Time to kick off the Notes Challenge for this month!
Notes keep crushing it for many Unplugged members right now. I just got another viral Note bringing me 320+ subscribers and still going:
And Lisa Garvey shared hers in our last VIP mastermind - she got more than 650 subscribers from it:
My Note? Nothing special - just sharing milestones, this time with a story - same thing that worked in 2024 works today. Now, this viral Note got me hundreds, but I have hundreds of Notes that got me just one subscriber. I shared the ONLY 5 Notes templates you need to turn likes into subscribers here:
Lisa’s Note? She used my AI tools from the Viral Notes Writer system course. That’s all you need to know. It also has my most powerful custom GPT and the Claude skill that helps write Notes that get subscribers. That’s what Lisa used for her Note.
That’s why this challenge exists.
Ok, first things first - let’s announce the WINNER from the previous month 🤩
WINNERS AWARDS
As usual, I want to personally congratulate all of the members who took their growth seriously last month and were so active:
James Presbitero, Marylee Pangman, Author, Esther | Strategy & Soul, Larry Burton, Judith Frizlen, LISELLE KISS American Designer, Meredith Eisenberg, Judith Frizlen, Kathleen Thorne RN, LMT, Larry C. Brown, Larry Burton, Charisse Tyson, Vinayak Ramesh, Charlotte Habegger, Dave Schoof, Dee, Adrienne Schutte, Angel Johanni, Olamide Amosu, Shannon Huffman Polson, Monica Lundstedt, Long Happy Life, Zainab Semiu, Clayton H, Kurtis Pykes, Lawrence Omoregie Jr, Cynthia Martin, Honorata Janas, Lisa Garvey, Harvey Woodford, Esther | Strategy & Soul, Roy Solheim, Taste from the Past, Charisse Tyson, Chris Humphrey, Dee, Adrienne Schutte, Elaine Emme, Clayton H
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 Finn Tropy 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….
… .drumroll please.…
Winner from last month’s Notes Challenge:
→ Sean Wright ←
BIG Congrats to Sean!!! I can’t wait to jump into the session to talk about his amazing Substack! Looking forward to it!
The Spotlight Session Award
→ 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 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, Claude Skill, and the Viral Notes Writer Course with EVERYTHING below.
[NEW] So from this month, you have a fully automated workflow for Notes with all new Paid Member Perks:
Write and schedule Notes directly from the chat in Claude using my brand-new skill and the tool from Finn Tropy.
You can also write with my custom GPT and Claude skill using the Viral Notes Writer System (you got 50% off)
You can also schedule using Orel’s Write Stack (you’ve got 30-day free) or Finn’s Studio Pro (you got 50% off) - now you don’t have to keep your PC active.
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 Finn and his StackContacts), 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 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:
Notes for Claude bundle (you have 50% off perk),
Write Stack (you have 30 day free perk), or
Substack Pro Studio GPT Bundle (you have 50% off perk) to schedule and analyze, optimize and schedule your Notes. Posting in the right times is crucial. No need to keep your computer active.
Or use these 5 templates if you want to write Notes by yourself.
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 (part of the Unplugged Toolbox)
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 - in the Unplugged Toolbox - 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. [NEW] It also includes all of my viral Notes.
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:
My brand new Claude skill for writing viral Notes
[NEW] The only 5 Notes templates you need to turn likes into subs
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:
Link to The Unplugged Toolbox where you’ll find the Unplugged Hall of Fame - a swipe file with Paid Member Notes that got 100+ likes as well as all of my viral Notes
Link to the Viral Notes Writer Claude skill and scheduling tool bundle (you got 50% off).
Link to the custom GPT Viral Notes Writer and a training how to use it. Also link to the entire course The Viral Notes Writer System - it’s a must watch.
Link to the Substack Pro Studio GPT Bundle and a training how to use it (you got 50% off).
Link to WriteStack to schedule and analyze your Notes (you got 30 days free).
[From the LABS] Link to the automation template that helps you automatically repost Notes to social media.
Link to the entire SUBSTACK QUEST - a must watch (and absorb) if you want to convert these subscribers at higher conversion rates.
Happy Noting!
May this month bring you many new subscribers!
Yana
P.S. If you need a personalized Claude skill to write Notes that sound like you, I can build one for you.
I don’t recommend things lightly, but this worked for me.
That Note Yana shared? It brought me more than 650 subscribers and grew to over 10,000 likes.
I used what she taught me, wrote something real, and it changed the trajectory of my Substack.
So if you’ve been wondering whether her Viral Notes system actually works — I’m your proof.
Go read what she wrote. Then go get it. 💛
Is this starting on which date? And is there a submission?