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I started writing online in 2018

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with no audience, no brand, and no idea what I was doing. And throughout my journey,

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one piece of advice kept coming up no matter who I listened to or what I read. It was build your email list. I didn't fully understand why. I didn't have a product to sell. I didn't even have a clear topic yet, but I did it anyway. I started building my list from day one. And looking back, that's one of the smartest business decisions I've ever made. Now here's what most creators do instead. They spent months,

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sometimes even years building an audience on Instagram, YouTube, or LinkedIn.

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They grow. They get views. They get followers. And then one day, they realize they don't actually own any of it. The platform changes the algorithm, their reach drops overnight, and they have no direct way to reach the people who actually like their work. Because here's what nobody tells you early enough. Visibility without an email list is just a hobby. It's not a business. And in this video, I'm going to show you the fastest

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and honestly, the easiest way to build your email list in 2026.

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You don't need a following to start. You don't need a complicated tech setup, and you definitely don't need to be on every social media platform to do it. So let's get into it. Most creators treat email list building as a phase two thing. They think that they need visibility first, and they try to build an audience without building a list. But that logic has a serious flaw because the visibility you build on social media doesn't really belong to you. Your followers don't belong to you. Your YouTube subscribers

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don't belong to you. But every single person on your email list, that's really yours. That's a direct line of communication

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that no algorithm can take away from you, at least not as easily as a platform. And I see this happen constantly.

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Creators spend two, three years grinding on platforms, and then they launch something, a product, a course, a service. And that's when they realize they have no real way to convert their audience

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into buyers

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because followers

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are not the same as subscribers.

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A subscriber is committed to hearing from you. A follower, on the other hand, isn't even likely to see your content when you hit publish the next time. And here's the thing, you don't have to choose between building visibility and building your list. You can do both at the same time if you use the right platforms and the right strategies right now. Now the obvious question is, where do we actually build this thing? Because that's where most people get stuck. They know they need a list. They just don't know where to start. And when they look at the options, they feel overwhelmed. So let me tell you exactly

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where I would start if I were beginning

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today.

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The tools most people think of first,

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like, Kit, Beehive,

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Mailchimp,

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the big email service providers,

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they are incredibly powerful, but they come with a learning curve, a setup process, and in most cases, a monthly cost before you've sent a single email or made a single dollar. Now for a lot of creators,

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that friction is enough to stop before they even set up a list. And this is exactly why I've been recommending

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Substack to my audience and clients for years,

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long before I've actually been on the platform myself.

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The reason is simple. Substack is the perfect place to start your email list if you feel overwhelmed by complex email service providers and don't want to go through the hassle of the tech setup behind the scenes as a new creator. With Substack, you don't have a complicated dashboard,

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complex automations, and a thousand different settings to fix before you can send out emails. You sign up, you start writing, and people who like your work and want to read more subscribe by clicking a single button. The barrier to entry is as low as it gets, and that matters more than people realize because the tool you actually use is always better than the perfect tool you never even set up. And in 2026,

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Substack actually has advantages that no other platform can compete with. Now let me give you the full picture. When Substack was first launched, it was a publishing tool. You could write, you could send newsletters,

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you could build a list. But getting discovered by new readers was entirely on you. You had to bring your own audience to the platform. But in April 2023, Substack launched notes, which is a built in social feed of short form content that circulates through the platform, gets recommended, gets shared by other writers, and reaches readers who have never heard of you before. Now you can actually start a Substack with no audience and grow inside the platform itself.

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And since then,

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has continued to build out discovery and collaboration features, recommendations between publications,

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cross promotions,

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guest posts, live streams, even an entire recording studio for audio and video directly directly inside

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the app. The platform is growing rapidly right now. Big voices across the creator world are publicly talking about why they are paying attention to Substack. And if you've spent even a couple of hours actually using Substack as a reader, you will understand why. It feels different. It feels calmer,

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more intentional, less engineered to keep you scrolling just for the sake of it. So right now, Substack is genuinely one of the most interesting opportunities available to any creator who wants to build an email list from scratch. So let me show you how to actually get started and make the most of your email list on Substack right now. But before I walk you through the actual setup, I have put together a free resource called the Substack Starter Kit with everything you need to launch and grow your Substack,

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including a setup checklist, a content planning system, and a strategy guide. I'm linking it below so you have instant access to all the info and can get started right away. Now let's talk about how to actually start and grow on Substack. The first thing you need to understand before you touch anything on Substack is this. Your profile and your publication are two completely separate thing. Your profile is you. This is your name, your photo, your bio as a person. It exists across the entire platform

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and follows you everywhere whenever you comment, whenever you engage with someone, or enter a collaboration.

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Your publication

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is your brand. This is essentially your newsletter.

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It's the home for your content and your subscribers,

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and it is everything you publish. It has its own name, its own homepage, its own identity,

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and it's what people actually subscribe to. A lot of new creators don't realize that there's even a difference, and they end up with a publication that's just their first and last name and with no clear focus or identity.

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But you are actually supposed to give your publication its own name, its own angle, its own reason to exist. This is completely separate from who you are as a person. It's even possible to create more than just one publication if you do want to write about multiple completely

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different topics. Your publication homepage is essentially your storefront.

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Substack gives you a lot of flexibility in how you design it. You can use a header, a tagline, a welcome post pinned at the top, sections that organize your content by topic, and a subscribe blog that converts visitors into subscribers with a custom message. And you really want to take your time to build your publication page because when someone discovers you through notes, for example, or recommendations

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or a search result, this is where they land. They will check out your publication main page. And the goal here is very simple. A first time visitor should immediately understand

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what your publication is, who it's for, and why they should subscribe. If these things are not obvious in the first few seconds,

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the visitor is likely going to be gone. Now let's talk about the two main types of content on Substack. These serve completely different purposes and most new creators either don't even know the difference or they treat them the same way simply because they don't understand how to make the most of each type. So on Substack, your posts are essentially your newsletter. These are long form posts and they usually go out via email to your subscribers.

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These posts also live on your publication's homepage.

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Posts usually do the heavy lifting of building trust. They can also be indexed by search engines, which means they can bring in cold traffic from people searching for topics you write about, completely independent of anything you do on the platform itself. Now notes on the other hand are different. This is your short form social feed. A note can be a short thought, an observation,

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a question, a short take on something relevant to your niche. It can even be a photo or a quick video. Notes circulate through the Substack Network. They get shared by other writers. It's what we call restacking,

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and they can reach people who have never heard of you simply because the notes algorithm is pushing content in front of people who might be interested,

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just like most social networks do. And here's the key principle. Your posts build depth.

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Your notes build reach. If you are starting from zero, notes is how new people will find you. And when they land on your publication,

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thanks to a note they saw, your posts will convince them to subscribe and stay. So here's the most straightforward approach that we recommend to most of our clients. Publish one post per week and show up on notes daily. The more consistently you show up, the faster the list will grow. It's as simple as that. Now I want to talk about Substack's paid tier real quick because this is where a lot of new creators get excited, but also where they get distracted

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from the actual goal. Substack makes it simple to set up a paid subscription tier. You set up a price, decide what's behind the paywall, and you are essentially done. But here's what I actually want you to understand. The paid tier on Substack is a real business opportunity.

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It's a genuine proven revenue stream that thousands of creators are already building and leveraging right now. We know this firsthand at Rightbuildscale, and it's a big part of why I'm talking about this platform specifically.

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We have grown to more than 1,600 paid subscribers within less than two years, and it's generally one of the most exciting opportunities

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to build hot leads for the rest of your business if you already have one. And let's be honest, the opportunity to monetize your newsletter through paid subscriptions

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is real right now, but the timing matters. Because if you are just starting from scratch with a small list or no list at all, launching a paid tier right now is not going to move the needle for you. It's not because the model doesn't work, but because the timing just isn't right for you yet. Because any product needs an audience that you can sell it to. And in the early days, building the audience is the work that you should actually be focused on. So here's how I want you to think about it. The paid tier is not a day one decision. It's a milestone. You build your free publication. You grow your list. You deliver consistent value, and then you introduce the paid tier when you actually have enough subscribers to launch it to. Because when you do it, you want to do it properly, and you want to see real tangible results.

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The opportunity isn't going anywhere. And when you're ready to activate it, you will be set up to do it in a way that actually works. Because the most disappointing thing is to set up a paid tier, only have a handful of paid subscribers,

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and show up week after week creating paid content for just a few people. Build the audience first and take it one step at a time from there. Now let me give you the actual starting point and the realistic picture of what your first few weeks could look like. First, you create your Substack account and you set up your publication. Obviously, this is the starting point. It's crucial. You want to give your publication a clear name and a short tagline that tells visitors exactly who this is for and what they can expect. Don't overthink the small decisions. You can always tweak them later, but make it clean and clear to start with. Number two, write and publish your first post. It can be short. It can be an introduction. It can be about who you are, what you write about, and why you started. Just publish something to get familiar with the platform right away. Barely anyone is going to see your first few pieces anyway. This is your opportunity to practice in silence. Number three,

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start showing up on notes. At least a few times a week, ideally even daily, share something short, a thought, an insight, something you noticed, and engage with notes that genuinely resonate with you. If you've already been creating content elsewhere,

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this is a perfect opportunity to repurpose your existing work. Now within your first week, you should have a solid feel for how the platform works. But here's what makes Substack different right now. The culture on the platform is genuinely collaborative.

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People share each other's work. They support each other. They respond to comments. They recommend publications they actually like. It's not the cutthroat engagement farming that you see on other platforms right now. It's closer to a community than the social networks that we are used to. And that means that showing up authentically,

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having real conversations,

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and being genuinely

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in other people's work is not just the right thing to do. It's also the fastest way to grow. I would even say it's also the most fun way to grow because you get to talk to really interesting people. So lean into that. Have conversations with people. Share your perspective. Comment on other people's work. Be active in publication chats.

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Go where your audience might already be hanging out on the platform and meet them right there. And if you want to get started right away, the Substack Starter Kit is linked below. It's waiting for you. It's free and it will walk you through everything we covered today and much much more so that you're not staring at a blank page anymore. And if you want to build a paid tier and make money directly through paid subscriptions on Substack, watch this video next where I break down exactly how to build a Substack publication that generates real recurring revenue. The strategy, the positioning, and what actually makes the difference between a publication that grows and one that stalls. I'll see you there.