What Does Success on Substack Actually Mean?
What the hell does "You failed at Substack!" mean?!
How many times today have you opened the stats tab before you’ve even finished your coffee?
I’m not asking rhetorically. I’m asking seriously, because I know the answer, and it’s uncomfortable.
You post something, close your laptop, tell yourself, “Done, I’ll let it live its own life,” and then eight minutes later you’ve already opened the app again, staring at the “views” count as if it’s going to tell you something about you as a person.
It doesn’t. It never has.
But you keep checking because someone, somewhere, has convinced you that this number is the measure of everything.
And this is where I get a little annoyed, because it really bugs me how monotonously the same message is repeated everywhere, no matter where you hear it.
You open a video by some “expert” (I won’t mention any names) on the topic, and he explains to you with a smile how many subscribers you’re supposed to have by the third month.
You open another one, and he shows you a screenshot of his earnings, like an artist showing off a trophy.
A third person shows you a graph with growth from zero to fifty thousand readers and tells you, “Here’s the formula.”
Formula.
As if writing were a dough that follows a recipe, and if you add the exact grams of ingredients, you’ll end up with the same loaf of bread.
The problem isn’t that the numbers exist.
The problem is what they do to your mind once you start trusting them more than you trust yourself.
You start writing headlines that sound right to the algorithm, not because you actually want to write them.
You look at which creator crossed the ten-thousand-subscriber mark this month and feel that cold, awful feeling in your stomach—which has nothing to do with being happy for them, but with how small you feel next to their success.
And the worst part is, there will always be someone with more.
Always.
Even the one with fifty thousand subscribers looks at someone with two hundred thousand and feels bad. The chase never ends, because it’s not meant to end—that’s the whole mechanics of the thing.
I’ll tell you when I myself realized just how deeply this can pull you in.
I’d been writing for three months straight, and every night before going to bed, I’d check the stats as if it were a religious ritual.
I didn’t look at what I’d written. I looked at how many people had opened it.
If the number was lower than the last time, I’d go to bed with that awful feeling, as if I’d failed an exam that no one had even given me.
If it was higher, I’d feel good for maybe two hours, until I went to bed and woke up with the same question the next day.
I wrote articles that I thought would “perform well,” instead of articles I actually wanted to write. I looked at which headlines “worked” instead of asking myself if I even believed what I was saying.
And then a person I didn’t know at all left a comment under a post I’d published almost reluctantly, because I didn’t believe it would interest anyone.
He wrote that the text had prompted him to call his father that very evening, after two years of silence between them. I don’t know exactly why that particular combination of words resonated with him so deeply.
But as I sat in front of the screen, I realized that this single comment meant more to me than all the followers I’d gained that month combined.
The numbers haven’t disappeared, but for the first time, they’re no longer the only thing I look at at night before going to bed.
From then on, I’ve been thinking differently, and I won’t pretend to have a “balanced” view on the matter, because I don’t think in a balanced way—I think concretely.
I believe that subscriber numbers are a measure of reach, not of value.
I believe that paid subscriptions show how many people are willing to pay, which is great for your bank account at the end of the month, but says nothing about whether your words meant anything to them.
I believe that “likes” are a reflex of the thumb, not an acknowledgment of the mind.
And I believe that anyone who sells you the idea that success is measured exclusively by these numbers does so because it’s conveniently measurable and easy to sell as a ninety-nine-dollar course, not because they truly believe that’s where the meaning of writing lies.
To me, success looks different and sounds almost too simple to be true, but that’s exactly why I believe in it.
Success is when someone waits for your next post, instead of just scrolling past it among the other fifty things in their inbox.
Success is when someone forwards your text to a friend with a comment like “this sounds just like you” or “read this, I’m thinking of you.”
Success is when a reader writes to you that after reading something you wrote, they looked at their own life a little differently—not because you told them what to think, but because you gave them the words they couldn’t find themselves.
Success is when people start to recognize your voice even without seeing your name at the top, because you’ve written something so uniquely yours that it can’t be mistaken for anyone else’s.
Success is a community, not an audience.
An audience just watches. A community stays, responds, argues with you, and comes back—because they care about you as a person, not because an algorithm shoved your text to the top of their inbox.
The gurus won’t sell you this definition, because you can’t turn it into a course with worksheets and a Module 3 titled “How to Reach Ten Thousand Subscribers in Ninety Days.”
You can’t put a price on this definition. You can only live it, day after day, post after post, until you realize you’ve stopped checking the stats every five minutes because you already know what’s important.
The number on the screen will disappear one day, along with the screen itself.
The conversation you’ve created with other people through your words will not.
These types of posts will always remain free, but if you’d like to support me, the best way is with a cup of coffee☕
P.S Have you seen the new templates for Notes yet?
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Subscriber count is a graveyard of people who clicked and forgot.
I definitely try not to compare myself to others even though I see some who started after me have a few hundred more and keep growing. But I also know I prefer a meaningful community of people who want to read, explore and engage. And I know my time will come soon enough.