full
EP09: 55K Subscribers, 2,100 Paid: The Substack Masterclass with Philip Hofmacher
Connect with Philip Hofmacher & Write Build Scale: https://substack.com/@philiphofmacher
Welcome to the Sustainable Side Hustle Podcast with Vinayak Ramesh.
Today’s episode features Philip Hofmacher, co-founder of Write Build Scale, which has grown to more than 55,000 Substack subscribers and 2,100 paying members after becoming a bestseller in under 60 days.
We go deep into how they grew the publication, what actually converts free subscribers into paying customers, why paid subscriptions make up less than 10% of their overall revenue, and how they built courses, coaching, digital products, and community around their audience.
Philip also breaks down exactly what he would do in his first 30 days on Substack if he had to start from zero today, including his 10-5-1 networking rule, content strategy, collaborations, niche positioning, and the path from your first $100 to $10,000 and beyond.
>>> Don't forget to follow the Sustainable Side Hustle Podcast and drop us a rating and review.
Transcript
Getting your first thousand subscribers on Substack is already something most people would be pretty happy with.
Speaker A:Now imagine taking that to over 50,000 subscribers and getting more than 2,000 of them to actually pay you.
Speaker A:That's what Philip Hofmarker and his co founders have built with Write Build Scale publication.
Speaker A:They became a Substack best seller in under 60 days.
Speaker A:And today they help other writers and creators figure out how to grow, monetize, and actually turn a newsletter into a business.
Speaker A:So naturally, I wanted to know more.
Speaker A:What did they do differently?
Speaker A:I'm your host, Vinayak, and this is the Sustainable side Hustle podcast.
Speaker A:And today I'm sitting down with Philip to find out.
Speaker B:Let's get right into it.
Speaker B:Hey, welcome, Philip.
Speaker B:Thank you so much for joining me today.
Speaker B:Super stoked to have you here.
Speaker B:How are you doing?
Speaker C:Hey, I'm doing fine.
Speaker C:Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker C:Really looking forward to our conversation.
Speaker B:Yeah, I mean, it's a pleasure to have you here, man.
Speaker B:And I think you don't need any introduction because you are a Substack celebrity already.
Speaker B:So anyway, I mean, why don't you just introduce yourself before what you did?
Speaker C:Thank you so much.
Speaker C:I would not call myself a celebrity.
Speaker C:I would rather call myself someone who really, really loves Substack.
Speaker C:And yeah, for everyone who doesn't know me, I'm Philipp Hofmacher.
Speaker C:I have the pleasure of running the White Build Skill publication together with my wife and co founder Sinem and our other co founder, Jari.
Speaker C:The three of us have been doing this for over years now.
Speaker C: We started in July: Speaker C:But yeah, once we join Substack, we instantly know that's it.
Speaker C:That's our platform.
Speaker C:We love it and we want to go all in on it.
Speaker B:So is there any other side Hustle before Substack?
Speaker B:Like you mentioned Medium, but is there anything apart from that?
Speaker C:Yeah, I mean, I am in this very, very lucky position that I've tried to become a tennis professional my entire life, but when I was like 13, I completely destroyed my wrist.
Speaker C:So I was no longer able to play tennis for two years.
Speaker C:And that basically got me to the point where I said, okay, you know what, what's next in life?
Speaker C:What do I want to do with my life?
Speaker C:And I had no idea.
Speaker C:But I quickly knew that I'm what I love to say I'm unemployable.
Speaker C:So I cannot work for someone else.
Speaker C:I Always knew I have my own business, I need to build something for myself.
Speaker C:And for a very long time in my life, I did not know what I want to do.
Speaker C:So I started, as everyone does here in Austria, when you do not know what you want to do, you study business economics.
Speaker C:And throughout the studies I really thought like, hey, they are going to turn me into an entrepreneur.
Speaker C:But I quickly learned I'm not going to become an entrepreneur starting business.
Speaker C:So I dropped out of it, started my own business, which was over 10 years ago, which was on skillshare.com and there I basically started teaching courses for other people about how to build an audience on Instagram, how to use your smartphone to be more productive, how to create a budget with smartphone apps and things like that.
Speaker C:And it was going super, super bad because in the first couple of months I was only making a dollar or something like that.
Speaker C:But then three months later I kind of figured it out and I was suddenly making five figures through that platform.
Speaker C:And it was amazing.
Speaker C:I had a mastermind, we had a group of people and we were all taking it super ser.
Speaker C:And the cool thing about skillshare was you've been able to promote your courses for free to your existing members, you've been able to send them emails.
Speaker C:And we were really in a position, six, seven guys, everyone running their own business, learning from each other, but we were really making quite a decent amount of money back then.
Speaker C:Until one day skillshare changed the algorithm and we've no longer been able to send email to our subscribers.
Speaker C:Which basically meant while a new course was always making almost five figures, now suddenly it was only reach couple hundred people.
Speaker C:And it was horrible, it was frustrating and it was a big lesson for me where I said I'm going to only focus on having an email list and trying to build an independent business.
Speaker C:And I've kept this, this mantra for myself throughout my entire career.
Speaker C:With the last 10 years, I've always wanted to have something that is an email list.
Speaker C:And when we then joined Substack and I saw that you can have access to your email subscribers, that you can basically build an independent business that no matter what happens with Substack, move on to other platforms later on, I instantly knew that's it, that's the next big thing in social media and I need to go all in on it.
Speaker B:Awesome.
Speaker B:Awesome.
Speaker B:So can you take us to the beginning of the ride?
Speaker B:Build scale publication itself?
Speaker B:What I mean, how was it formed?
Speaker B:How did you meet your co founders and how the first few weeks of building looked like for you.
Speaker C:Absolutely.
Speaker C:Very happy to do that.
Speaker C:Great question.
Speaker C:You need to know that Sinem and I met way before we joined Substack.
Speaker C:Basically I was running an entrepreneurship conference in Vienna and she was attending it and she was trying to sign up as one of the participants for one of the teams.
Speaker C:And I saw her and I'm like, oh, wow, I need to get to know this woman.
Speaker C:She signed up for the event.
Speaker C:Then I kind of soft stalked her through social media, sent her dozens and dozens of messages and it took me quite some while for her to go out with me.
Speaker C:The funny thing is, once we started dating, it didn't really took me long to convince her to start a business with myself.
Speaker C:And we've been doing in person workshops and then we moved to Medium, which did teaching on Medium.
Speaker C:And that's also where the idea for Write Build Scale was born.
Speaker C:Because we wanted to help people that already write on the Internet write better, build an audience and scale their income.
Speaker C:And we had this idea.
Speaker C:And then one guy was leaving a comment on one of Sinem's postings and his name was Jari Woomer and we've never heard of him.
Speaker C:But Sinem and him started chatting and yeah, it turned out he's an amazing entrepreneur, he's from the Netherlands.
Speaker C:And they started chatting, I think been on three calls and like once every half a year they kept each other updated until one day Sinem and I, we attended a conference in Amsterdam.
Speaker C:And Sinem said, hey, there's this guy, this Yari, he's from Amsterdam, let's meet him.
Speaker C:We met him, we had a couple of beers, we had a really good time together and we thought, yeah, he's the real deal, we love him, let's stay closely connected.
Speaker C:Nevertheless, I think it took over two years until at one point Sinem and I already had the wide Build Scale community offside of Substack, which was a coaching program.
Speaker C:And Jari reached out to us again and said he loves what we are doing and he has a new idea if we can give him feedback.
Speaker C:And I'm like, yeah, I can give you feedback.
Speaker C:Come into our coaching session and I provide feedback so that all our other members can learn from how you want to build your business.
Speaker C:And I provide feedback on it.
Speaker C:And the cool thing was he said, yeah, he loves to do that.
Speaker C:And he joined and I completely destroyed his business.
Speaker C:There were like so many moving pieces that did not make sense and the members on the community had so many new ideas for him that he said, hey, this is so cool what you Guys are doing.
Speaker C:I want to build something similar to what you are doing.
Speaker C:He back then had an idea about the productivity community, but he said, no, he wants to build something like write, build, scale.
Speaker C:And we said, you know what, why don't you don't build anything, but join us.
Speaker C:Become an affiliate partner and a customer success manager, and you just promote it to your audience.
Speaker C:And we did this for a couple of months, and we started working closer and closer together, but we were never really successful with this.
Speaker C:And then Substack came.
Speaker C:Basically, Michael Simmons reached out to us.
Speaker C:He's super big on Substack, and he said, hey, guys, you need to check out Substack.
Speaker C:This is a great opportunity for you.
Speaker C:And I'm like, yeah, I don't like to write.
Speaker C:No, we're not doing this.
Speaker C:A week later, he sent us a second call, like, guys, check out Substack.
Speaker C:I want you there.
Speaker C:And we're like, yeah, I don't know, let's jump on a call.
Speaker C:And it took him three calls to convince us to join Substack.
Speaker C:And we said, hey, if we do this, we, the three of us, Sine Mia and myself, we want to have one shared publication for a simple reason.
Speaker C:And Jari are amazing writers.
Speaker C:Both of them have been bestsellers on Substack.
Speaker C:I, on the other hand, I never enjoyed writing.
Speaker C:I've always hated it my entire life.
Speaker C:So I always tell people the two of them are the typewriters and I'm the calculator.
Speaker C:And that's how we joined Substack, the three of us together in a publication that we, for the simplicity, called it White Build Skill, because that's what our existing members already knew us for.
Speaker B:Awesome.
Speaker B:Awesome.
Speaker B:Beautiful story.
Speaker B:And so, like, how does your business look like?
Speaker B:What do you do?
Speaker B:And how is the task split between you three?
Speaker C:Yeah, great question.
Speaker C:Maybe to quickly follow up first on what we did on Substack so that everyone gets a really good understanding.
Speaker C: We joined substack in July: Speaker C:Let everyone create posts.
Speaker C:Let's everyone try everything and get a good understanding for the platform.
Speaker C:So six weeks have only been exploration.
Speaker C:From there, we then said, okay, now we understand Substack.
Speaker C:We want to bring in as many people as possible to Substack.
Speaker C:That's why we set up our paid tier.
Speaker C:And we said, hey, we show you exactly what we are doing on Substack so you can do similar things.
Speaker C:And then we basically reached September, and we said, you know what?
Speaker C:Let's call it substack.
Speaker C:September, one month, full focus on substack.
Speaker C:And basically from week six to week eight on substack, we've onboarded over 100 paying subscribers.
Speaker C:So we quickly became bestseller.
Speaker C:We turned this into to a case study letting other people know, hey, this is Substack.
Speaker C:This is how we're doing it, how we became a bestseller in 60 days.
Speaker C:And from there, we really quickly grew our publication.
Speaker C:We added live streams, we added podcasts, we added different programs.
Speaker C:And we got to the point where now, today we have over 55,000 subscribers from which over 2,100 are paying us every single month.
Speaker C:So that was our journey on Substack.
Speaker C:As for how we are splitting the work with three people, it's.
Speaker C:It's very complex, but to basically bring it down to the core, the idea is that Sinem and Yari are managing the Substack publication.
Speaker C:They create the content there.
Speaker C:In addition to that, Sinem takes care of the YouTube channel and the email marketing.
Speaker C:Jari is our head coach.
Speaker C:He's in charge of working with our clients.
Speaker C:And I do the majority of the discovery calls where we get to meet new members.
Speaker C:I do a lot of the outreach to other people.
Speaker C:I'm like the collaboration head of collaboration at our team.
Speaker C:I do all the interviews, I do a lot of live streams, I talk a lot to other people, spot opportunities.
Speaker C:I usually map out our programs and I'm also involved inside the community.
Speaker B:Awesome, awesome.
Speaker B:So it's like a full fledged business for you guys, right?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker C:I mean, we started two years ago with Substack and now I would say almost 100% of what we do evolves around Substack.
Speaker C:We do not really do many other things.
Speaker C:We have some opportunities now that we just know that we have a huge audience that we're thinking of for the future.
Speaker C:There are some topics that we are very excited about that I can also go into detail at the end of the interview if you want.
Speaker C:But as of right now, it's all about Substack and we really have mapped out, I would say, the entire ecosystem.
Speaker C:We have super tiny products for a Gumroad store from $20 to $47, like notes, templates, or how to use your publication.
Speaker C:Then we have our flagship course, which is called Substack System, where we teach people not only how to build on Substack, but where we really give them a system that they can follow step by step.
Speaker C:And then we have the Substack Accelerator, which is our flagship program where we teach people over a Period of three months or majority of them actually stick around for an entire year.
Speaker C:How to build a thriving substack from zero to hero where there's everything involved with templates, with weekly group coaching to get access to an AI coaching tool, to get individual feedback on everything that they are building.
Speaker C:So we've mapped all out of that for the customer and we also work with brands or influencers for those who have one on one coaching or a consulting offer for companies.
Speaker C:So we build those ones at a time.
Speaker C:But by now I think we can literally cover the entire ecosystem.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker B:Awesome, awesome.
Speaker B:So coming back to your bestseller journey.
Speaker B:So I mean what do you think?
Speaker B:You reached that status very quickly.
Speaker B:I mean what was the convincing point for people to go from the free subscriber to the paid subscriber?
Speaker C:Yeah, I mean one thing that absolutely helped us is that right from the beginning we said we want to over deliver as much as possible.
Speaker C:If anyone wants to get paid subscribers on substack, it's not enough to have big claims.
Speaker C:You really need to back those up.
Speaker C:So for example, in the beginning when someone joined us to become a paid subscriber, they had the opportunity to multiple times a month join us for Q and A calls where we answered all their questions, we've shared all the behind the scenes, we've gave them templates, we invited them to do live.
Speaker C:So we really tried to build a community around what we are doing.
Speaker C:That was like the first thing that really worked from us.
Speaker C:From there we said we are now 1, 2, 3 steps ahead of everyone else.
Speaker C:But we want to make it as simple as possible for them to follow our footsteps.
Speaker C:So whenever someone has questions, up until today, I take a look at every single DM that I receive on substack.
Speaker C:So if someone has questions, they can send me a message.
Speaker C:We respond to them, we will point them in the right direction.
Speaker C:Obviously if someone wants to have hundreds of questions answered, invite them to join one of our coaching programs.
Speaker C:But if it's like something like, hey, can you point me in the direction of this or that, we always love to help out.
Speaker C:That's what got us started.
Speaker B:Awesome, awesome.
Speaker B:So I think that coaching and the humanities, what keeps people coming back to you?
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker C:Yeah, I mean that's the first thing.
Speaker C:And the second thing for sure is that we are a team of three people.
Speaker C:There are so many people that teach you how to grow an audience in substack and many of those have a full time job.
Speaker C:I personally would not feel comfortable having a full time job and saying, hey, I'M a coach.
Speaker C:I can teach you everything about Substack.
Speaker C:I knew right from the beginning that this is a complex platform because you need to write short form, you need to write long form, you need to understand positioning and niching down, you need to understand offer creation, you need to sell, you need to focus about customer retention.
Speaker C:You should do videos, live streaming, podcasting.
Speaker C:There's dozens and dozens of different things.
Speaker C:I do not believe that one person can teach you all those things.
Speaker C:That's why I'm so happy that I have two amazing co founders where we can really say, hey, we split this up between the three of us.
Speaker C:So that way we can really provide our clients the highest level of support possible.
Speaker C:And that's basically very, very important for us throughout all our programs.
Speaker C:So, for example, inside the Substack accelerator, oftentimes there are two of us attending a coaching call so that people can get answers from Sinem and Jari or Jari and myself, just so that we can really make sure we can provide the best level of service to our clients.
Speaker C:And I had one mentor, he was an amazing entrepreneur in Austria.
Speaker C:He was actually the only person that I've ever worked for in my life.
Speaker C:And he always told me, filip, we need to over deliver on our customers.
Speaker C:We always need to ask ourselves, what can we do to keep our customers so happy that they want to continue working with us?
Speaker C:And that's also what's necessary.
Speaker C:On Substack, I strongly believe that everyone is sleeping on this.
Speaker C:Every growth coach tells you how to get more subscribers, how to get more paid subscribers, how to convert more people.
Speaker C:Why is no one other than us really talking about customer retention?
Speaker C:Why is no one talking about how can I create a customer journey?
Speaker C:What can I do for someone to not only stick with me for one year, but maybe for two years, three years, five years?
Speaker C:Because it's much more important to keep the customer than to only focus on winning new ones.
Speaker C:But it's also the unsexy thing.
Speaker C:That's why I strongly believe not enough people talk about it.
Speaker B:Yeah, right.
Speaker B:I think you answered my next question, which was what?
Speaker B:What is the number one thing people of new start obsessing over on Substack?
Speaker B:That doesn't matter at all.
Speaker C:So I think everyone obsesses over growth and everyone should be focusing way more on customer retention.
Speaker C:I mean, for me, it's also a little bit fear driven.
Speaker C:To be honest, the moment we got the first bestseller batch, I was so afraid to lose this batch again.
Speaker C:So we said right from the beginning, we're not aiming for 100 paid subscribers.
Speaker C:We're aiming for 100, 120 to be safe.
Speaker C: Then the moment we hit: Speaker C:Because let's be honest, it really looks stupid.
Speaker C:If someone hands you an award and two days later takes it away from you, everyone knows something's wrong with you.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Yeah, right.
Speaker B:So do you think it is worth spinning on this paid subscription hamster wheel?
Speaker C:Yes, absolutely.
Speaker C:For a specific reason.
Speaker C:Substack only makes money when you are making money.
Speaker C:If you are on Substack and you're not turning on paid subscribers, you're only costing Substack money.
Speaker C:You're not making them any money.
Speaker C:Therefore you are by far not the best friend.
Speaker C:First thing.
Speaker C:Second thing, paid subscription gives you some kind of authority.
Speaker C:For example, if I go to a profile and I see that there are hundreds of thousands of other people paying for them, I instantly take them more seriously rather than if they don't have this bad yet.
Speaker C:Second of all, or searching, if you take a look at a live stream, I go live.
Speaker C:I was just live half an hour ago.
Speaker C:You see so many people popping in, but everyone with a bestseller badge instantly stands out.
Speaker C:So you just get more recognition.
Speaker C:People remember you easier.
Speaker C:So that's quite important also because those badges need to be earned.
Speaker C:Not like on Instagram where you just need to know someone or pay a little bit of money and you get this badge where there are agencies offering you the service.
Speaker C:To get a certified profile on Substack, you really need to earn those.
Speaker C:The second thing, the next thing why those badge is important is it can open doors.
Speaker C:For example, best sellers have the opportunity to turn on the product lab.
Speaker C:Product lab means you get access to new features first.
Speaker C:We work with quite a lot of different platforms.
Speaker C:For example, we sell a lot of courses through teachable teachable invites every year.
Speaker C:The most successful creators of the platform to a private mastermind.
Speaker C:We've been to Rome three months ago and later this month we're flying to Miami to get in a room of people that run successful businesses.
Speaker C:And just from being around those people and networking with them, you are learning so much about yourself, about how you take your business to the next level.
Speaker C:And I also know that Substack is also thinking about things like this, that they are providing this to their members.
Speaker C:So that is something that is really, really important to me.
Speaker C:In addition to that, lots of our clients want to sell some kind of courses consulting community because they are coaches or experts.
Speaker C:And for them, the pay tier can be really, really important because it's quite hard to get someone who's never spent a single dollar with you to become a customer of, let's say, a $2,000 product.
Speaker C:On the other hand, if they are already a paid subscriber, it's like an arm raiser.
Speaker C:They're basically like saying, hey Philip, Hey Whitepool skill team.
Speaker C:I'm interested, I'm interested.
Speaker C:I'm very, very likely to spend more money with you.
Speaker C:Those are the people that we then invite to come over to get a better understanding of what it is to work with us and to ultimately become a client.
Speaker C:So yes, I would not sleep on paid subscriptions.
Speaker C:But as a disclaimer for Riotpill Scale, for example, we're making less than 10% of our annual revenue you through the paid subscriptions on substack.
Speaker C:The rest comes through all the other things inside our ecosystem that we've built around substack.
Speaker B:Awesome.
Speaker B:So why don't you expand on the other revenue streams and what's possible on Substack beyond just paid subscription?
Speaker C:I can absolutely talk about this.
Speaker C:So there's multiple ways.
Speaker C:So the easiest way is you set up a gumroad store, you create a notion database or an ebook and you include it in your paid subscription or you link it from your articles.
Speaker C:One thing that we've created is the 365 Notion template sub stack note templates and we are giving those to people who join our programs or for example, inside an article.
Speaker C:Whenever we talk about the importance of notes, we just link to it.
Speaker C:I've created this once.
Speaker C:It was quite a little bit of research and then some AI support that templatizing of notes that have been here.
Speaker C:And we've sold this thousands of times.
Speaker C:Just create it once included and forget about it.
Speaker C:People buy it over and over and over and over and over again.
Speaker C:That's the easiest way.
Speaker C:Nevertheless, it's not the most profitable one because with a $27 product you will never build like real wealth.
Speaker C:But it's enough to cover certain of your costs so that you have more time to focus on other things.
Speaker C:One thing that I strongly believe everyone should have is like a flagship course.
Speaker C:Flagship course is something that people remember you for.
Speaker C:In our case, the first entire year on substack was for us to build trust and to establish substack system as by far the best course about substack out there.
Speaker C:We really took a look at the other courses and we said, hey, people don't want to Buy a course, people want to buy a system.
Speaker C:We said, let's make it as simple as possible for them, like building a house of Lego blocks.
Speaker C:Give them one actionable thing at a time.
Speaker C:No long videos, just short things that they can implement.
Speaker C:Give them all the tools, all the templates, templates that they need.
Speaker C:On top of that, people then always want to work more personally with you.
Speaker C:So we started selling one on one coaching.
Speaker C:The cool thing about one on one coaching is you can charge premium prices.
Speaker C:I think we started at $1,000 for eight calls, increased it to 1,500, increased it to 3,000, now we're at 5,000.
Speaker C:We quickly got to a point where so many people wanted to work with us that Jari's calendar was completely.
Speaker C:So he was like starting to get frustrated because like I wanted to onboard my clients, he wanted to have more life and he was doing the majority of the calls.
Speaker C:I was also starting doing calls, Sina was also starting doing calls.
Speaker C:But we didn't have more time to grow the business because we were just working for the business rather than on the business.
Speaker C:So the next step for us was to launch a group coaching program.
Speaker C:We said, hey, what you're getting inside the Excel, they have one on one coach coaching.
Speaker C:We turn this into a crew package.
Speaker C:You can work with us for three months of an entire year.
Speaker C:You get the support of all three of us, you get an AI coaching tool, you get templates, you get so many bonuses.
Speaker C:And that really helped.
Speaker C:And now the logical next step for us is to build something even more high priced on top of it.
Speaker C:Because you can always say that when you have 100 clients, 10% of those are willing to spend five times as much money on you for a premium experience.
Speaker C:But the important thing is you need to decide, decide where you start building this business.
Speaker C:You cannot do all the things at the same time.
Speaker C:We also started with the flagship course, did the coaching, did the cheaper things, did the more premium things.
Speaker C:So one after the other.
Speaker B:Awesome, Awesome.
Speaker B:I think that's quite an exhaustive list of what's possible on substack.
Speaker B:So I mean, let's say if somebody is outside the business category and let's say if somebody is interested in film or travel or literature, so how can they monetize on substack beyond just paid subscription?
Speaker C:Yeah, that's really great.
Speaker C:I would really focus on what is it that your clients want.
Speaker C:That's always the core question.
Speaker C:No matter if you write about swimming, if you write about weight loss, if you write about finance, always ask yourself what is it that your client wants to achieve?
Speaker C:What's the transformation looking like?
Speaker C:And that's what you need to give them on an accelerated way.
Speaker C:Oftentimes that's for coaching.
Speaker C:Sometimes it's through courses.
Speaker C:It can be through a book, it can be through a community, which I'm probably the biggest fan of ever because I strongly believe so many people sell courses which are already outdated by the day they create it.
Speaker C:And they would be much better off by creating a community.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:Other than that, it's really something where you need to go in very deep with the target audience.
Speaker C:Because for example, you said if someone is in travel, with travel, it can be anything.
Speaker C:So for example, we have a client, she's selling travel guides to the places where she's been.
Speaker C:For example, she's been to many US national parks.
Speaker C:For every park she created a travel guide that she's now selling.
Speaker C:Or there's another client that we work with.
Speaker C:She's all about getting free flights and free upgrades through credit card points.
Speaker C:That's also something where you can do not only a lot of consulting, but like where you can work very well with affiliate links for those card issuing companies.
Speaker C:So it's really something where we need to get into detail depending on who the client is.
Speaker B:I see.
Speaker B:So the niche positioning is quite important when you're starting out, right?
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:I mean, I strongly believe that you need to pick a niche where you can be the best one in the world.
Speaker C:And take a look at Substack, for example.
Speaker C:We joined Substack two years ago.
Speaker C:There have already been some people teaching others how to do Substack.
Speaker C:We said right from the beginning we focus on helping people become a best seller and build a digital expertise business on top of it.
Speaker C:Then there are other people in our niche who, who from the outside are also just substack coaches like we are, but who are speaking to a very different target audience group.
Speaker C:My good friend David McElroy, for example, he helps a lot of people and he also attracts a lot of people who want to write their own books because he's an author himself, he writes some horror fiction books.
Speaker C:So he understands this market much better than me.
Speaker C:So if someone's an author, chances are very high that they more resonate with him.
Speaker C:Or then there's Jana, she's a full time employee at a bank who's also doing a lot of work on Substack.
Speaker C:Yana and I, we talk every single week.
Speaker C:We might even launch a business together in the future.
Speaker C:But the difference between her and us is she's one person and she has a corporate background.
Speaker C:So if someone comes from a corporate background, I get it right, it might resonate more with her.
Speaker C:While on the other hand, if someone is an entrepreneur, they might resonate more with Sinem, Yara and myself.
Speaker C:So the important thing now is to pick a niche where you can really become good at.
Speaker C:Nowadays, so many people create accounts on substack, saying, hey, I help you to grow an audience on substack, but those people don't focus on anything.
Speaker C:So if I just create generic content about how to grow on substack, those people will not have a chance to catch up because we already have two years of a head start and thousands of subscribers.
Speaker C:On the other hand, if someone positions themselves smart, for example, let's say someone is a professional speaker and he gets paid to travel the world to speak in front of huge audiences.
Speaker C:If someone creates.
Speaker C:If someone like that creates a substack, saying, I help speakers raise their prices through substack and get a TEDx speaker or something like that, that's a real niche.
Speaker C:And that's also something where I cannot compete with because I've never got paid $50,000 to speak an hour on a stage.
Speaker C:I mean, I've spoken on stages, but I've never got paid that amount.
Speaker C:So if you have the option between me, who does this for fun, and someone who's the number one expert in the field, chances are so high that you will go to the expert.
Speaker C:And that's very important for people.
Speaker C:They need to pick a niche because otherwise it's quite hard to stand out.
Speaker C:And I know that a lot of people hate the process of picking a niche.
Speaker C:Nevertheless, if we would not have done it, we would not have succeeded with any of our businesses.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Awesome.
Speaker B:And because.
Speaker B:Because it's, I mean, important to have that clarity, because that goes right in your bio.
Speaker B:Otherwise people would just come to your profile and just go away.
Speaker B:So I think it's quite important there.
Speaker B:Absolutely, yeah.
Speaker B:So is there any common substack advice you would tell people to just ignore completely?
Speaker C:Great question.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:I know a lot of people post something like five notes, six notes, eight notes a day.
Speaker C:I absolutely do not believe in this.
Speaker C:I've tested one note a day, I've tested five notes, I've tested 10 notes, and the majority of time I'm being doing three notes.
Speaker C:And that's just the sweet spot for me.
Speaker C:That makes a lot of sense and that works.
Speaker C:That's the first thing that's really important for me, for people to understand the Second thing is that you need to start your paid tier right from day one.
Speaker C:I strongly believe there are multiple opinions and sometimes sine miari and I even disagree with something.
Speaker C:But I, I personally would not launch my paid tier right from the beginning.
Speaker C:I would always first build an audience and then ask the audience what exactly it is, what they want, and then I would start building it and offering it for them.
Speaker C:So those are two things.
Speaker C:So you don't need to have a paid tier right from the beginning.
Speaker C:And yeah, you don't need to have five or more notes a day.
Speaker B:Okay, so how long do you recommend that we need to wait until before starting the bid tier?
Speaker C:Great question.
Speaker C:I would usually say if you're somewhere around 300 people, you are already have 300 people who care about you.
Speaker C:If now only 10% of those tell you what they are interested in, 30 people will tell you what you should build.
Speaker C:If now only every second of those would buy from you, you would have 15 paid subscribers.
Speaker C:So that, that's around the range where it makes sense.
Speaker C:Also depending on how long it takes you to get to those people, how many clients you have, what niche you are in.
Speaker C:So for example, in finance, I know people who charge $500 a month for their paid subscription and they have a conversion rate of over 20% because they know exactly their publication is useless for free.
Speaker C:It's just to show people that it's out there.
Speaker C:But for paid, there's so much value in it.
Speaker C:Because if you're investing, I don't know, $100,000 a month, you can easily invest $500 for some advice.
Speaker C:Because even if you just outperform the market by a little bit, it's already worth it.
Speaker B:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker B:So, Philip, the whole theme of this show is showing people how you built this and how they might do the same.
Speaker B:So just a hypothetical question.
Speaker B:If someone wanted to start building something like this from completely from scratch, so what is the first thing that you would tell to focus on first?
Speaker C:That's great question.
Speaker C:I love it.
Speaker C:I recently did a live stream, I think three days ago, where I talked about what I would be doing on my first 30 days on substack if I would need to start from scratch again.
Speaker C:Is it okay to answer it that way?
Speaker B:Yeah, sure.
Speaker B:Absolutely.
Speaker C:Awesome.
Speaker C:So first thing is, I would focus on.
Speaker C:Here are a couple of things that I would focus on before I even get started on substack.
Speaker C:First thing is I. I would pick a niche, a target group, and a clear transformation.
Speaker C:So I want you to be able to answer the question I help group of people to achieve whatever it is.
Speaker C:For example, I help entrepreneurs build an audience on substack that they can use to make more money in their business.
Speaker C:Or I help motivated runners to finish their first marathon injury free and with a smile on their face.
Speaker C:Something like that.
Speaker C:Once you can enter answer this, you know who you're speaking to.
Speaker C:Then I also want you to know about your business model.
Speaker C:You don't need to map it out perfectly, but I want you to be able to tell me where is the money coming from?
Speaker C:Is it coming from paid subscription?
Speaker C:Is it coming from coaching?
Speaker C:Is it coming from a course that you will create?
Speaker C:So that's what I would love you to know.
Speaker C:Once you are aware of that, we can start with week one.
Speaker C:First seven days is all about setting up your publication.
Speaker C:When I say setting up your publication, I mean your substack profile, your publications about page A.
Speaker C:Start here.
Speaker C:Post on your publication and that's it.
Speaker C:No need to get a fancy logo, no need to get a perfectly mapped out everything.
Speaker C:You just want to get a good understanding of how substack works and set the first pages up so that there's something there.
Speaker C:Then you instantly going to start posting.
Speaker C: t a note, you're following my: Speaker C:The rule basically means whenever a note goes live, you leave 10 likes on different people's notes.
Speaker C:You take five out of those and you leave a meaningful comment.
Speaker C:And then you pick one of those people and you send a DM to start a conversation with.
Speaker C:When you send them a dm, don't say something like hey, what's up?
Speaker C:Send them a message saying hey, I saw your publication.
Speaker C:I'm also in this or that field.
Speaker C:Since when are you on substack?
Speaker C:Start a conversation that's really really important from there in the next week you then also start posting posts on substack.
Speaker C:I personally aim for twice a week if you can do it.
Speaker C:If not, at least once a week.
Speaker C:In addition to that I want you to start doing live streams.
Speaker C:If you're the kind of person who enjoys being in front of the camera because that really allows people to connect with with you.
Speaker C:So that's super, super important.
Speaker C:Then the next week, the third week, you are going to stop doing things alone.
Speaker C:You are starting to turn those DMS that you've sent out.
Speaker C:Basically when you really stick with it and you send three dms every single day, you are now in a conversation with Dozens of people.
Speaker C:You now want to turn those into collaborations.
Speaker C:Let's say, hey, someone starts recommending you, you recommend them.
Speaker C:Maybe you can guest post for them or they guest post for you or you do a live stream to together.
Speaker C:But you really want to get out there and you still keep your posting rhythm and everything active and running.
Speaker C:So that's what you do the first three weeks and then the last days.
Speaker C:Like day 22 till day 30.
Speaker C:I would invite you to take a close look at everything that you've done in the first three weeks.
Speaker C:I think three weeks are enough data to really draw some lessons.
Speaker C:Which notes worked, which posts worked, which people respond to you, which people don't respond to you.
Speaker C:Take a look at some of the people that like your comments.
Speaker C:Is it more male?
Speaker C:Is it more female?
Speaker C:Is it more people from this niche, more from that niche?
Speaker C:So you want to analyze.
Speaker C:That's what you do the last days and then by the end of 30 days, you should have a good understanding of what can work and what cannot work on Substack.
Speaker C:So in my opinion, the goal of the first 30 days is not to figure everything out, but the goal of the first 30 days is to figure out out what's worth doing the next 300 days.
Speaker C:And that's really, really important for me.
Speaker C:I can also give you an entire list of things that you should not do.
Speaker C:Spend time on logos, over complicate your publication, over complicate your writing.
Speaker C:I really want you to get started, to start publishing and from there you can then build a perfect publication.
Speaker C:Now, a lot of people will say something like this to me and I hear this all the time.
Speaker C:Yeah, but if I'm not building a perfect publication right from the beginning, then people will not subscribe to.
Speaker C:To me, they are absolutely right.
Speaker C:A perfect publication with everything that's included is really necessary, but not in your first 30 days.
Speaker C:In your first 30 days, your name of your publication might change your niche might change your topic might change, your colors, might change, your logo might change.
Speaker C:So don't focus on those things.
Speaker C:Focus on the most important things.
Speaker C:Focus on building the habits, the routines, and analyzing some data.
Speaker C:And once you figured that out, out, then in the next 300 days you can focus on publication design, professionalizing, everything, and so on.
Speaker B:Awesome.
Speaker B:That's the perfect roadmap any beginner can have on Substack.
Speaker B:So thank you for sharing your insight.
Speaker C:No problem.
Speaker C:That's what I'm here for.
Speaker B: esn't anymore as of September: Speaker C:Very good question.
Speaker C:There was one point in time where I was just pressing the live stream button and suddenly thousands of people were in the live stream.
Speaker C:This was just for a week or so.
Speaker C:So this was like absolutely crazy.
Speaker C:So you were going live and you had so many people and so many questions, but I assumed that was a bug.
Speaker C:Another thing that worked super well at a specific point in time that everyone and their dog, no matter what they've been writing about, they just needed to post something.
Speaker C:Hey, substack, Please connect me with are interested in this, this and that.
Speaker C:That's also not working.
Speaker C:Even if it would work, you would attract people to your publication that are not the right subscribers.
Speaker C:And this is something that.
Speaker C:That maybe I want to stress on this a little bit.
Speaker C:I post oftentimes things like who's new on substack, subscribe, recommend each other.
Speaker C:But for me it makes sense because I'm speaking to people who are interested in substack growth.
Speaker C:If you're building a publication about web weight loss, don't post those things.
Speaker C:You attract people who probably are not overweight at all or who don't need to lose weight, but they connect with you because they saw this content.
Speaker C:And then you have people on your publication who don't care about your content.
Speaker C:You might have higher numbers, but you have high numbers of wrong people.
Speaker C:And that's the worst thing you can do.
Speaker C:So don't engage in those things at all unless you're building a publication.
Speaker C:Exactly.
Speaker C:In this field.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Awesome.
Speaker B:Awesome.
Speaker B:So can you tell us more about your substack September live sessions?
Speaker B:You are going live almost daily, right?
Speaker B:So is there any new strategy that you're testing it out?
Speaker C:No, there's not a new strategy, but that's a challenge for myself.
Speaker C:I'm the kind of person I told you in the beginning of the interview.
Speaker C:I grew up a professional tennis player, at least as professional as you can be until the age of 13.
Speaker C:I've always loved challenges.
Speaker C:If you want to motivate me, my wife, Sinem, just needs to say to me, I bet you you cannot do this.
Speaker C:That's the easiest way to motivate me.
Speaker C:So therefore, I love challenges and I thrive in this environment.
Speaker C:And I've always wanted to do more live streams because one of the people that I really learned a lot from about business, Russell Branson, he says in his audiobook that when you go live 90 days in a row, your entire life and business will change.
Speaker C:And I've always known this, and I've always wanted to do do this, but I've always somehow kept myself busy and said, I'm not going to do this.
Speaker C:And then it was the 1st of September, and I knew every September, usually we did something like substack September where we had challenges, where we motivated people to take substack seriously.
Speaker C:This September, we didn't do this due to the reason that Jare just became a dad and Sinem and I have been handling bigger parts of the business than usual.
Speaker C:So we've been quite busy.
Speaker C:But then on the 1st of September, I said, you know what?
Speaker C:I go live.
Speaker C:And just went live and said, hey, it's 6th of September.
Speaker C:I try to go live every single day.
Speaker C:I already told the people that this will be a challenge because I'm traveling two and a half weeks in September and I know when I'm traveling, I will not be able to do live streams every single day because it's just easy when you're at home compared to when you're on the road.
Speaker C:But nevertheless, I said, it's, you know what, let's do this.
Speaker C:And I encourage people to also do their own version of it.
Speaker C:And one of our strengths, students Sarah Stone instantly jumped on it and said, hey, I'm also doing this.
Speaker C:I'm also going live every single day.
Speaker C:So I think on the 2nd of September, we've been live together already and it's just something that I love, that I enjoy.
Speaker C:And the ultimate goal is for me to get more comfortable with it, for me to break the storytelling, for me to, yeah, get better at creating content like this because I'm not a native speaker, but by the more I talk, the better I get at it.
Speaker C:So no, there's no growth hack, no strategy or anything like that.
Speaker C:It's involved.
Speaker C:I can also be completely honest.
Speaker C:I'm not checking the box.
Speaker C:Send an email to subscribers.
Speaker C:I remove it every single time.
Speaker C:Some of those live streams we will repurpose as content.
Speaker C:Some of those will be live and then will never be available anywhere.
Speaker C:It's a challenge for myself.
Speaker C:Let's see if it helps something with engagement.
Speaker C:But it's.
Speaker C:It's something cool that I love and I always believe we should be doing more of the things that make us joy, especially in the business business world.
Speaker B:Awesome.
Speaker B:Awesome.
Speaker B:So coming back to substack questions for beginners.
Speaker B:So, I mean, I see a lot of people run out of content ideas after a month or so.
Speaker B:So what do you recommend to them?
Speaker B:Like how to strategize their content strategy well in advance so that they're not confused or they don't panic.
Speaker B:Like what do I write about next?
Speaker C:Yeah, are you referring to notes or posts?
Speaker B:I mean, can be anything.
Speaker C:Okay.
Speaker C:I'm a big fan of using notes to test your ideas and the things that resonate.
Speaker C:You then turn into content for live streams or content for posts.
Speaker C: I created this note about the: Speaker C:People loved it.
Speaker C:We turned it into an article.
Speaker C:Easy as that.
Speaker C:If you in general don't know what you want to talk about, I think you are not trying hard enough or you're not passionate about your topic.
Speaker C:For example, I'm passionate about running.
Speaker C:I don't have a running publication, but I can tell you I could talk about running for hours with my friends.
Speaker C:I just love that.
Speaker C:Same about substack.
Speaker C:I can come up with billions of ideas.
Speaker C:If none of those things work for someone, I would take a look at what others are writing about not and that's important not in your own niche, but in another niche.
Speaker C:Let me give you an example.
Speaker C:Just choose any topic.
Speaker B:It can be like substack growth.
Speaker C:Okay.
Speaker C:Choose any topic that's not my topic.
Speaker B:How to write better.
Speaker C:How to write better.
Speaker C:Awesome.
Speaker C:Then you would take a look at our publication and you see we've published an article.
Speaker C:For example, five things we would have loved to known about substack two years ago.
Speaker C:You can then create an article like this.
Speaker C:5 Things I would have loved to know about writing Two years ago we created an article 365 things you learned about Substack within one year.
Speaker C:You can create an article.
Speaker C:365 Things you learned about writing in the last year.
Speaker C:So on and so on.
Speaker C:We talk about our favorite books.
Speaker C:You can talk about your favorite books.
Speaker C:Just take a look at what other people are doing and get some inspiration from there.
Speaker C:In addition to that, give ChatGPT a try.
Speaker C:I'll give you an example.
Speaker C:I once posted a note I think it must be one and a half years ago.
Speaker C:I was running in the winter and one of my favorite animals is the squirrel.
Speaker C:And I saw a squirrel and I took a picture of it with me and the squirrel and I created a note on substack And I asked ChatGPT what can a substack creator learn from a squirrel?
Speaker C:And it's like I would never come of something like this.
Speaker C:It throwed out five things instantly like how to prepare for winter that you need to be a risk taker because script run down the tree, head up front or something like that.
Speaker C:It's super cool.
Speaker C:Just you can also use those tools to come up with some funny ideas if you want to do this.
Speaker C:So I do not think that writer's block is something where people really struggle with in terms of finding the right topic.
Speaker C:What they are really lacking oftentimes is the motivation or the overwhelm because they have 50 different topics that they don't know what to write about.
Speaker C:If that's the case, create a note.
Speaker C:Say, I'm writing an article tomorrow.
Speaker C:Should I write about this, this or this?
Speaker C:Let the people vote and you commit yourself that you need to choose the winner and work with that one.
Speaker B:Awesome.
Speaker B:Awesome.
Speaker B:I think that's the perfect cheat sheet for when you're running out of content ideas.
Speaker B:Thank you so much for sharing that.
Speaker C:No problem.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So I mean, coming back to I think I get this question a lot too from a lot of people.
Speaker B:How do people strategize their role?
Speaker B:Roadmap to first hundred dollars, then first thousand dollars and then first 10k.
Speaker B:So do you have any special roadmap for people?
Speaker C:I mean, I'm a big fan of selling paid subscriptions on substack.
Speaker C:So with the paid subscriptions we always encourage our clients to right away focus on the paid tier for the annual basis because you want to have as many annual subscribers as possible if you are aiming for the batch.
Speaker C:So so to get to the first $100 you need 2, 3, 4 depending on if you're working with discount paid subscribers, that is something that should be super simple.
Speaker C:You first build a free audience, then you create a product like a mini course, a notion database, an ebook and you tell the people, hey, I will be selling this on Gumroad for $47 right now.
Speaker C:Five people can get it.
Speaker C:If they become paid subscribers for a year, they get this as a bonus.
Speaker B:Bonus.
Speaker C:That's what you can do.
Speaker C:And usually our clients instantly reach the first $100.
Speaker C: to: Speaker C:Yeah, growing your audience, having some kind of a loop in place where you're always promoting your paid tier.
Speaker C:The easiest way to do that is through your welcome email or through your publication chat.
Speaker C:If you then want to get to $10,000 or $100,000 dollars, you need to create some more extensive products.
Speaker C:I'm a big fan of creating a flagship program like a $500 course and then on top of it offering some kind of community access because I strongly believe people do want to learn few courses if they go into the right direction or if it's a mini course that's super specific on one topic.
Speaker C:The one thing that courses struggle with is it will always, always get to the point where people say, yeah, but I'm different, my niche is different.
Speaker C:This is not working for me.
Speaker C:I need special advice, I need special help.
Speaker C:Whenever that's the case, you know, you want to sell some kind of one on one or group coaching on top of it.
Speaker C:If you have your flagship program, chances are very high that you will reach people that will say, hey, I don't have time to do a course.
Speaker C:I rather pay you couple hundreds of thousands dollars so that you teach this to me directly.
Speaker C:And then you can also build your coaching product on top of it.
Speaker C:But no matter what you're doing, the most important thing is always the trust building.
Speaker C:Everything that you do on Substack or on the Internet either builds your trust or it costs your trust.
Speaker C:Whenever I give something away for free, whenever I do a podcast, whenever I do a live stream, I'm building up trust.
Speaker C:Whenever I promote something, then I'm taking the trust away from people because some people get offended that I suddenly want to make money with my work and want to get paid for my expertise.
Speaker C:Which, by the way, no one should ever feel guilty about because if you're an expert in your field, you deserve to get paid.
Speaker B:Beautiful, Beautiful.
Speaker B:Thanks.
Speaker B:Thank you for sharing this roadmap.
Speaker B:So this has been such a wonderful conversation and all those in.
Speaker B:I would call this Substack masterclass right here.
Speaker B:So thank you for sharing that anything, a final advice or something you want to share to our audience.
Speaker C:Yeah, I have one thing that I would love to share with everyone.
Speaker C:There are so many different reasons why you could come on Substack.
Speaker C:I would really invite you to be completely honest to yourself.
Speaker C:Ask yourself, why are you on Substack?
Speaker C:Is this a hobby?
Speaker C:Is this a side hustle?
Speaker C:Or should this be the foundation of your business?
Speaker C:All three of them are completely fine.
Speaker C:But treat it that way.
Speaker C:Oftentimes people tell me they want to turn this into a business and then they are not able to invest money in it.
Speaker C:I'm not saying they need to buy coaching with me.
Speaker C:There are other great coaches out there as well.
Speaker C:But if you say substack should be your business, you need to be smart about your resources.
Speaker C:You only have three resources.
Speaker C:You have time, energy, and you have money.
Speaker C:If you can work with a coach for $2,000 a year and they can help you save you hundreds of hours, then it's absolutely worth it.
Speaker C:On the other hand, if someone tries to sell you a course for $1,000.
Speaker C:And all you get from it is that you save yourself five or six hours once.
Speaker C:That might not be worth it.
Speaker C:The important thing is you just get clear about why are you on Substack and why do you want to achieve something.
Speaker C:Something.
Speaker C:Because oftentimes I see that people want to build a business, but are only willing to put in the resources.
Speaker C:Once again, not only money, but also time and energy for a side hustle or for a hobby.
Speaker C:So that is something that's really important to me.
Speaker C:So get clear about what you want to build and what you're willing to invest in it.
Speaker C:If you do so, chances are very high that you're going to succeed with it.
Speaker C:And one more thing that I want to share, if you are on the fence, if you should take Substack seriously right now, or maybe later this year, I would do it right now.
Speaker C:They give you a short reason for that.
Speaker C:The Substack founder is writing a book.
Speaker C:The book is about to release end of November.
Speaker C:The book is called how to Save the Media.
Speaker C:Or something like this, how to Save the future of Media.
Speaker C:On the COVID it says, from the founder of Substack.
Speaker C:If I have a question for you now, if you're the founder of Substack and you're a super influential person and you're writing a book about your company, would you do everything that you can for the book to become a New York Times bestseller?
Speaker B:Absolutely.
Speaker C:Absolutely.
Speaker C:And what happens if a book with the title Substack in it becomes a New York Times bestseller?
Speaker C:Hundreds of thousands of people are going to buy that book, hear it, see it everywhere, and suddenly think, why?
Speaker C:What is this Substack?
Speaker C:And then they are coming on Substack and then they are starting on Substack.
Speaker C:And then I want you as the listener here today to be in the position where you already have a successful publication up and running so that those people can subscribe to you.
Speaker C:Because at the end of the year, so many more people will join Substack.
Speaker C:It will get busy here.
Speaker C:So right now is your opportunity to claim your land and build up your foundation.
Speaker B:Perfect.
Speaker B:Perfect.
Speaker B:Thank you so much, Philip.
Speaker B:I think this is.
Speaker B:This is the best opportunity right now on Internet.
Speaker B:Just join Substack right away for those who are listening.
Speaker B:So thank you so much for your time today, Filip.
Speaker C:Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker C:It was a pleasure talking to you.
Speaker B:Yes, likewise.
Speaker A:And I think that's the perfect place to end this one.
Speaker A:I will link Riot Build Scale Substack in the description below.
Speaker A:If you are building on Substack.
Speaker A:Honestly, it's a bit of a no brainer to go over there right now and subscribe.
Speaker A:They put out a ton of genuinely.
Speaker B:Useful stuff for free.
Speaker A:And while you are here, hit follow on that Sustainable side Hustle show so you don't miss the next conversation.
Speaker A:I'm your host, Vinayak and I will.
Speaker B:Catch you in the next episode.
Speaker B:Cheers.
