Celebrating 1 year on Substack

This week is special.

I am celebrating one year on Substack!

A big thank you to my loyal subscribers - you are the best.

One year ago I signed up to Substack and I wrote my first post which I called “The Best Time to Plant a Tree was 30 years ago, the Second Best Time is Now” where I outlined my backstory to why I’m taking up writing.

It then took me:

One month to reach 10 subscribers

Seven months to reach 100 subscribers

Ten months to reach 200 subscribers.

After one year of writing, there are now 240 amazing people who are subscribed and reading my newsletter: Scaling Customer Value.

This might seem a small number, but for me it’s huge — it’s almost like I’m running my own little business school here and teaching people how to monetise and engage existing customers.

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Today’s post is dedicated to acknowledge progress made and say thank you to everyone for your loyalty and readership. 🙏

A mind-blowing statistic is that my little blog is now read across 28 US states and 41 countries. Wow!

My analytics also tell me that people in the US like my content.

United States of America, you have good taste.

I would also like to acknowledge my readers especially in India, UK, Canada, Germany and (last but not least) in the rest of the world.

It feels reassuring that one main reason behind the slow but sustained growth of this publication is that there is close my unsubscribe rate is close to zero.

Very few people who have signed up have unsubscribed, so thank you guys for sticking with me.

I hope you are finding my content insightful and useful, and always feel free to reach out to provide me with comments or feedback.

You can message me on Substack, or reply directly to this email to get in touch.

I read every message and I always reply back.

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Also, if you want to share my posts or publication at any point, feel free to do so:

• Some subscribers forward the newsletter email to colleagues or friends

• Others use the share button to send my content to their preferred social media platform

• You can also copy and paste the URL of my posts directly to do the same

For example, one subscriber approached me a while back and mentioned that they had shared some of my content for discussion in their team meeting. I thought that was really nice to hear that feedback and know that my content is coming to use.

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Looking back at this 1-year journey, what words of wisdom can I offer you?

If you came here looking for magic tricks on how to grow your newsletter publication — I am sorry to disappoint, but I have no growth hacks or shortcuts to offer.

I run this newsletter publication largely by following the same methodology as I would in a business environment. I believe in the following principles which I try to apply to my writing:

• Quality over quantity

• Keeping things simple and clear

• Focus on making meaning

• Slow and steady wins the race

• Repetition and consistency

• Small improvements over time which compounds

• Knowing what you stand for

• Less is more

I will conclude this post with a quote from Stephen King:

“The scariest moment is always just before you start.”

Action beats inaction.

Stop thinking, start doing.

There is so much talent out there, and so many different styles.

I’m increasingly convinced there is no right or wrong approach to doing things.

What you need to find is your own voice and express your true self.

MUSICAL CODA

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