Between being on Substack almost every single day for the past two years and working with 100s of coaching clients and course students, I’ve had the chance to look closely at a lot of Substack publications.

More than a thousand by now.

And the patterns are clear…

The newsletters that grow, that build loyal audiences, that actually make money, they do certain things differently than the average Substack publication, in particular in three key areas.

Let’s dive straight in.

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During this live training, I’ll share the exact system behind attracting paid subscribers, becoming a Substack Bestseller, and using the platform to grow your business.

You’ll leave the Substack Bestseller Masterclass with a clear roadmap to turn your publication into real income.

Most Substack creators are sitting on a goldmine of growth tools they’re barely using.

They publish their newsletter, maybe post a Note here and there, and then wonder why growth feels so slow.

Substack has built some genuinely powerful features specifically designed to get your work in front of new people. The problem is that most creators either don’t know about them or don’t use them consistently enough to see results.

At Write • Build • Scale, we’ve used these features to grow our publication to over 48,000 subscribers, so everything I’m sharing here is backed by real experience, not theory.

Let’s dive straight in.

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I’ve spent a lot of time studying the top Substack creators — the people in the top 1% of the platform, both in terms of audience size and paid subscribers.

What’s interesting isn’t just what they do. It’s what they don’t do.

Because eliminating some of the habits and behaviors that keep you stuck is often one of the fastest ways to make progress.

Here are the three things the top 1% Substack creators don’t do, and what they focus on instead.

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🧰 Grab your FREE Substack Starter Kit: ⁠⁠https://mwa.kit.com/podstarterkit⁠⁠

📙 Subscribe to Write • Build • Scale: ⁠⁠https://writebuildscale.substack.com/

For the past 365 days straight, I’ve done one thing without exception:

I published a Substack Note.

On most days, I’d publish three. But always at least one.

After publishing so many Notes, I learned a lot about what actually works when it comes to publishing Notes that get good engagement and bring in new subscribers to your publication.

In today’s episode, I want to share the three biggest lessons I've taken away from a full year of posting Notes - and how you can apply them to your own Substack right now.

🧰 Grab your FREE Substack Starter Kit: ⁠https://mwa.kit.com/podstarterkit⁠

📙 Subscribe to Write • Build • Scale: ⁠https://writebuildscale.substack.com/

In this episode, I’m joined by Mandeep Kaur, who spent 30 years in Fortune 500 companies before reinventing herself as a transformational coach and founder of Awaken • Align • Ascend on Substack.

In this value-packed episode, we cover:

• The hidden blocks (fear, trauma, self-sabotage) that quietly hold people back from their next chapter (04:39)

• Why Mandeep decided to go all-in on Substack - and get coaching from us (06:16)

• How overthinking keeps creators stuck - and how to start taking fast action (09:09)

• The simple Substack growth strategy: consistency, notes, and daily engagement (13:48)

• Why community-building is the real growth engine - and how to build it (17:02)

• The 555 Method: a step-by-step framework to create deep identity transformation in 5 weeks (20:08)

• What Mandeep recommends to new Substack creators who are still on the sidelines (21:29)

And much, much more…

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Together with my two co-founders, Sinem and Philip, we’ve grown our Substack publication, Write • Build • Scale, to over 45,000 subscribers and 1,500+ paid subscribers in about two years.

In this episode, I’ll break down exactly which strategies and Substack features made the biggest difference in our growth, so you can focus on them and speed up your own growth.

🧰 Grab your FREE Substack Starter Kit: https://mwa.kit.com/podstarterkit

📙 Subscribe to Write • Build • Scale: https://writebuildscale.substack.com/

For the past two years, I’ve been going all-in on Substack.

Together with my two co-founders, we’ve grown our publication to 44,000+ subscribers and 1,400+ paid subscribers - and leveraged Substack to build a $50k per month digital business.

So, it’s safe to say I believe Substack is one of the best platforms out there right now for creators, professionals, and founders who want to build a real audience and a real business.

But here’s the thing: I see a lot of people flocking to Substack right now with expectations that don’t match the reality of the platform.

And when reality doesn’t match expectations, people quit — often right before things were about to actually work out.

That’s why I wanted to share four things you need to understand before you go all-in on Substack, so you’re approaching it with the right mindset and strategies.

What separates the Substack creators who build real audiences from those who struggle, stall, or quietly give up?

Having worked with hundreds of successful creators, I can tell you it’s rarely just tactics.

The biggest differences almost always start with mindset and belief — and only then show up in tactics and results.

So whether you’re brand new to Substack, you’ve been at it for a while, but growth feels slow, or you’re already doing well and want to reach the next level, here are the 10 habits I see consistently in the Substack creators who succeed.

In this episode, we walked through the exact 8-step process we followed to take our latest mini-course, Substack Notes Simplified, from first idea to 5-figure launch in under 14 days. ----If you do ONE thing for your creator business this year, make it this: build a mini-course that generates revenue on autopilot.We'll show you exactly how in our free masterclass this Wednesday, March 11. Reserve your seat today: https://go.writebuildscale.com/livemasterclass

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Over the past few weeks, we’ve been getting so many questions from our community about mini-courses.

Questions about whether they’re right for you, how to get started, what a “mini-course” even means, and whether you actually need a big audience to make it work.

So I figured: why not dedicate an entire episode to answering your biggest questions all in one episode?

That’s exactly what we’re doing today.

Let’s dive in.