In May 2024, I published my first post on Substack. I had zero subscribers. Zero. Not even my mother had signed up yet.
I remember staring at the dashboard thinking, “If I could just get to 1,000, that would be the dream.” It felt impossibly far away.
Last week, I crossed 14,000 subscribers across my two Substack publications. I had to read the number twice.
This isn’t a flex. I promise. This is me telling you: if I can do it starting from absolutely nothing, so can you.
But here’s the thing. The path from 0 to 1,000 isn’t one straight climb. It’s three very different stages, and each one requires something different from you. What works at 50 subscribers won’t work at 500. What got me to 500 almost held me back from 1,000.
So today, I’m breaking down exactly what worked (and what didn’t) at every milestone. No theory. Just what I actually did.
Let’s dive in.
Wait a second: What if this became your main income?
I help writers grow an audience, build community, and earn from their words. Escaping the 9-5 grind, step by step. I’ve done it and so can you. ✨
The First 100: Show Up Before You’re Ready
This is the hardest stretch. Not because the tactics are complicated, but because you’re writing into silence. You hit publish and hear nothing. It can be pretty sucky.
Here’s what actually moved the needle for me in those early weeks:
Tell everyone you know. Or don’t. People tell you to go and spread the word immediately. But to be completely honest, I first wanted to see where this journey brings me. So, I told nobody. And grew without friends, familiy and colleagues knowing. I prefer it that way.
Write on Substack Notes every single day. Not promotional stuff. Real thoughts. Observations. Questions. I treated Notes like a conversation, not a megaphone. People started noticing.
Follow other people. Find people who also read things you do and go ahead and follow them. It’s an easy way to grow your audience. Of course, I built a tool for that to make this process easier ;).
Publish consistently. I committed to a schedule and stuck to it, even when it felt like nobody was reading. Consistency builds trust before you even have an audience. In the beginning I wrote 2 articles per week, then downsized it to 1. But I felt the difference. So now, I am ramping it up again to 2 articles per week. Yei 🎉.
Quick tip: Don’t obsess over your subscriber count at this stage. Focus on publishing regularly and engaging genuinely. The numbers follow the habits.
🚀 I hit 100 subscribers about 8 weeks in. It felt enormous.
The 500 Milestone: Find Your People
Once you pass 100, something shifts. You’re not just shouting into the void anymore. People are actually reading. A few are even replying. Now the question becomes: how do you find more of the right people?
Double down on what resonates. Look at your stats. Which posts got the most opens? The most comments? The most shares? Do more of that. I noticed my “how-to” posts about Substack growth were getting 3x the engagement of everything else. So I leaned in hard.
Start using recommendations. Substack’s recommendation feature is gold. I connected with writers in my space and we recommended each other. This alone drove hundreds of subscribers over time.
Make your welcome email count. When someone subscribes, they get one email from you before they decide whether to stay. I rewrote mine three times before I got it right. Tell them exactly what they’ll get and why it matters. Oh and make it personal, too! Share a bit about who you are and why you are here.
Engage with your existing subscribers. Respond to every comment. Every single one. These early readers are your foundation. They’ll share your work if they feel seen.
Quick tip: At this stage, resist the urge to be everywhere. You don’t need Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, AND Substack Notes. Pick one or two channels and go deep.
🚀 I reached 500 about 3 months after starting. That’s when it started to feel real.
Crossing 1,000: Build a Community, Not Just a List
The jump from 500 to 1,000 is where most writers stall. You’ve done the easy growth. Now you need something more sustainable.
Here’s what changed everything for me:
Create a reason to stay. I started offering more than just articles — resource lists, templates, community discussions. Subscribers stopped being passive readers and became active participants.
Run polls and ask questions. I started adding polls to almost every post. Engagement tripled. When readers interact, the algorithm notices. And more importantly, they feel like they’re part of something.
Go live. I know. Scary. But the first time I did a live session on Substack, it changed the dynamic completely. Suddenly I wasn’t just a name in their inbox. I was a person. Connection skyrocketed.
Collaborate with other writers. Guest posts, shout-outs, cross-promotions. I stopped thinking of other Substack writers as competition and started treating them as allies. We all grow together.
Launch a paid tier. This sounds counterintuitive — won’t charging scare people off? Actually, it signals value. When I introduced my paid subscription, free subscriber growth accelerated. People take you more seriously when you treat your work seriously.
Quick tip: Your 1,000th subscriber won’t come from one big viral moment. It comes from doing the small things right, every single week, for months.
What Nobody Tells You About Growth
Here’s something I wish someone had told me at 0.
The milestones don’t feel the way you think they will.
Hitting 100 felt like a party.
Hitting 500 felt like relief.
Hitting 1,000 felt oddly quiet, because by then, I was focused on the work, not the number.
And hitting 14,000: Honestly, I still have moments where I think “there’s no way this is real.”
The secret is embarrassingly simple: keep showing up. Trust the process. Write for the readers you have, not the ones you wish you had. The growth follows.
Your 3-Step Action Plan (Start Today)
Here’s what you can do in the next 10 minutes:
Open your Substack stats and identify your single best-performing post. Plan your next article around the same topic or format.
Go follow new people on Substack who interact with the same writers you do. If you click on “Likes” under a Note or Post, you can see who interacted with it.
Write Notes that convert. Need ideas on Notes, check out my post about it.
That’s it. Small moves, repeated consistently. It’s not rocket science, but it works.
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Thanks for this, Claudia. I started Substack some months ago with 0 subscribers and the zeal to grow. I'm at 80 now (might seem small), but it means a lot to me. Like a motivation to keep going.
Thank you so much Claudia, this is really going to help me. I took detailed notes all the way through and I plan to use all your ideas especially the 3 Step Action Plan. I'm going to certainly write for the readers I have now, growth will follow. Thank you again, this was amazing. I'm sharing, joining your community and especially subscribing.