You take a “short break” that turns into a month.

Vinayak’s system isn’t motivation. It’s a checklist on a shared spreadsheet that forces him to show up because other people will notice if he doesn’t. That’s the entire mechanic. And it’s the reason he’s been consistent for four months while most January starters have already faded out.

The TL;DR version

Stop trying to grow your Substack alone. The fastest path when you’re small isn’t more posts. It’s collaborations with writers whose audiences overlap with yours.

Engage in both directions - reply to comments on your work AND visit and engage on the profiles of people who comment on you. This is what most people do halfway.

Don’t post across five platforms before one is working. If you’re spreading yourself too thin across Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, LinkedIn, Threads, Bluesky, X, and Substack - this is not building, but burning out. Pick one. Make it work. Then expand.

Build external accountability if you’re a busy person with a full-time job. A checklist, a challenge, a shared spreadsheet, a writing community. Whatever externalizes the decision so you stop having to make it every day. That’s why I run my challenges - to help you stay on track.

We also discussed how to monetize a faceless YouTube channel and if that model still stands in the age of AI.

Watch the full spotlight session for the parts I couldn’t fit in here. Vinayak goes deeper on his YouTube, his current thinking on building a Skool community alongside his Substack, and more.

Subscribe to Vinayak’s Substack to find more ideas how to grow sustainably:

Yana

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Wall of Love

I know I should be writing more Notes. But I never know what to say.

I get it.

The advice out there is basically: show up consistently, post every day, be authentic. Even Substack has it in the posts.

It makes you think, ok, but about what, exactly?

The blank-page situation

I remember when I first started on Substack. My core focus was Notes because of the organic discoverability. But guess what, I was staring at the screen like someone who’d never written a sentence in their whole life.

Which is hilarious, because I’d been writing professionally for 15 years at that point. Marketing copy. Emails. Presentations. None of it prepared me for the panic of a blank Substack Notes screen.

I’d open it. Type something. Delete it. Walk away.

I posted 4 Notes in my first month. Four. And every guru kept telling me Notes was the easiest way to grow. Easiest for who?

That’s when I started studying Notes that actually worked - collected and analyzed viral Notes. Posted like crazy, and analyzed data from thousands of my Notes with AI.

The same shapes kept showing up. Tips. Mistakes. Myths. Stats. Stories.

Few months later I launched the Viral Notes Writer GPT and it was a blast. Squeezed my time staring at the screen from hours a day to just 15 minutes in writing and posting.

The thing is, you have plenty of ideas. What you don’t have is a way to squeeze 21 Notes out of every one of them.

That’s what I want to show you today.

I call it the 21-Angle Prompt.

Grow the right type of subscribers

Before I give you the prompt, I want to make one thing clear.

Don’t just paste any idea into this prompt.

I convert subscribers coming from Notes at the highest rates (11.7% in the best months), because I don’t write about random ideas or what I ate today. I write Notes that connect to my paid tier, not just my newsletter topics. The paid tier.

That’s how I attract the right type of people - ready to convert.

If you run a free newsletter, write Notes that solve the problems you solve with your products or services.

And if you don’t have monetization enabled yet, take the QUEST.

The 21-Angle Prompt

Use this prompt with Claude Opus and my brand new Claude skill - it has the Viral Notes Writer instructions and templates collected from thousands of viral Notes and Notes that deliver subscribers (not always viral), over the past 2 years.

STEP 1: If you haven’t already, get the Viral Notes Writer Claude skill here:

STEP 2: Then use the 21-Angle prompt.

Here it is, exactly as I use it with my custom Notes Writer:

Come up with 21 different angles and turn them into Notes about my 
[solution] that solves a painful [problem] for my [audience].

Use exactly these 21 angle types and format each one as a 
scroll-stopping headline:

Tips · Stats · Steps · Lessons · Benefits · Reasons · Mistakes · 
Examples · Questions · Ways · Ideas · Myths · Tools · Frameworks · 
Comparisons · Objections · Predictions · Challenges · Results · 
Trends · Prompts · Signs

For each angle, output: a Note as per your training.

You fill in your [solution], [problem], and [audience].

That’s it.

The Viral Notes Writer does the rest.

Here’s how I used it today, and the Notes were simply amazing:

What you get

Say you’re a career coach. Your solution is interview prep. Your problem is candidates freezing up under pressure. Your audience is mid-career professionals switching industries.

Run the prompt. Within 90 seconds, you get 21 different Notes. Each one fully formed. Each one attacking the same idea from a completely different direction.

The “Stats” Note opens with: “72% of candidates lose the job in the first 3 minutes of an interview. Here’s what’s actually happening.”

The “Myths” Note opens with: “The biggest lie about interview prep: practice makes perfect. It doesn’t. Here’s what does.”

The “Signs” Note opens with: “5 signs your interview prep is already working, even if you don’t feel ready yet.”

Same idea. 21 entry points.

You don’t publish all 21 at once. You pick the strongest 5 or 6 for the week. Stagger the rest across the month. One idea just became three weeks of content.

TLDR version

Running out of things to say on Substack Notes is a system problem, not a creativity problem.

This 21-Angle Prompt turns one idea into 21 angles in under 5 minutes. The Viral Notes Writer turns those 21 angles into 21 publishable Notes in your voice.

Copy the prompt above. Plug in your [solution], [problem], [audience]. Run it once.

Make sure your idea is connected to the problems you solve in your paid tier, product or service, not how you spent the day.

Come back and tell me which angle surprised you most.

FAQ: The 21-Angle Prompt

Can I use the 21-Angle Prompt without a the Viral Notes Writer skill? Yes. Run it in ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini. Add 3 samples of your best performing Notes upfront so the model picks up your voice. The output needs slightly more editing than a trained GPT, but the 21 angles still arrive. The Viral Notes Writer has extensive training from data collected and curated for years, and it proved it’s results with more than 200+ people using it, so I’d stay on the safe side with it.

Do I have to use Claude Opus? The Viral Notes Writer skill works best with Claude Opus. You can run it on Sonnet and it still works, but Opus catches more nuance in the headline angles, especially the Myths, Comparisons, and Objections frames where voice really matters. If you’re already paying for Claude, switch to Opus for this prompt. If you’re on the free tier, Sonnet still beats staring at a blank screen.

How long does it take to generate 21 Notes? Under 5 minutes with my custom GPT or the Claude skill. Closer to 10 minutes with a standard model, because you’ll have to spend time on the voice and formatting context.

Do I have to use all 21 angles? No. Pick the 5 or 6 strongest for the week. Save the rest. One idea becomes about three weeks of content.

Which angle types convert best on Substack Notes? In my own data, Myths, Mistakes, Stats, and Comparisons drive the most restacks. Signs and Predictions drive the most subscribes. Tips drive the most likes but the fewest subscribers. This might be specific to my audience, so test with your own.

What’s the difference between the 21-Angle Prompt and just asking ChatGPT or Claude for Note ideas? Try it. You’ll get completely different results. Open-ended brainstorming gives you 5 to 7 angles before the model loops. The 21-Angle Prompt forces it through 21 distinct frames in a single pass, so you never get two Notes that say the same thing twice.

Do I have to have a paid product to use this? Ideally, yes. The prompt works best when your [solution] is something you actually sell, because that’s how Notes turn into subscribers who turn into buyers. If you don’t have a product yet, use the prompt to write Notes around the problems you plan to solve in the future. Pick a problem you’ll monetize within the next 90 days. That way you’re building an audience that already wants what you’re going to launch.

Can I use this prompt for LinkedIn posts, tweets, or Threads? Yes. Swap “Notes” for the platform in the prompt and adjust the headline format. The 21 angle types are platform-agnostic.

Yana

P.S. If you want to build a custom Claude skill or GPT for writing Notes, so that you don’t have to give it context every time, I can help - check out this link.

Kickstart Your Substack Growth:

• Get Your FREE High Converting Substack Blueprint

• Get a FREE 10-Day Substack crash course to grow your first 1000 subscribers

• Join my FREE Masterclass on how to start making consistent $5,000+/month

• Join the One and Only Substack Quest to build a high-converting Substack

• Work with me to get your Substack up and growing

Save Tons of Time! Use My Custom GPTs:

• The Title Generator that gives me headlines that stop the scroll

• The Notes Writer that writes Viral Notes, bringing me and my paid members hundreds of subs

• The Writer Pro that turns my Notes into >90% human drafts (here’s the free version).

Or get the bundle with all the tools, now at a very special price ;)

Become an Affiliate:

Earn 30% from each sale. Apply below, I approve everyone.

• Apply here for my AI tools & templates

• Apply here for the SUBSTACK QUEST courses

Become a sponsor:

• Reach thousands of engaged buyers.

More from me:

• FREE Daily BiTES: A daily mail with just 3 bullets from the most helpful things I read about writing and making money online with AI

• Unplugged: The place to be if you want to grow an AI-powered paid newsletter and create content that sells itself.

Wall of Love