I Tested 3 Substack Growth Strategies for One Week. Here Are the Results.

I Tested 3 Growth Strategies on Substack

In my first week, I reached 150+ subscribers.

I didn’t use paid ads.

I tested three things:

1. Subscribe-for-subscribe

2. Substack Notes

3. Original articles

The goal was simple:

Understand what actually creates growth.

The experiment

Period:
First week

Actions:

• 5 published articles

• 40+ Notes

• daily engagement with creators

• subscribe-for-subscribe interactions

Strategy 1: Subscribe-for-subscribe

This was the biggest acquisition driver.

It helped me escape zero quickly.

Why it works:

New creators already have a growth mindset.

They are actively looking for:

• new writers

• communities

• interesting publications

The limitation:

A subscription does not automatically mean a reader.

The next challenge is retention.

Strategy 2: Substack Notes

Notes became my discovery channel.

They helped me:

• start conversations

• share experiments

• bring people to my profile

• test ideas quickly

Short content created repeated visibility.

Notes bring people to your profile. What they see there decides the rest, so I later built a free Substack profile audit that scores it out of 100.

Strategy 3: Original articles

Articles were not the biggest acquisition source.

But they played another role.

They answered:

“Why should I subscribe?”

A Note can get attention.

An article can build trust.

The surprising lesson

I initially thought:

“Better articles = more subscribers.”

The data showed something different.

Growth came from combining:

Distribution + Trust.

Reciprocal interactions created the first contact

Notes created repeated exposure.

Articles created context.

What I will test next

Now that I understand acquisition, the next experiment is retention.

I will measure:

• open rates

• returning readers

• replies

• unsubscribes

• article conversion

Because 150 subscribers is only the beginning.

The real question:

How many become active readers?

I’m documenting the numbers, mistakes and results as I go.

Subscribe to follow the next experiment — when I stop measuring how many people subscribe and start measuring how many actually stay.

Subscribe now