The weird Substack hack that only takes 5 minutes a day
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I need to up my Substack game. This month, I wrote 2–3 daily notes and 1–2 weekly newsletters for the platform. If that sounds like lots of work, bear with me. I spent less than an hour a week writing these daily notes and reworking my newsletter for Substack. That simple content strategy netted me over 400+ new subscribers in February alone. It’d cost me about $400–500 to get that many subscribers via Facebook ads, excluding time spent setting up and testing my creative. I don’t know about you, but 1–2 hours of work for 400+ new subscribers ticks a few boxes. Medium, even in its heyday, never delivered that many subscribers for me. If you’re not using Substack yet… Daily notes are seeds you plant daily on the platform. Some grow into mighty oak trees (viral posts), while others provide steady growth like reliable crops. As an example, I spent 5 minutes writing this daily note. It popped up a few days after I hit publish. Now, it’s netting me dozens of new subscribers each week: Medium is dead. X is rife with misinformation Facebook is for Gen X. Insta is saturated with influencers. But Substack? It’s an underrated gem for creators. Think of daily notes as tweets with a longer shelf life and less politics. You can write 100–150 words, share an extract from your newsletter, or test ideas for future posts. These notes have a longer shelf life than short-form content on other platforms. Right now, many viral daily notes focus on writing and growing on Substack. But don’t let that limit you. Use photographs, share personal stories, and give followers a glimpse into what you do and how you can help them. One daily note is good, two is better, and three is ideal. Some creators I know publish more than ten notes daily. I’m not there yet, but I’m installing a system to dial up my Substack game for March. More notes for more subs is a trade I’ll take any day of the week. To solve this problem, I created a Claude project and trained it on my best-performing notes and writing style. It’s helping me rework parts of my newsletter as Substack notes. What I love about Substack is that you own your audience. You can export your subscriber list anytime and take it with you. Goodbye, algo, and platform risk! I break down my process more here. (I’ll have more to say about list growth and monetization this week. Watch your inbox.)
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