Four Month On Substack: The Best Shift That Happened
3 product launches, unexpected earnings, subscribers, and mental shift that fuels my next move
3 product launches, unexpected earnings, subscribers, and mental shift that fuels my next move
Published: March 23, 2025 URL: https://buildtolaunch.ai/p/four-month-on-substack-the-best-shift Engagement: 31 likes, 12 comments, 1 restacks Word count: 1124
When you first start writing, what’s your ultimate goal?
Honestly, when I began my Substack journey four months ago, I had no clue.
Believe it or not, my initial intention was simply to document my research on building a house! Yep, pretty niche, I know. Gradually, I thought, “Why not record some job-related insights too?” It might be handy later.
Little did I realize, this simple decision would lead to an exciting chain reaction.
Image generated by ChatGPT 4.5
Writer’s State — Finding My Voice
When I first joined Substack, I’d already tasted a bit of success on Medium, earning around $150 per month. Not life-changing, but it gave me huge confidence to explore writing.
On Medium, I wrote about everything that crossed my mind: programming tips, relationships, housing, parenting, random musings about life.
I assumed transferring this content style to Substack would be straightforward. But I soon learned that random topics weren’t enough. My first month on Substack had zero interaction and engagement. For an average people like me, real growth come from engaging authentically with others, cheering their successes, and learning from vibrant interactions.
That’s when it hit me: I needed a focus, a clear theme that could serve as a springboard if I ever chose to pivot my life.
Builder’s State — Embracing the Challenge
Here’s an amusing fact — I mistakenly thought every Substack account was supposed to have a dedicated newsletter. This misunderstanding turned into one of the best “mistakes” I’ve ever made.
Building a newsletter forced me to confront important questions:
What do I really want from my writing? What excites me?
This self-reflection sparked my deep dive into AI. To ensure I’d follow through, I set a **challenge — completing 30 AI projects **— to sharpen my skills and truly understand this transformative technology.
In this process, I experienced a significant mental shift. I no longer saw myself as merely a conveyor of knowledge — after all, AI often explains things better (and in a more customized way) than I do. Instead, I became excited about the hands-on experience of building something tangible and sharing that journey.
I noticed a loneliness in this field: many people discuss AI concepts, compare models, but very few actually build something complete from scratch.
Why just talk about AI when I could create something meaningful?
I decided to jump in, figuring, “Why not? I have nothing to lose.”
This fascination led me to focus intentionally on three core values:
- Build meaningful things
- Execute quickly with quality
- Engage with real users and value growth-oriented ideas
At this stage, I chose a name that summed up my mindset: Code, Write, Build.
This mindset made me constantly ask:
Is there a faster, smarter way to reach my goals?
Solopreneur’s State — From Idea to Market
Adopting this builder’s mindset made me curious about the entrepreneurial side of things. I constantly saw others publishing products and wondered, maybe I should try this too — what’s the worst that could happen?
My first attempt was an AI-powered local image searching app. When I bravely launched it on Reddit, I received tons of harsh but valuable critiques. Surprisingly, this feedback energized me — it was thrilling that total strangers were engaging with my product and openly sharing their thoughts.
Screenshot on Jan 23rd, 2025 - from Jenny’s post on SideProject subreddit
As I stepped deeper into Substack, I recognized the power of concise writing — short, reusable notes on Substack could massively boost engagement. But creating these notes manually was tedious. That inspired me to transform long articles into short notes automatically, they can then be re-used multiple times, boosting engagement and exposure.
I decided to automate this with AI. I gathered popular note templates, analyzed my work thoroughly, and found half of the generated notes surprisingly useful — far beyond my expectations. This experience led directly to creating and properly launching Quick Viral Notes (QVN). My subscription numbers shot up beyond my anticipation, jumping from fewer than 100 to more than 300 in one week.
Screenshots of great feedback combined by Jenny
This launch changed how I view my publication. I realized I was deeply passionate about the process of taking something from an idea to a real product launch. That led me to rename my publication to reflect my true passion: Build to Launch.
Having always been shielded by school and corporate environments, I longed to engage with a real market, where genuine user interest — and criticism — define success. The thought of solving real problems, especially my own, and then turning them into viable products excited me enormously.
Why not center my newsletter on building products and genuinely leveraging AI to enhance all aspects of life — work, social processes, curiosities, and more?
Sure, the path would be uncertain and full of challenges (sometimes AI can feel slower than doing it manually!), but the vision of freely building essential products using AI is incredibly motivating.
Creations: Small Milestones Along the Way
Throughout these four transformative months, I’ve created several Generative AI projects, three of which turned into atual products, each marking a milestone in my personal growth:
- Image Finder: My first experimental AI app — pure exploration after joining Substack.
- Quick Viral Notes: My first serious integration of AI into my workflow, teaching me that people genuinely appreciate AI-driven solutions. Its success surprised and greatly encouraged me. Along with the app’s popularity, my subscription count surged dramatically.
- Substack Explorer: Not as immediately impactful as QVN, but deeply meaningful for my long-term vision. Imagine the possibilities: personalized growth strategies, identifying relevant creators, and more. I’m planning to find patterns for myself and apply strategic growth with this tool.
Each project deepened my understanding of building apps: quality code and disciplined principles aren’t optional — they directly affect your wallet, your effort, and your mental state.
What’s Next?
The unexpected hype around QVN was exciting, but now I’m returning to the ground, focusing on deeper, meaningful projects. I want to identify real problems that matter to me, my family and friends, resolve them thoughtfully with AI.
Although QVN and Substack Explorer were quickly built, there are numerous ways they can scale and improve. Since I promised lifetime use to my paid users, making them sustainable and fully functional is a priority.
For Substack itself, I recently discovered another potential growth hack with Substack Explorer. I’ll experiment on myself first, then share my findings openly.
And alongside this, I’ll keep building, launching, and iterating apps. That’s how I learn, grow, and truly engage with people.
Thanks for joining me on this journey! I’m still a small newsletter, experimenting and exploring growth on Substack, but I’m genuinely excited to see where the next few months take us!
Have you experienced a similar mental shift or growth in your own journey? Share it in the comments, I’d love to hear your story!