Why Most Substacks Never Grow
The 3 decisions to fix it
When I first joined Substack back in 2021, I thought it was a joke.
All you could do was write posts and send them as emails.
No social features.
No discovery.
No built-in audience tools. Nothing that could convince me to stick around, especially since I already had an email list running on Kit that I was not willing to give up.
I genuinely did not see a reason to add Substack into the mix, so I ignored it.
Fast forward to 2024: suddenly, everyone seemed to be talking about Substack, and several of my creator friends were trying to convince me to give it another shot.
So I did. And when I came back, Substack had become a completely different platform. Instead of an email publisher, it was now a mix of a publishing platform with integrated social layers, collaboration tools, live streaming possibilities, and so much more.
It only took us a few short weeks to get completely hooked and go all-in on Substack.
Within less than two years, we have grown the Write • Build • Scale publication to over 45,000 subscribers and 1,500+ paid members.
And when I look back at what drove our growth, it was not just consistency or content quality.
It was three specific decisions we made, and in this post, I am going to share exactly what those three decisions are, so you can skip the uncertainty and start your Substack with the right foundation.
Why Most People Never Grow on Substack
Most people who join Substack do the same things: they sign up, pick a name for their publication, write something, hit publish, and then sit there waiting for readers to magically show up.
And when nothing happens, they assume they are not a good enough writer, or that the platform does not work.
But the real problem is that they launched without a blueprint.
Imagine you are opening a restaurant. You wouldn’t start by cooking food on day one, right?!
You would decide what kind of restaurant you are opening, who your ideal customer is, what the menu looks like, and how people are going to find you.
Starting a Substack is no different. And if I had to start all over again today, there are three decisions I would make before I wrote a single post, so let me walk you through each one.
Decision 1: Position Your Publication Like a Product, Not a Diary
The first thing that determines whether strangers subscribe or scroll past you is something most creators spend about 30 seconds on: your publication name and your one-liner.
When someone discovers you on Substack, whether through Notes, a recommendation, or search, they see three things. Your name, your one-liner, and your photo. That is all they get. And they decide in about five seconds whether to follow you or move on.
If your publication is named after yourself, you have a problem because your name means nothing to someone who has never heard of you. It’s like putting your name on a restaurant sign instead of telling people what kind of food you serve. What works instead is a name that tells a stranger exactly what they will get.
If I were starting today, I would ask myself this question:
If someone saw my publication name in a list of 50 other Substacks, would they be able to tell if the publication is for them?
At Write • Build • Scale, the name says it all: we help you write confidently, build your audience, and scale your income. You know what you are getting before you read a single post.
Your About Page Is a Silent Salesman
The second piece that most people skip entirely is the About page. This is actually one of the first things we work on with our students and VIP coaching clients, because your About page is not just a formality. It’s a silent salesman that works for you around the clock.
When someone is even slightly curious about you, they click your About page. And they are asking three questions in their head:
Who is this person and why should I trust them?
What will I actually get from this publication?
And do I belong here?
The strongest About pages answer all three of those questions within the first 200 words.
When you have nailed your About page, it means you have answered the most critical questions about your own business.
You know who you serve.
You know what value you deliver.
You know why someone should care.
That clarity does not just make your About page better. It makes every single post, every Note, and every piece of content you create sharper and more effective.
So if I were starting today, before I write a single post, I would spend real time on three things: my publication name, my one-liner, and my About page. These three elements will do more for your growth than your first 10 posts combined.
Want to see exactly what makes a Note go from ignored to 500+ restacks? Viral Substack Notes Demystified breaks down 100 real examples across niches with the exact frameworks behind each one.
Decision 2: Use Substack as a Growth Engine, Not Just a Newsletter Tool
Once your publication is set up properly, most people assume the next step is to start publishing long-form newsletters every week. And that is important. But it’s not how you actually grow on Substack in 2026. Because Substack is not what most people think it is.
Most people treat Substack like a place to host their blog. They write a post, they send it to their existing subscribers, and they call it a day.
But Substack in 2026 is closer to a social media platform than most people would like to admit.
And I say that as a compliment.
Because unlike Instagram or Twitter, Substack’s algorithm isn’t designed to keep you scrolling. It’s designed to help readers find writers they want to subscribe to and eventually pay, because that is how the platform itself makes money, which means every feature Substack builds is designed to help you get discovered and grow your audience.
Why Substack Notes Is the Biggest Growth Lever Right Now
If you’re not posting on Notes consistently, you’re leaving subscribers on the table every single day.
And here is something I want you to understand about Notes that most people get wrong. The instinct for most creators is to write educational Notes: tips, frameworks, how-to advice.
And that makes sense, because you want to provide value, and teaching feels like the obvious way to do it. But here is what I have learned from publishing Notes consistently and studying what actually drives growth: Educational Notes get likes. Story-driven Notes get subscribers.
When someone reads a tip, they think “that’s useful.”
When someone reads a story that reflects their own situation, they think “that is me,” and they subscribe because they want more from the person who just made them feel understood.
So when you write Notes, do not just share advice. Share real moments from your journey. A specific struggle you had. A decision you made and what happened because of it. A lesson you learned the hard way.
The best Notes follow a simple arc: open with a specific moment, share the insight that came from it, show what you did because of it, give a real result, and then turn the last line back to the reader.
Make it about them, not about you. That is when someone stops scrolling and thinks, “I need to hear more from this person.”
📙 Want 365 ready-to-use Note templates you can steal?
If writing Notes feels like a chore, you do not need more willpower. You need a system.
Our 365 Substack Notes Templates give you a full year of proven frameworks organized by niche and goal, so you can open the doc, copy a template, customize it, and post. That is it.
Substack Just Made This Easier (Late March 2026 Update)
As of late March 2026, Substack has finally rolled out native Notes scheduling. Up until now, you could only schedule Notes through third-party tools. Now it’s finally built right into the platform:
This means you can batch your Notes, schedule them out for the week, and show up every single day without having to actually be on the platform all the time.
This is a game-changer for consistency. If being active on Substack every day feels like too much, just batch-produce and schedule your Notes ahead of time so you can still show up consistently and stay top of mind.
Notes and Newsletters Work Together
Notes are your discovery engine. They bring in new people who have never heard of you. But your long-form posts are what build the deeper trust. They are what turn a curious follower into a real subscriber and eventually a paying customer.
Think of it this way: Your Notes are the storefront window. They catch people’s attention as they walk by. Your newsletter is what is inside the store. It is the reason they stay. You need both working together.
And beyond Notes and posts, Substack has built an incredible set of tools for growth that most creators are not using:
Recommendation exchanges with other publications.
Cross-promotions.
Guest posts.
The new Recording Studio that lets you create polished audio and video content right inside the platform.
If you are only writing posts and hitting send, you are using maybe 20 percent of what Substack can do for your business.
The creators who treat Substack as a full growth platform are the ones who grow the fastest because they are using every feature the platform has built to help them get discovered.
Decision 3: Design Your Revenue Path Before You Publish
Most creators on Substack keep pushing monetization to the future. They tell themselves they’ll figure out how to make money once they have a big enough audience. I understand that instinct, but it’s a trap.
When you don’t know how you want to monetize your publication, you don’t know what kind of content to create, what kind of audience to attract, or what your publication should lead to.
You end up writing about everything for no one.
And here’s what most people don’t realize about Substack: there are so many ways to generate income through your publication that go way beyond the typical paywall.
You can offer coaching or consulting and use your publication to attract clients.
You can build digital products like templates, guides, or toolkits.
You can create group programs or workshops.
You can run a paid community.
You can host live events.
You can sell sponsorships once your audience is large enough.
You can do affiliate recommendations.
Why Mini-Courses Work So Well for Substack Creators
One of the most effective approaches, especially for Substack creators, is to build a mini-course.
A mini-course takes a specific transformation that your audience wants and packages it into a focused, step-by-step experience. It’s not a 40-hour certification program. It’s a compact offer, usually priced between $50 - $150, that solves one clear problem.
And the beauty of it is that you don’t need a massive audience to make it work. Some of our students inside Mini-Course Accelerator have started building their courses before they even had an audience. Because if you deeply understand the person you want to help, and you know exactly what transformation they need, you can build a compelling offer while you grow your audience at the same time.
That means by the time your audience reaches a few hundred or a thousand subscribers, you already have something valuable to offer them.
Instead of spending years growing first and then scrambling to build a product, you are on the fast lane. Growth and monetization happen in parallel.
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Our Free-to-Paid Playbook shows you exactly how to turn free readers into paying subscribers using the same strategies we have used to hit 1,500+ paid members at Write • Build • Scale.
For Coaches, Consultants, and Experts
I know there are two types of people reading this, so I want to make sure this lands the right way for both.
If you already have a business, maybe you are a coach, a consultant, or an expert in your field, Substack can become one of the most powerful client acquisition channels you have ever used.
Your publication builds trust at scale.
Your Notes bring in new leads every day.
And your existing offers become easier to sell because your audience already knows, likes, and trusts you by the time they are ready to buy.
And if you are just getting started, if you do not have a business yet, you don’t need to have everything figured out before you start. What you need is a direction.
Ask yourself:
What is one problem I can help people solve?
What do I know that others are struggling with?
Start there. Start publishing around that topic. And as you grow, as you learn what your audience responds to, the right offer will become clear.
The point is not to have a perfect business plan on day one. The point is to know the direction so that every piece of content you create starts moving you toward it.
The Honest Truth About Growing on Substack
Everything I just shared works. We have seen it work for ourselves, for our students, and for creators across all kinds of different niches. But it doesn’t work overnight.
The creators who build the most successful publications all kept going even when growth felt slow.
There will be weeks where you publish and nothing seems to happen.
There will be Notes that nobody engages with.
There will be moments where you wonder if any of this is worth it.
Well, it is. Substack is growing faster than ever right now. New readers are joining the platform every single day looking for creators exactly like you. The window of opportunity is wide open.
And if you start now with the right foundation — the positioning, the growth engine, and the revenue path — you are already ahead of most people who will join Substack this year.
If you only take one thing away from this post, let it be this. Do not rush to publish your first post. Spend the time getting your foundation right. Your publication name. Your one-liner. Your About page. Your Notes strategy. Your revenue path. These are the decisions that will determine whether your Substack becomes a hobby or a real business.
Have a great day 😊
Thank you. So helpful.