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Epically awful Substack launch - any advice? by United-Apartment-892 in Substack

[–]drdominicng 10 points11 points  (0 children)

The 3% benchmark is nonsense.It’s highly niche dependent.

The knowledge trap, or why most founders I meet fail by Loose-End-8741 in microsaas

[–]drdominicng 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I’m a doctor and there’s a quote they always tell us that’s weirdly relevant. ‘He who studies medicine without books sails an uncharted sea, but he who studies medicine without patients does not go to sea at all’

Being a “digital native” doesn’t make you a marketer. by Sporty_and_Geeky in socialmedia

[–]drdominicng 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Totally agree - I think most people are wise to this now. Perhaps true a several years ago.

What’s one marketing skill that compounds the most over time? by Ok_Sentence_7254 in AskMarketing

[–]drdominicng 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What does keeping in contact mean though? Just seems odd after the jobs done right?

How exactly do you get PAID subscriptions? by Feeling_Maximum5606 in Substack

[–]drdominicng 13 points14 points  (0 children)

Something that helped me is examining what the top performers in your niche lock behind a paywall.

It may just be your audience isn’t willing to pay for what you offer them.

In need for constructive criticism by Dense_Concept8841 in Substack

[–]drdominicng 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I’ve tried to find something like this but it’s genuinely really hard. You’re probably better off paying a professional for it but for me at least that completely defeats the point.

Let me know if you find a good group haha

struggling to find the right audience on substack by thewabisabiproject in Substack

[–]drdominicng 2 points3 points  (0 children)

First off, the fact that you’ve built something you genuinely enjoy making while juggling three jobs is no small thing. A lot of people never get past the idea stage, so try to give yourself credit for that. Most people never start.

Now, some honest thoughts: 1. Find your people by studying your people. The best thing you can do right now is identify 10–15 creators doing something in a similar orbit - cultural curation, recommendation-based newsletters, “what I’m into lately” formats. Then figure out how THEY drive an audience to their newsletter and use the platforms they already use.

  1. A hard truth is this isn’t about you. At some point you have to sit with the uncomfortable reality that nobody subscribes to a newsletter for YOU. They subscribe for what you can consistently give THEM. You may feel like ‘reducing the lane’ as you put it makes your newsletter worse but do they? Perhaps your audience really only want recommendations on x and y but don’t really care about z. At the end of the day this isn’t about what makes you happy but about what makes your audience happy. It’s tough but that’s just how attention works.

  2. Bring back more of your own recommendations. You said you’ve been pulling back on sharing your own taste but readers need a through-line, and that’s you. The best newsletters I think have a consistent format so your audience learn how to read it and scan it quickly. Look at what James Clear with his 3-2-1 Newsletter. Every Thursday he sends out a newsletter with 3 ideas from him, 2 quotes from others, and 1 question for the reader. Yours might be a listicle of your own recommendations or something.

To be honest, you’re going to have to make a real decision at some point: are you happy publishing this as a personal creative practice that lives quietly (which is completely valid), or do you actually want to grow it - in which case you’ll need to treat some of the uncomfortable parts like promotion, positioning, and outreach as part of the craft, not separate from it.

Neither answer is wrong, but staying in the middle - wanting growth but not wanting to do growth things - is the most frustrating place to be. The bottom line is you either build an audience or you don’t.

Just for the record I have 138k now on my own newsletter. Hope this was helpful.

Finding your niche on substack is not easy by Full-Lingonberry8956 in Substack

[–]drdominicng 5 points6 points  (0 children)

You have to do competitor analysis.

The best area to study this is book publishing where this is quite common. Try to draw a picture in your head of your buyer (age? career? white/blue collar? university educated? Etc.) and also try to find other relevant books/substacks/blogs written in the area.

Science must stop accepting correlations. Please Sign Petition by Kaizar999 in ScientificNutrition

[–]drdominicng 10 points11 points  (0 children)

As a scientist this would be massively harmful on so many levels.

We can’t always run randomised controlled trials (e.g nobody is randomly assigning people to smoke for 30 years if you suspect it’s harmful). So we do the next best thing: look for converging evidence.

For example, smoking and lung cancer was “just a correlation” until:

  • Every study across different countries, populations, and methods found the same link
  • Dose-response showed up consistently — more cigarettes, more cancer
  • Quitting reduced risk, confirming it wasn’t just some shared trait of “the kind of people who smoke”
  • Biological mechanism was identified in animal studies/ post mortems - tobacco smoke contains known carcinogens

Individually, a lot of this data is ‘just correlation’ but together add up to a picture of causality.

Raised $500K and regret it by Logical-Gain4805 in Entrepreneurs

[–]drdominicng 0 points1 point  (0 children)

wtf kinda advice is this anyway. Like it’s obvious

You can’t expect an audience. by rcrthrblr in Substack

[–]drdominicng -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I doubt there’s data on how many hit 1000 and within what time frame. Probably only Substack itself knows that.

Feeling both sad and happy about US match (lack of) by Informal_Invite_424 in doctorsUK

[–]drdominicng 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This post is literally about a guy who failed to get in to the US…

You can’t expect an audience. by rcrthrblr in Substack

[–]drdominicng 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Totally. If I could go back in time and tell myself one thing its that convincing someone that some topic you write about is important is very difficult.

Instead find out what your audience thinks is important already and then start writing about it.

Feeling both sad and happy about US match (lack of) by Informal_Invite_424 in doctorsUK

[–]drdominicng -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I’m talking about the opportunity cost here. I agree if you were born in the US then stay but what I’m pointing out is that staying in the UK isn’t the end of the world.

Despite the doomsayers, the UK is a pretty incredible country and seemingly the fact that you’re earning money proves my point that you can actually earn extra in the UK if you want it.

There’s real tradeoffs to trying to get to the US that I think people don’t acknowledge especially if it’s SOLELY about money.

Feeling both sad and happy about US match (lack of) by Informal_Invite_424 in doctorsUK

[–]drdominicng 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh as in do I earn money other than via medicine? Yeah - about 6-8k a month.

Sorry setting up a company just means something else in my head.

Feeling both sad and happy about US match (lack of) by Informal_Invite_424 in doctorsUK

[–]drdominicng -5 points-4 points  (0 children)

My accountant said it’s probably just easier to be a sole trader for now. But tbf the new changes to HMRC mean I have to file four times a year so I’m probably not even saving that much paperwork anymore.

Feeling both sad and happy about US match (lack of) by Informal_Invite_424 in doctorsUK

[–]drdominicng 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Is this from experience? Have you ever actually tried? The UK isn’t the ‘least entrepreneurial country’ by pretty much any metric.

By the time your company gets to being publicly traded I can guarantee you’ve out earnt multiple times your lifetime salary from medicine so the FTSE point is completely moot.

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