Our Complete Substack Strategy for 2026 — Revealed
What we're building this year, why we just launched a second publication, and what it all means for you.
We launched the Write • Build • Scale publication on Substack in 2024, and have since grown to over 41,000 subscribers with more than 1,200 paid members.
And we turned this publication into the foundation of a rapidly growing business hitting $50k/month.
But that’s only the surface.
The reality of hitting those numbers is that there is a lot happening behind the scenes that might not be visible right away.
In this post, we’re pulling back the curtain on our full strategy for 2026:
What we’re doubling down on.
What we’re building from scratch.
And why we just launched a brand new publication called Smarter Substack.
If you’ve ever wondered what actually goes on behind the scenes of a publication like ours, this is it.
How We Got Here
If you’ve been following us for a while, you know bits and pieces of this story. But for anyone who’s new, here’s the quick version:
2024 was our launch year.
We launched Write • Build • Scale on Substack in mid-2024. Within 60 days, we became a Substack Bestseller.
That wasn’t luck. We came in with a plan.
Before Substack, we had spent years building our audiences on Medium and growing our email lists on Kit.
When we launched on Substack, we had a decade of combined experience in audience building, course creation, community management, and online education.
We didn’t stumble into Substack. We chose it intentionally.
2025 was our growth year.
We set one big goal for 2025: hit 1,000 paid subscribers.
At the time, very few educational publications on Substack had the Level 2 Bestseller badge. We knew that reaching that milestone would set us apart.
And we did it.
By the end of 2025, we crossed 1,000 paid subscribers through a combination of consistent publishing, sprint launches, and building one of the most engaged communities in the Substack education space:
Along the way, we also:
Launched the Write • Build • Scale Podcast, which recently hit 100k downloads.
Invested heavily in YouTube — building systems, workflows, and a team for both the podcast channel and my personal channel, which recently hit 10k subscribers.
Ran dozens of livestreams, guest posts, and collaborations with incredible Substackers like David McIlroy, Yana G.Y., Karen Cherry, Veronica Llorca-Smith, and many more!
Now let’s talk about what comes next!
2026: The Year of 100K
Our goal for 2026 is to set the foundation to grow Write • Build • Scale to 100,000 subscribers.
That’s more than double where we are today.
Is it ambitious? Absolutely.
But here’s the thing — we’re not trying to get there with one tactic or one channel. We’re building an entire ecosystem and flywheels that work in our favor.
Here’s how we’re thinking about it:
Through the Write • Build • Scale Substack publication, we publish three times per week.
Mondays: a new podcast episode.
Wednesdays: a free post.
Fridays: a paid post for our members.
This rhythm has worked well for us, so we’re keeping it. Our paying members get deep-dive posts and resources every Friday, and our free audience gets consistent value throughout the week.
But long-form posts are only part of the picture.
Substack Notes
All three of us — Philip, Jari, and I — are publishing on Substack Notes every single day.
Notes is one of the most underused growth tools on Substack.
Most creators publish a post and then disappear until the next one.
We show up daily with quick insights, behind-the-scenes moments, questions, and conversations — because that’s how you stay visible between posts and build real relationships with your readers and with other creators.
If you want to get better at Notes, we created a resource that makes it easy: our 365 Notes Templates.
It’s a full year of ready-to-use prompts, so you never have to wonder what to post.
It’s quickly becoming one of our most popular products for a reason — Notes is where relationships are built on Substack, and showing up consistently is what makes the difference.
But that’s not all.
We’re also show up in Substack Chat every single day.
Substack Chat
We drop at least one message in our chat daily, and our community has turned it into one of the most active and supportive spaces I’ve seen on the platform.
Members share wins, ask questions, help each other troubleshoot, and celebrate milestones together.
Honestly, very few creators are using Substack Chat effectively. Most publications have a dead chat collecting dust.
It’s actually one of the things we work on most often with our coaching and consulting clients — because when you get Chat right, it becomes one of the most powerful retention and trust-building tools you have.
If you’re a subscriber, make sure you’re checking in on our Chat regularly.
And if you’re a creator who wants help activating your own Substack Chat and turning it into a real community asset — that’s one of the many things we help you build in our VIP coaching.
We’re Going All-In on Multimedia.
One of the biggest investments we made in 2025 was in YouTube.
And I don’t just mean posting a few videos.
I mean building proper systems. Hiring editors. Developing workflows for scripting, recording, editing, and post-production. Learning how to optimize for the platform. Testing thumbnails, titles, and formats.
It took most of 2025 to get this right. But now we have a team and a process that actually works — and we’re ready to scale it.
We now have two YouTube channels:
1. The Write • Build • Scale Podcast channel — where every podcast episode is published as a video. This channel already has 52 videos and close to 600 subscribers, and it’s growing week by week.
2. My personal channel (Sinem Günel) — where I publish standalone educational videos on audience growth, online writing, and building a creator business. This is the channel where I’m publishing deep-dive content like tutorials, behind-the-scenes breakdowns, and strategy videos that complement what we do on Substack.
The idea is simple: YouTube brings in new people. Substack keeps them. Our email list nurtures the relationship. And our products and community serve them at a deeper level.
Every YouTube video leads back to Substack. Every Substack post reinforces why people should stay. It’s a flywheel — and 2026 is when it starts spinning faster. ♻️
Paid Subscriptions Still Matter – Here’s Why.
You might wonder: if we’ve already crossed 1,000 paid subscribers, why keep promoting?
Because our paid tier isn’t just a revenue stream. It’s an entry point.
Here’s something that might surprise you: our Substack paid subscriptions account for less than 10% of our total income.
And yet, it’s one of the most important pieces of the entire business.
Why? Because when someone becomes a paid subscriber, something shifts. They go from casually reading our free content to seeing what we deliver behind the paywall every week. They experience the depth. They see the quality. And for many of them, that’s the moment they realize they want more.
A large number of our coaching and consulting clients started as paid subscribers first.
The paid tier gave them proof that we deliver real value — and that made it easy for them to invest in our more expensive offers.
So we’ll absolutely keep running sprint launches for our paid tier in 2026. Not because we need the subscription revenue. But because it’s the most natural first step into our world for creators who are serious about building on Substack.
If you’re thinking about how to turn your own free readers into paying members, we just released something that might help: our Free-to-Paid Playbook.
It’s a database of 100+ proven conversion strategies, organized by difficulty and subscriber stage, so you can find the right approach for where you are right now.
The Big News: Why We Just Launched Smarter Substack
OK, so here’s the big one - this is the part of our strategy that I’m most excited about.
On Monday, we launched a brand new publication: Smarter Substack.
And we hit almost 500 subscribers in half a week.
So let me explain what it is and why we built it.
Write • Build • Scale has always been about more than just Substack.
The brand existed before we ever joined the platform.
Philip and I started Write • Build • Scale as a private membership back in 2022. It was our home for teaching creators, coaches, experts, and writers how to build their funnels, create their products, and grow a sustainable online business.
When we came to Substack, Write • Build • Scale naturally expanded to include Substack education — because that’s where our audience was building.
But the truth is, Write • Build • Scale is and always will be broader than Substack alone.
We help people build entire businesses. Funnels. Courses. Coaching offers. Communities. Email sequences.
And that’s exactly what we want it to be.
But there was a gap.
We wanted a dedicated space that was purely about Substack.
A place focused specifically on helping Substack creators grow — without mixing in the broader business education that makes up a big part of Write • Build • Scale.
A place built around collaboration with the Substack creator community.
A place where we could share the best resources, strategies, and updates we come across every day — the stuff we’re already finding and filtering for ourselves anyway.
That’s Smarter Substack.
What Smarter Substack Actually Is
Smarter Substack is a publication that delivers three carefully selected resources straight to your inbox every weekday.
That’s it.
No long essays. No recycled advice. No opinions dressed up as strategy.
Every Monday through Friday, you get three links to the best Substack strategies, updates, or insights we found that day. (here’s the first edition)
On Sunday, you get a weekly recap summarizing everything from that week.
Reading one edition should never take more than one minute.
Here’s the thing about growing on Substack: the problem isn’t a lack of information.
There’s too much information. The signal is drowning in noise, and filtering it yourself is a full-time job.
We know, because we do it daily.
Running Write • Build • Scale with over 1,000 paying subscribers means we’re constantly reading, testing, experimenting, and ignoring most of what we see.
Every day, we come across a few resources that are genuinely worth paying attention to.
A post that changes how we think.
A platform update that actually matters.
A strategy that works right now, not two years ago.
Smarter Substack is where we share those resources.
We have a strict editorial filter. Every link must pass a single test:
Would we bookmark this, save it, or send it to a friend who takes Substack seriously?
If not, it doesn’t get published.
Every link must be useful today, not someday.
Every link must be actionable, not theoretical.
Every link must save time, make money, or prevent a mistake.
No recycled beginner fluff.
No generic creator advice unless it clearly applies to Substack.
Why Collaboration Is at the Heart of This
One thing I’m especially proud of — and one thing that has been core to our journey from the very beginning — is collaboration.
We’ve teamed up with some of the most brilliant creators and educators on the platform since day #1.
We’ve done dozens of live streams and guest posts.
We’ve cross-promoted, brainstormed, and built alongside wonderful creators.
That spirit of collaboration is baked into Smarter Substack.
Because we’re not just sharing our own resources. We’re curating the best of what the entire Substack community is producing.
When we find a post from another creator that’s genuinely useful, we share it.
When someone runs an experiment and publishes the results, we feature it.
When a platform update drops, we filter through it and tell you what actually matters.
This is how the Substack ecosystem grows — not by everyone working in isolation, but by lifting each other up and sharing what works.
How It All Fits Together
Let me zoom out so you can see the full picture.
Write • Build • Scale is our home base.
It’s where we publish our deepest content — podcast episodes, free posts, and premium paid posts.
It’s where our community lives.
And it’s where we teach the full spectrum of building an online business: from writing and audience growth, all the way to product creation, funnels, and monetization.
Smarter Substack is a fast, focused utility. It’s the daily briefing for creators who are serious about Substack growth. One minute per day. Three links. No fluff. It’s also our collaboration hub — a place where we spotlight the best work happening across the Substack creator community.
YouTube is our discovery engine. Podcast episodes, standalone tutorials, and strategy videos — all designed to reach new people who haven’t found us yet and bring them into the ecosystem.
Our email list on Kit ties it all together. It’s where we nurture the relationship, run our launches, and serve our audience through automated sequences, webinars, and targeted offers.
Every piece feeds the next.
And all of it starts with one thing: you subscribing.
Here’s What I’d Love You to Do
If you’re already subscribed to Write • Build • Scale — first of all, thank you! You’ve been part of this journey, which means the world to us.
Now I’d love for you to also subscribe to Smarter Substack.
It’s free. It takes one minute per day to read. And it’ll help you stay sharp on what actually matters for growing on Substack — without drowning in noise.
Subscribe to Smarter Substack here →
If you’re curious about what it looks like, check out the About page or the first edition.
And if you know someone who’s serious about growing on Substack, send them this post.
2026 is going to be a big year, and we’re thrilled to build it with you.
I’m just curious, how did YouTube impacted the growth? I’m considering starting a channel as well…
So much value in one post for anyone looking to grow!