How I grew from 48 to 20,000+ Substack subscribers in 646 days
Behind The Scenes #3
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Substack is the best platform for email list growth right now.
Anyone who says otherwise is just plain wrong (or hasn’t even tried it yet).
In fact, Substack recently reached 5 million paid subscribers, which is pretty incredible!
If you’re here, you’re already way ahead of the curve.
Before we go any further, though…
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Substack’s growing on the daily.
But while more and more people are coming here, starting their own publications and digging into all the features the platform has to offer (and there are a lot of great features), too many users don’t take the extra, necessary steps to maximise their time here.
They start publications and then don’t publish posts.
Or they do publish posts, but go too hard in the beginning and quickly burn out.
Or they publish regularly but don’t know how to promote their work once it’s out there.
So they quit early. And that’s everyone’s loss, because there are so many amazing writers out there who deserve to be heard.
I wonder if you might be one of those writers.
And, maybe, you just need a little push. Maybe you need a little support. And guidance. And motivation. And inspiration.
Maybe you need to be part of a community of like-minded people who’ll help you move off the sidelines and dive into the game (and trust me, the game is fun!).
(If you’re reading this and thinking Yes, Davey-boy! That’s me!, then my paid membership is perfect for you)
In March 2025, I crossed the 20,000-subscriber milestone on Substack. Not gonna lie, it was a cool moment - I may have celebrated with an enormous pizza. 🍕
But guess what?
I didn’t make it to that point on my own steam.
I had a community of wonderful fellow platform users around me every step of the way. I learned continuously, and remained encouraged, and kept growing.
In this post, I’ll walk you through my path from zero to 20,000+ subscribers on Substack.
I’ll break down which actions I took, when I took them, and how they impacted my growth.
Let’s dig in, shall we?
The first 500 subs
When I first joined Substack back on June 12, 2023 (gosh, that seems like a long time ago now), I brought 48 email subscribers with me from another platform.
That was it. 48. They probably didn’t even know why they were there.
And it turns out, I didn’t really know why I was there, either.
I opened a Substack account, promptly created my first publication (it was originally called #AmWriting and was an inadvertent rip-off of another pub already in existence at the time), and published my first article.
It was a typical welcome post that included the following:
I’m on the long and winding road to establish a stable source of passive income that’ll free me up to embrace my creativity.
Sounds cheesy, but that’s genuinely the goal.
I have my own business but it’s a lot of hard work. I want to discover for myself if passive income is something real and tangible, not just a fairytale making the rounds on YouTube.
So I’m going to document my journey, tell you about what works and what doesn’t work, and generally bring you along for the ride.
And now, nearly 2 years later, I’m still pretty much doing exactly that. The core focus of my content has changed, but my approach remains the same.
Run experiments. Stick with what works. Drop what doesn’t. Explain why.
Over the next few months (June to early December), I published 35 posts. Some were repurposed articles from Medium (where I was writing far more consistently at the time), and others were “Content Blasts”, early precursors to my now-weekly Saturday Morning Coffee roundups.
I also began posting interviews with fellow writers, just to bulk up my Substack-centric content. I got to know the platform better. I started to properly enjoy being there.
Throughout this time, I published consistently and gradually improved my approach. I started posting regularly on Notes. I focused on making connections and expanding my network.
As a result, I gained hundreds more subscribers and followers during the course of that early phase.
Then, on December 6, I made my first major directional shift on Substack: I rebranded my publication from #AmWriting (again, already taken - whoops) to How to Write for a Living.
I explained:
I want everything in my publication to stay within the orbit of the words “for a living”, because that’s the heartbeat here: Writing as your Main Thing; writing that helps pay your bills; writing that gets read by other people; writing that can potentially revolutionise your life.
Each week, I’ll share at least two posts, maybe more. Some will be written by me, others will be guest posts from fellow writers and industry professionals. Every piece will be helpful, insightful, educational, and drawn from real, honest-to-goodness life experience (you’ll be getting the warts n’ all from me).
We’ll also connect in Chat and Notes. I’ll send you things I think you’ll find useful. I may even dabble in podcasts and videos at some point.
And if you can support my efforts as a paid subscriber, that’d be especially cool.
(FYI, it’d still be especially cool)
A couple of weeks later, I reached 500 subscribers.
And, as it turns out, that was the same day I launched my second publication, The Solopreneur Stack.
It took me from June 12 to December 22 to reach 500 subscribers on Substack. Over 6 months.
So if you’re tempted to worry about slow growth, don’t. These things do take time, even when you’re working at it.
Speaking of which…
Growth levers (48-500 subs)
Here’s what helped me grow during that initial phase:
Publishing in a regular, manageable rhythm (just over one post per week)
Posting regularly on Notes (though I didn’t really start doing this until November)
Networking with other users by following, commenting and subscribing (again, mainly towards the end of this period, when the graph line started going up)
All very simple. All very replicable.
The main point? I showed up on a daily basis and kept doing the boring, repetitive stuff, even when I wasn’t seeing results initially.
Doing the boring work gets you there.
500 - 1,000 subs
This post is part of my ‘Behind The Scenes’ series for paid subscribers. Upgrade now to read every new and previous instalment. 👇