🔻 What All the Top Substacks Have: They Know Their Substack DNA

Step 1 in the Substack Starter Pathway

The One Thing That Makes a Substack Succeed ~ Know Your Substack DNA

» If you’re on the 2026 Substack Starter Pathway, this is step 1, where I introduce you to the one thing that all the top Substacks have: They know their Substack DNA. (Just joining? Start here.)

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I was asked to write Substack for Dummies.

And I turned it down.

Many reasons, of course, but here are the main three:

1. There’s no such thing as a “dummy” on Substack—or anywhere, to my mind but mainly on Substack because Substack is maddeningly unintuitive.

2. And the platform changes soooo quickly that a book is too static to keep up.

3. And because what makes Substack great—and what you’re doing on here great—and what actually helps you get subscribers and earn an income and what makes this your internet home—instead of another platform to game and place where you’re not doing enough or you aren’t enough—has very little to do with whatever would be in a book like that.

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What your Substack is