13 Comments

Congratulations on your incredible growth—what an inspiring story! Your decision to go free and engage deeply with the community really shows the power of connection and taking bold steps.

What was the biggest surprise for you during this journey of removing the paywall and going viral?

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> What was the biggest surprise for you during this journey of removing the paywall and going viral?

Two things surprised me the most (p.s. I haven't talked about them since I plan to write in the next article about the future of my newsletter):

- that I haven't heard any angry paid subscribers complaining about my choice

- that I have only heard from one of my paid subscribers they are happy paying since they get so much from my newsletter

Furthermore, I have also managed to sell 12 Kubernetes cheatsheets for beginners in my Gumroad shop.

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Hi Giuseppe, thank you very much for sharing your experience and your thoughts about your newsletter….. I felt like I was missing something sometimes…. And now I am 100% certain that creating connections is the actual key!

If you would like to reach out, please consider contacing me ! I would really appreciate that, thank you so much

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Congratulations, this IS viral!!!

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this is amazing!!! and thank you for the shout-out 🧡

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Yes! What an inspiring story. Really goes to show that growth isn’t linear. You did the work to get to here.

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Congrats! Keep going.

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Your journey of removing the paywall resonates deeply with the challenge of balancing quality and consistency. Through 2024, I learned valuable lessons about platform diversity and content creation. While spreading across multiple platforms generated substantial content (44,992 words on HackerNoon alone, 1,600 monthly Substack visits), it also diluted the core value I aimed to provide.

For 2025, I'm embracing a simpler path—focusing primarily on Substack, where I can best serve readers exploring Data Strategy. Quality over quantity, depth over breadth. Like you, I've felt the pressure to deliver perfection, especially with paid content. My solution was to create a structured approach using Trello to manage content planning, but more importantly, I maintained an open dialogue with readers when plans needed to shift.

What resonates most in your story is the courage to be transparent when things need to change. Sometimes the best value we can offer isn't what we initially promised, but what we discovered along the way. It's about having the confidence to say "This approach wasn't serving you best, so here's what I've created instead."

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I hope it works. only time will tell

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Our topic is on the edge a lot of people don't understand it yet, but I believe with all the talks about AI a golden age will start soon.

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I feel like selling shovels in the gold rush

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Really inspiring, Giuseppe!

I was one of those free subscribers.

To the next milestone!

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Thanks a lot

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