A Thank You to my 1K Subscribers (And How Being Seen Changed Everything)

Episode #42: On passing a thousand subscribers and how I "went viral" (at least for my standards).

Celebrating my first 1000 subscribers

Happy New Year!!!

I know it's almost the end of January, and not even my first article of the year.

But, while I usually keep my article strictly technical, I wanted to try a different format this week.

First, I want to give a big WELCOME to almost 480 new subscribers who have joined this newsletter since last week.

I still can't believe that this is really happening.

It all started when I announced this paid newsletter was going free... but I'm getting ahead of myself. I will elaborate on the decision to remove any paywall for my content later.

This article will primarily focus on how we got here and what happened last week.

I'm going to post a follow-up article in a couple of days (or a week), where I'll discuss in more detail what the future of this newsletter looks like.

The outline of the article is the following:

• The Story so far: slow growth and mostly talking into the void

• Last week's update: going viral with Substack Notes and boost sessions

• Conclusion: what is the lesson learned

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The story so far: slow growth and mostly talking into the void

I never really believed those stories of people reaching thousands of subscribers in a few months. I thought they might have just paid for ads or were just pure lies trying to attract new subscribers.

It didn't make sense to me.

My own experience was very different.

Slow growth and mostly talking into the void.

In my mind, I have always "blamed" my very narrow niche, but this is what I am interested in, and I won't change it for anything in this world.

I always thought I could make it a bit broader to attract a bigger audience, but I firmly believe that I would lose part of who I am in the process. So, no, thank you.

At the same time, when you spend enough time on Substack, you see wild success stories like ByteByteGo Newsletter by Alex Xu and you think, one day that will be me.

Fair enough, he wrote two books, has a YouTube channel, and has an entire team of writers, marketers, and a considerable budget. You can't really think of competing with him. That still won't stop me from trying to get there either.

Anyway, I am diverging from my main focus.

The growth of my newsletter has always been top of my mind, but I have never really done much about it.

As every other creator here, I have read all the tips about Substack growth:

• Writing on Substack Notes daily

• Writing consistently each week

• and so on and on

I always thought that my content would speak for me.

Even if I was never very consistent.

I was so wrong!!!

Consistency alone is nothing if nobody sees your content, no matter how good it is.

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Last week's update: going Viral with Substack Notes

During Christmas, I had time to think about where I wanted to get my newsletter and what I was doing wrong.

I wasn't very happy about the current situation, even if I could consider myself lucky with 15 paid subscribers and almost 1000 free subscribers.

The thing about paid subscribers has always been that I felt the extra pressure of delivering very high quality. That meant taking many hours to write an article. Countless hours of research, coding, and testing were needed to get to the point where I really felt like an expert in the field before I could write about it.

My articles usually hit the limit of the email size, and I struggled to cut off bits of it.

Furthermore, while trying different strategies (like only putting a paywall 3 months after an article was published), I always felt that paywalling my content could reduce my engagement and visibility.

As many people have said before me, I was probably already in the top 20% of newsletter creators, given that most people give up after 6 months.

If I still had to do something drastic about growth or otherwise, I would have given up writing entirely.

A drastic change of direction. That's what I needed. I thought I'd do something that not so many people do.

So on January 15th 2025, I decided that I had enough of slow growth. I decided to remove any paywall from my newsletter and go free.

What is the worst that can happen, I thought!!! I could lose all my paid subscribers overnight, but at least I'll get that motivational boost to write shorter articles more often.

I might lose my reader's trust other than just the monthly revenue. But if I don't do something drastic now with 15 paid subscribers, I might never get out of this situation.

This was when I could average 3-7 daily free subscribers, but I struggled to reach 1000 subscribers.

My numbers were going up and down every day during the Christmas break.

So what did I do?

I created a note describing my decision and shared it in the "Wednesday Boost Session" chat by

Claudia Faith

.

Best decision ever!!!

I think that my message really resonated with lots of readers since that Substack note alone has since then generated (in no particular order):

• new free subscribers: 320

• clicks: 2740

• new followers: 1

• Shares: 20

• likes: 229

• comments: 29

• restack: 4

Substack Notes can really bring you subscribers

My free subscriber's chart went totally vertical, as you can see below:

Going viral on Substack

My current count of subscribers is:

• free subscribers: 1,476

• paid subscribers: 15 (I haven't lost any yet)

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Conclusion

Of course, I had no idea that this would happen.

I had no expectations!!!

The best part of this newly found engagement is that I spent most of the weekend:

• chatting with many fellow creators

• exchanging ideas about content

• learning about their experience

• creating multiple opportunities for further collaboration

• learning about various different ways to monetise your free content

My main realisation was... "That's why they call it social networks; you are supposed to talk to people, not just talk at them". 😂

So, what is the lesson here.

I meant to write this article not for bragging but as my personal life lesson that maybe might inspire new content creators to not give up on their journey.

Quality content is essential, but you will never get a sizeable audience if nobody sees your content.

In the next article, I'll discuss the future of this newsletter and what I plan to offer my paid subscribers to avoid loosing them.