Why I blew up on Substack

And why I'll never write about Substack again.

Before I start…

This is the FIRST and LAST time I'm writing about Substack.

Not because I don't have things to say, but because I refuse to become another growth guru selling you tactics while abandoning the work that actually matters.

And to quote Austin Kleon:

But, I'm breaking my own rule for two reasons:

First, my unexpected success confirmed something I've believed for years about why most creators fail.

Second, I'm watching too many good creators get seduced by the same growth-guru trap that cost me 18 months of my life. And I need to get it off my chest.

I'm not going to tell you HOW to go viral because I don't believe in "viral hacks" or "growth tactics". Instead I'm going to tell you WHY this happened so you can create your own version of “success”.

What happened?

30 days ago I started writing on Substack (27th of June.)

Since then, I:

• Got 800 subscribers

• Have paying subscribers

• Made some awesome friends

• Became rising #20 in Philosophy

• Annoyed my wife with over excitement

Not gonna lie, I'm still pinching myself because I honestly did NOT imagine my work to blow up like this. But the fact that it did confirmed something I knew deep down, but ignored for too long.

Why did it happen? We’ll get into that soon. I just need to get something of my chest:

I'm never talking about Substack again.

I want to be clear about my intentions with this post.

Sharing wins is great, but it's a slippery slope into falling into a niche you hate.

I'm not a "Growth Guru" nor do I want to be, so I'm not going to sell you a "How to go viral on Substack guide" As tempting and as easy of a money grab that is…

Instead I'd rather equip you with the mindset and creative tools to figure out that "success" and what it means to you.

I'll be honest. It's hard to NOT share your wins on social media…

Seeing your statistics, followers, subscriber numbers go up is exciting.

I told my closest friends and family… It felt like hard work was paying off. And I wanted to share my wins on the timeline, because… that's what people do right?

Yes, it's nice and you create a moment of positivity and hope.

But, there's a massive problem with doing this.

My Substack feed is full with people sharing their growth wins. These notes often do well because they're full of hype and everyone loves celebrating wins.

But that's the problem: these notes do well.

Not just on Substack, on every social media platform. They attract a lot of engagement and, boost your following even higher.

A massive dopamine spike and more subscribers… so why not do it?

It's addictive.

You risk forgetting about why you joined the platform. You start focussing on your growth and not your work. Your mind starts to focus on 'getting followers' and 'growth tactics'. You forget about your mission, your passion and burn out chasing metrics.

What’s worse, new followers only become attracted to your success, not your work.

I know this, because it happened to me and it cost me 18 months of my life.

I started on X (Twitter) at the end of 2023 with a vision of the creator I wanted to become and the content I wanted to write about. But quickly got sucked into the validation world of celebrating growth milestones in order to grow and attract an audience.

I was “successful” and I even helped others achieve some sort of their own success. For that I'm proud.

But I hated what I built. I was lost and totally abandoned my dreams. I sold out.

It took months to recover from that experience - to remember why I started creating in the first place.

But here's the thing: I'm actually grateful for it because I learned powerful lessons that are part of the reasons WHY I found success on Substack today.

Let's get into that:

Why did I blow up on Substack?

To put it plain and simple:

• I had a WHY

• I had a PLAN

Before I get into those details, I need to explain what you're actually seeing.

You see someone who recently joined Substack and had a crazy amount of success. What you DON'T see is someone who has tried numerous creative ventures and had a crazy amount of failures.

• FAILED: Multiple Rock Bands

• FAILED: Personality Theory YT Channel

• FAILED: Digital Marketing Company

• FAILED: Dutch Lifestyle Influencer

• FAILED: Drum Covers on Instagram

• FAILED: Twitter Personal Branding Guru

I'm not here to tell you that you need to fail multiple times to be "successful".

But it took me that long to realise the 2 simple things that actually matter:

• Have a WHY

• Have a PLAN

1. Have a Why

All of my previous creative attempts did not have a WHY.

I've written about this in previous letters, but having a clear WHY is the single most important thing for your success because it keeps you focussed on a mission. Every you thing you do is in servitude to that mission.

You block out distractions like growth gurus and other people telling you how to create.

After years of failure, I asked myself "WHY am I even creating" and that sent me down a deep rabbit hole. My morning journaling sessions were filled with writing about past and present events, questioning the things I like, the things I want for the future and what brings me joy in life.

Safe to say - it felt like a midlife crisis, but it was really just a few months of self-discovery.

This process help me get clarity on my WHY, my Purpose, my reason for getting out of bed and addiction to writing about it.

I identified some key patterns in my life:

• I love creative hobbies

• I love creative people

• I'm a huge procrastinator/perfectionist

• I'm sad that most of my friends gave up on creative passions

This was fuel that helped me create my WHY. It's simple and it's the tagline in my bio. "I believe YOU are an artist".

You could say my WHY is a belief. I believe everyone is an artist and I want to inspire them to create, share and express themselves freely.

I got crystal clear on that and then started brainstorming how I could turn this into a "brand". Hence: Create or Die. It's direct, it's urgent, it's the exact kick in the butt I needed, so why not.

People don't follow you because of WHAT you do, but because of WHY you do it.

When you have a strong why, people feel like they're part of the mission, they feel understood and resonate with your beliefs.

So, create a why.

My next post will be a deep dive on creating your WHY

2. Have a Plan

All of my previous creative attempts did not have a PLAN.

I had no idea what I was doing. I would just start on a new platform like Instagram, watch what other people were doing and just replicate the tactics that worked. I would also watch videos on YouTube like "How to grow on (platform)"

Warning: There's a lot of spammy, cringey videos about growth tactics. Just try to filter through the noise.

Safe to say some things worked.

But that's all I ever did, I just kept trying different tactics to make my posts, videos etc get more views.

I didn't have any strategy for Instagram growth or Twitter. I just kept getting led by the nose by other creators who "had it figured out" and kept listening to their advice on how to grow and how to create your audience/community.

The problem with this is I would end up going in circles, listening to one creators advice on the types of content to create and then how to pick a niche from another creator. Most of it was conflicting. This is what happens when you listen to too many people and don't have any sort of plan.

So, after years of creative failures and admitting defeat I realised… "I've learned some things, maybe I know enough" and that's when the Journal came out again and I started to reflect.

I ended up creating a very simple plan, which answered the following questions:

• Why do I create?

• Who do I create for?

• What are my core values?

• What type of creative work do I like?

• What type of lifestyle do I want to live?

• What type of lifestyle do I want to avoid?

I spent days on this. Journaling, digging into deep answers to this question.

Over time and through multiple revisions I came up with a clear plan on HOW I was going to launch my next creative venture.

The plan was litterally concise answers to the above questions.

I blended all my answers together and started to imagine a vision of how my content would look, how the messaging would come across and it ultimately it gave me the confidence to share my beliefs. My why.

This is how I launched Create or Die.

Check out The Creative Compass for a content plan.

3. Bonus

There's one thing I left out that attributed to this blow up.

Belief.

I believed in myself. Knowing my WHY and having a PLAN gave me the confidence to believing that I was capable of making an impact.

There is an insane level of focus that you unlock when these 2 fundamental things are in place. You don't get distracted by other creators, growth guru's or shiny objects. Your focus is fully alligned into the future and you move with momentum to get to closer to that that dream.

Believing in yourself is powerful. People notice it.

Trust your intuition. Stay true to YOU.

The moment I started listening to myself is the moment I found my own “success”.

Do's and Dont's

I hope I've inspired you.

Before you go, I wanted to leave with you some rules that I created for myself on this creative journey. Some of them may work for you, others may not, it really depends on your own journey.

Treat them like guidelines when you're feeling lost.

Do:

• Be yourself

• Make friends

• Keep learning

• Remember your why

• Engage in the community

• Experiement without limits

• Help as many people as you can

• Learn, writing, sales and marketing

• Tell your doubting mind to shut up occasionally

• Rant to your friends when things aren't working

Don't:

• Post your work on other peoples work without context

• Constantly post about the platform you create on

• Brag about how many subscribers you have

• Be desperate for people to follow you

• Be afraid to post that "weird" idea

• Only talk about youself

• Focus on going viral

• Obsess over likes

• Isolate yourself

Thank you

Thank you for reading, thank you for your support, thank you for your encouragement and thank you for not judging me for writing about Substack.

Reminder: I can't make you blow up, or go viral (that shouldn't be your focus) but I can help you with the tools and mindset to achieve your own version of success.

Discover your WHY, create a PLAN and BELIEVE in yourself.

Thanks,

Jonathan.