became a Substack Bestseller in under a year with her newsletter , all while working full-time.
With no previous writing experience, she originally considered Medium, but took a leap of faith into Substack instead. Her story is a masterclass in starting small, staying consistent, and growing through real connection.
Here’s one smart move that helped her provide true value and grow her paid membership:
She evolved her Substack Chat from casual AMA sessions into weekly growth tips for her paid subscribers, offering them tailored feedback and real value.
“It's similar to building up anything where you have customers. Oftentimes, they don't know what they want to know.
So instead of just framing it as an AMA, I switched it to ‘Hey, I'm going to give you one growth tip per week, and I'm going to look at you personally, how you implemented it.’
For example, Substack rolled out this A/B testing. So, for my paid subscribers, I posted that in the chat, and gave a little background on how to write good titles.
Then I asked them ‘If you get back to me with a recent post you wrote, I'm gonna look at each one there and give individual feedback.’
Those kinds of things just help paid subscribers to feel seen and not just be a random number in your subscriber list.”
Claudia Faith, Wander Wealth
In the full interview, we also talked about:
Her "try and learn" mindset as a beginner
How she found her niche over time
How she built a strong community around her newsletter
Her advice for finding collaborators and connecting sincerely
How a creator with 100k subscribers reached out to her
Her first collaboration experience with Derek Hughes
How live sessions helped grow her newsletter business
Why she switched from Slack to Substack for community engagement
Her strategy for staying consistent on Notes
Current tactics to grow her paid membership
Her content creation and publishing workflow
👉 Check out our full written interview with Claudia Faith if you want to dive deeper into her journey.
Started with zero followers, but a bold idea.
Newsletter Circle is your go-to source for building a successful newsletter business through a paid subscription.
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