🔻 How to find your Substack DNA (the most important thing you can do for your Substack)
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.)
I was asked to write Substack for Dummies.
And I turned it down.
Many reasons, of course, but here are the main three:
There’s no such thing as a “dummy” on Substack—or anywhere, to my mind but mainly on Substack because Substack is maddeningly unintuitive.
And the platform changes soooo quickly that a book is too static to keep up.
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.
What your Substack is
Your Substack DNA is the core of what makes your Substack you.
It will save you from chasing after tricks, hoping to game the platform, and trying every new feature Substack introduces. Because your DNA is the operational blueprint that determines how your Substack functions, based on your goals, expertise, talents, skills, obsessions, and interests, translated into the right type and mode for the platform.
Knowing it will bring subscribers because there’s no confusion about what your Substack is, who you are, what’s important, what we get as subscribers, etc.
More importantly, it gives us a sense that we’re describing to a person, not a strategy.
What your Substack DNA isn’t
It’s not the stuff you offer—posts, chat, etc. It’s what makes the stuff you offer make sense.
It’s absolutely not your marketing “niche.”
It’s not what makes you “unique” or “different.”
When my clients discover their Substack DNA, that’s when their Substacks really take off. To show you how this might play out, here’s what happened with two of my clients.
Your Substack DNA may be narrower than you think: Petya Grady
Petya K. Grady is the creator of A reading life.
Petya changed her Substack from Lifequakes, about life transitions, to A Reading Life—a wonderful Substack about how we can reclaim our intellectual and reading lives and take responsibility for our inner landscape.
Within a year of figuring out her Substack DNA, she went from 400 subscribers to over 7500.
In the eight or so months following, she was also featured by Substack three (3!) times.
A key moment came during one of our sessions when she realized she should focus on who she wants to be “talking with” rather than “talking to.” (I love this too.)
It happened when she stopped asking What am I an expert in? and instead focused on What am I most interested in? and (I love this) What activates my gossip nerves?
Your Substack DNA may be broader than you think: Emma Vivian
Emma Vivian is the writer behind Attempts at Optimism by Emma Vivian.
Her story of being diagnosed with breast cancer at 29, shortly after her best childhood friend was also diagnosed, and being the only one to survive it, is so compelling but better suited for her memoir. Her Substack, as we discovered while working together, is larger than that.
Initially, it was called Am I Cured Yet? but then she realized she didn’t want to write about cancer all the time. We talked through what her posts had in common. As Emma put it, “I had cancer. I am not cancer.”
The DNA, the core, of her Substack ended up being her outlook on life: attempting optimism despite our natural human pessimism (and without toxic positivity).
It didn’t change what she was writing; it just made her Substack clearer to readers, subscribers, and herself.
Your turn: Find your Substack DNA
I can’t take you through the entire process of finding your Substack DNA in a single post—and don’t feel like you have to know yours right now. But know that with every post I send, you’re honing yours and working from my Substack DNA Growth Framework.™️
For now, answer these questions and move beyond the obvious. Again, this is not about “finding your niche” or what makes you “unique.” It’s deeper than that.
ANSWER IN THE COMMENTS:
YOUR SUBJECT: What’s the topic of your Substack in one or two words?
Wait! Check your archive. Just scroll through the headlines. If you haven’t posted yet, meditate on this: Is that actually what you write about or is it something else?
YOU: What obsesses you about that topic?
Really. Don’t “get ideas” or brainstorm with AI. Check in with yourself. Whatever just came to mind is the right answer. If it feels too simple or too hard, “not interesting” or “not what people want,” great.
What can you talk and write about endlessly and never get bored?
YOUR SUBSCRIBERS: Who do you want to be “talking with” rather than “talking to”?
Continue to Step 2 of the Starter Pack:
SW@W homepage | 24/7 Substack Chat | Book a Substack Strategy 1:1
Hmm, Sarah. One word? Possibility! On Reinvent Yourself (and I know you hate the word reinvention), I write to people who think they are too old, too late, or too stuck in their lives to move forward — written by an 82-year-old who knows better. Blue💙
My Substack dna was inadvertently revealed to me when I put together a post based on suspicions I had about who actually killed Vincent Van Gogh. After muddling along with a handful of likes and subscribes for a year, I hit send on “Vincent and Me” thinking well, that’s weird. Then 10,000 people read it. Eureka! My DNA: weird, but with unsupportable conclusions about great artists. What algorithm would serve that up?