Substack Notes30 Challenge: February 2025
If you want 1000 subscribers in 2025, join this challenge! You've got all you need: the templates, the strategy, the tools and a custom GPT that writes powerful Notes.
The January Notes30 Challenge is OVER!
Congrats to all participants who completed the Challenges and who already started to gain traction from Notes and subscribers from the app!!!
We made it!!!
Now let’s announce the winners!
WINNERS AWARDS
Winner from January Notes Challenge:
→ ←
Marylee is one of the most active V.I.P. members and for me, it’s no wonder she won that award! Congrats, Marylee!! I can’t wait to jump into our session, I’m sure it’s gonna be so much fun! Looking forward to it!
Award:
→ A spotlight session to talk about your Substack. To give you and your Substack more exposure, I will share this session:
all subscribers
my social media accounts
→ Watch all previous spotlight sessions here.
Time to kick off February 2025!
If you want 1000 subscribers in 2025, join this challenge!
I can’t stop saying this: You have to be on Notes if you’re serious about growing on Substack!
It’s because your Substack growth journey is a balance between these two:
Grow free subscribers
Convert free to paid
Because without having enough free subscribers you won’t have anyone to convert. And this Challenge is your one-stop-shop for free subscriber growth.
You have everything:
Tools - my custom GPT with a brand new massive upgrade to match the changes on Substack
The ever-growing viral Notes templates
My engagement strategy
All you need to do is:
post at least one Note daily (and use my custom Notes Writer GPT from this challenge attached at the end of the post)
interact with others (and use my engagement strategy from this challenge)
That’s it!
No rocket science!
It takes 15 minutes per day!
The Challenge:
PARTICIPANTS:
This challenge is now open for paid members only!
That’s one of the changes this month. I opened it for all subscribers for about three months, and now this “free trial” is officially over :)
Paid and V.I.P. members can:
Join the challenge
Share their Note in the weekly thread
Add themselves to the Accountability tracker
WINNERS AWARDS:
The most active will be entitled to join me in a spotlight session to talk about their Substack. To give you and your Substack more exposure, I will share this session:
all subscribers
in my social media accounts
I know a lot of creators are inviting other popular creators who are already successful but I think people also want to know about the people who are just starting. Not just another success story. Real people with real struggles, real challenges, and real growth insights.
Rules:
I’ll do these sessions monthly after the Challenge finishes.
I’ll invite one of the most active participants in the Challenge based on the Accountability Tracker. Rules:
1. must be in the Accountability tracker
2. must have completed the challenge (at least one Note every day)
3. you can win the same challenge more than once but in different months
4. you can’t win both Writing and Notes challenges in the same month. If you do, I’ll invite the next most active person for a session
We’ll do the session only if you’re willing to. If not, I’ll invite the next most active member until I get a “yes”. Priority of inviting:
1. most active among the VIP members
2. most active among the annual paid members
3. most active among the monthly paid members
Announcement of the winners: start of next Challenge
When do we do the session: during next month upon your availability
How do we do the session: over Zoom. I ask you questions (we initially agree on the list), you talk :). You can prepare slides if you want to (not a must).
The Substack Notes30 Monthly Challenge - February 2025
What you need to do?
Post at least one Note every day.
Add yourself to the Accountability tracker.
Engage with at least 5 Substack members. Apply everything described it the slides below (end of this post)
Share your Notes in the weekly sharing post: I will post one each Saturday, you’ll get it in your inbox. The next one comes later today. And remember to read, like, comment and restack some of the other Notes you like. This is how we help each other grow.
The goal?
To gain subscribers who are engaged with your writing and who can be converted to paid subscribers later.
How?
Follow my guide - attached file at the end of this post.
The Challenge includes (download links at the end of this post):
Link to the Accountability Tracker. Add yourself now!
[UPGRADED] My custom GPT Notes Writer trained to write Substack Notes that go viral. I just upgraded its training using 460 Notes with more than 100 likes each, mostly from writers with smaller audiences (value $69.99) (invite only, you won’t find it in the ChatGPT Store). Read more about this upgrade here.
[NEW] ChatGPT Prompting Strategy to help you write more relatable Notes based on data collected for your audience - in two versions: with the standard ChatGPT 4o model, and with my custom Notes Writer GPT.
[UPDATED] My Content Strategy: what type of Notes get the most traction
[UPDATED] My Engagement Strategy to attract new subscribers that are convertible to paid. You’ll have three modes:
EASY: engage with at least 5 new accounts per day
HARD: engage with at least 10 new accounts per day
TURBO: engage with at least 15 new accounts per day
Two slides with selected recent viral notes examples. You can study and templatize them if you like. I added a slide with ChatGPT Prompt to help you do that with AI.
A set of 9 Notes Templates (including the one that got me 10 200 likes and 167 subscribers) I’m using with a short guide on how to write them and an example from my Notes:
Image [with Canva template]
Opinion
Mini story
Mini listicle
Mini how-to
Mini analysis
Success story
Personal update
Personal Story (based on my first Note with 10k likes!!)
Image with simple text are performing well. They are highly re-stackable. I’ve prepared a Canva template you can easily edit (see resources below).
My Notes Guiding Principles on how to use Notes to gain convertible subscribers. A set of short rules about:
How to write powerful hooks
What types of Notes to write currently
How to engage with others on the platform
List of 17 types of Notes Ideas you can easily craft. If you don’t want to stick to my templates, you can use these as references in case you get stuck.
A set of 28 Writing Prompts Formulated as Questions to provoke thinking rather than give a direction. A new set will arrive each month.
My list of 17 Rules of Short Form Writing I’ve proven to be working on Substack. I used them to train the GPT. The majority of these rules also work on Medium, X, LinkedIn, Quora. You can use them anywhere.
All this will arrive in a short presentation (find the link below). Use this knowledge as a reference. Adapt the templates and guidelines to your niche and style.
Here’s your Challenge pack of resources:
The challenge is for paid subscribers. If you’re a free subscriber, upgrade your plan:
Upgrade your subscription now and you’ll never get a price increase in the future! You can unsubscribe at any time.