After 18 months of hard work, we finally celebrated a major milestone on Substack this week: 1,000 paid subscribers, and second-time Bestseller status:
We set this goal back in January, and honestly, it felt like a stretch six months ago.
But on Thursday, it finally happened.
We did the thing. We crossed it off. And for a few short hours, my husband (aka my business partner) and I were just incredibly proud of what we'd achieved.
A few hours later, we got the news.
Our landlord informed us that our lease won't be extended and that we have to move out of the apartment we've called home for five years.
At first, it felt like the worst news.
We just got married. 2026 was supposed to be the year of no major life projects.
We were looking forward to a calm year with a major focus on the business.
And now? We're moving. Whether we like it or not.
But here's where the story shifts...
Once the initial shock passed, we felt possibility instead of panic.
Because suddenly, we're not just looking for a new apartment. We're looking at everything.
We could rent a new place in the city — the safe, easy option.
We could buy our first home.
Or... we could sell most of our stuff and travel for a while, work from anywhere, and make memories across continents.
Over the past decade, we've built a digital business that doesn't require us to be in a specific place.
We're flexible, and now we're wondering if this is actually a shot at exploring our freedom in a brand new way.
This freedom is based on thousands of small decisions we made over the years — choosing to build a business we could run together, choosing to keep our overhead low, choosing to create income streams that don't require us to trade hours for money.
We designed a life that could absorb a curveball like this and turn it into a positive opportunity.
So if you're in the early stages of building your own thing (publishing your first posts, growing your first hundred subscribers, creating your first product), know that your current decisions and actions will matter far beyond the immediate results.
You're not just building an audience or a business.
You're building options.
And one day, when life throws something unexpected at you, you'll realize just how valuable those options are.
Worth Your Time This Week
If you're working on growing your Substack, these might help:
→ Medium or Substack? Watch This Before You Decide. — If you've been wondering which platform is the better choice for you, this is the only video you want to watch.
→ The 2026 Substack Notes Playbook — How to write Notes that turn strangers into subscribers.
→ These 17 Substack Notes Went Viral — What you can learn from the ones that actually took off.
→ 5 Ways to Make Over $5,000/Month on Substack Without Selling Subscriptions — Our latest YouTube video breaking down monetization beyond paid posts.
Cheers to building lives we don't need to escape from,
Sinem
P.S. On the way to 1,000 paid subscribers on Substack, we learned everything that matters when building a successful paid newsletter.
And we've recently opened up a handful of spots for our 1-on-1 VIP coaching program, where we help a small group of creators reach their first 100 paid subscribers on the platform.
If you want in, reply and tell me about your Substack - I'll get back to you with suggestions on how we could support you.