As someone who's been publishing content online for nearly a decade, I've heard a thousand versions of the following statement:
"I tried [platform] for a few months, and it just didn't work for me."
Whether it's Substack, Instagram, LinkedIn, or YouTube, it always boils down to the same core problem.
Usually, that statement comes from people who are genuinely good at what they do.
They have the expertise. ✅
They have a real audience somewhere else. ✅
They showed up, published for a while, watched the numbers sit still, and quietly decided the platform wasn't for them. 😵💫
If I'm honest, I used to nod along to that story for years because it sounded reasonable:
You did the work, the work didn't pay off, so the tool must be broken.
But here's what I want you to hear: in almost every one of those cases, the platform was working perfectly.
The part you didn't see is that platforms are amplifiers, not magic solutions.
If you point visibility at a sharp message and a clear offer, you'll win.
If you point it at a fuzzy message and weak offer, you'll stay stuck - no matter how "trending" or "rapidly growing" the platform is.
Platforms don't hide your weaknesses, they expose them.
Think of it like turning up the volume on a song. If the song is in tune, a bigger sound fills the room. If it's out of tune, all the volume does is make everyone hear the wrong notes sooner. 😅
So when someone tells me Substack isn't working, I don't ask about their posting schedule. I ask them three questions their readers are silently asking every time they land on the page:
- Who is this actually for? (a specific person, not "creators and entrepreneurs")
- What do you help that person do?
- Why would they pay you for it, instead of reading your free posts forever?
If you can't answer those in a sentence each, no amount of Notes activity or posting cadence will save you.
That's not a platform problem. It's a clarity problem.
Luckily, clarity is fixable.
It's just a different kind of work than most creators want it to be.
It's slower and less fun than a shiny new growth tactic, but it's the thing that makes every tactic afterward actually work.
So here's the test you can run next week: Open your own Substack publication the way a stranger would, and imagine you're a brand-new reader with no context about who you are.
Read your one-line description.
Read your About page.
Scroll through your publication.
And imagine how long it takes someone to find an answer to the following question:
Why should I care about this?
If it takes longer than ten seconds, you have some work to do.
Worth Your Time This Week
→ What Is Substack? A Complete Beginner's Guide. Our full walk-through of setting Substack up as a system, from positioning to your first 90 days.
→ How to Grow on Substack. The growth fundamentals that actually move the needle once your message is clear.
→ How to Grow Your Substack in a Niche Market. Why a sharp, narrow message beats a broad one, especially early.
Clarity first, volume second.
Cheers to your growth,
Sinem