The Honest Feed is hours of writing like this – essays that connect what’s happening in the world to what’s happening in our businesses and our lives, because I refuse to compartmentalize. If this resonates, consider becoming a paid subscriber.

Here’s what I wish I had known before starting my own revenue-generating Substack

1. Substack isn’t just essays. If you only publish essays and go on with your day, growth will feel slow and random. The fastest lever for growth (like any platform) is consistent visibility.On Substack, that visibility comes from Notes + engagement, not perfect essays.
2. Notes aren’t optional! Notes are the social layer of Substack, and they’re where the algorithm seems to reward effort the most. If you have limited time, spend it here first.
3. Your growth comes from commenting. The cheat code is engaging on other people’s Notes that already have active comment threads. Think viral style posts with hundreds to thousands of likes. Comment on those.
4. Your Following list is a strategy. Keep your Following list tight (less than 20).
5. Niche-adjacent beats niche-only. You don’t have to engage only with people in your exact niche. Substack audiences are multifaceted and some of your best subscribers will come from adjacent conversations where you’re a fresh and/or helpful voice.
6. Make your best posts evergreen (or you’ll waste your best work). If you sell a workshop, have deadlines, or include time-sensitive bonuses that’s great. But afterward, go back and edit! Remove the expired parts so the post can keep converting.

I’ve learned everything about Substack by doing it myself, not from a course promising $50k months or spammy engagement groups (let’s grow together!)

Now I’m handing you everything you need to have a fully set up Substack you can use to attract clients and monetize with paid subscriptions.

You can grab it here, and get my Substack workbook plus submit your bio and essay for review youve completed it.

I avoided starting a Substack for over a year because every time that I opened it up I got so overwhelmed with all the options… the Dashboard, the feed, Notes … and I had no clue how to just START.

That’s why in December I decided to spend a few days just learning the how of everything, reading all the articles (the help area is great btw) and writing.

I was happy with how quickly things started clicking and how intuitive it became and I knew I had to teach others how to do it too.

There is money to be made, connections to be had and community to grow.

I came up with “Your First 100 Subscribers on Substack” to help everyone who’s been thinking about Substack get going with a really practical hands-on workshop to help them set up a revenue generating Substack in one live session.

Most of the people registering for my workshop don’t have a Substack yet, and others haven’t published their first essay and that’s exactly who I designed this for: people who are curious about starting a Substack but don’t want to waste months figuring out how to set it up, how it works, how to make money, how to use it with their blog, or what to write about.