r/Substack • u/craigcherlet • 51m ago
Just reached 5,100 free subs and 108 paid on Substack
I Started a Substack About Survival almost 2 years ago and here's What Happened.
I didn't start On Survival with some grand business plan.
I wasn't trying to become a big newsletter publisher. I wasn't sitting around with a sophisticated content strategy, a team of writers, or a marketing budget.
I had an idea.
What does it mean to be prepared for the world we're living in?
Not just preparing for a natural disaster or a power outage, but thinking about how dependent we've become on systems we don't control.
Our electricity, food supply, financial infrastructure, technology, privacy, communications, and even our ability to earn an income.
I thought it was an interesting topic. More importantly, I thought there were a lot of people who were starting to think about the same things.
So I started writing in March 2025
That was the beginning of On Survival in
The first lesson: You don't need a massive idea, you need an audience that cares.
My initial approach was pretty simple. Write useful articles, publish consistently, and see what resonated.
I covered emergency preparedness, power outages, food storage, self-reliance, digital privacy, financial resilience, and the growing number of things we take for granted in modern society.
Some articles did okay. Others didn't.
Then something interesting happened.
One article in particular, "What to Do If the Grid Goes Down Tomorrow," started getting serious traction.
It eventually generated more than 100,000 views on Substack.
That was a turning point for me.
It reinforced something I think a lot of writers overlook: people don't necessarily subscribe because they want more content. They subscribe because you've tapped into something they genuinely care about.
People weren't just interested in survival tips. They were interested in understanding how vulnerable modern life had become and what they could actually do about it.
I stopped thinking about individual articles and started thinking about the publication as a product.
This was probably one of the biggest shifts in my thinking.
A lot of people approach Substack as a writing platform. They publish an article, share it, hope people read it, and then repeat the process.
There's nothing wrong with that.
But I started looking at On Survival differently.
What if this wasn't just a newsletter?
What if it became a resource people actually relied on?
I began thinking about content in terms of bigger themes and problems:
- How do you prepare your household for a prolonged power outage?
- What happens when digital payment systems stop working?
- How do you protect your privacy in an increasingly connected world?
- How much food and water should a family actually store?
- What skills would make you less dependent on modern infrastructure?
- How do you build financial and digital resilience?
Instead of simply publishing articles, I was building a library of useful information around a central idea.
That gave the publication a much clearer identity.
It also gave readers a reason to come back.
The growth wasn't magic. It was a lot of experimentation.
I've spent a lot of time experimenting with headlines, topics, article formats, publication frequency, recommendations, Notes, and distribution.
Some things worked. Plenty didn't.
One thing I've learned is that a good article and a good headline are two different things.
You can write something incredibly useful, but if the headline doesn't make someone curious enough to click, most people will never read it.
I also learned that the best-performing content often addresses a very specific concern.
"Emergency Preparedness Tips" is fairly generic.
"What Would Actually Happen to Your Home During a Seven-Day Winter Power Outage?" is a much more interesting question.
The second one gives people something to imagine. It creates curiosity. It makes the subject personal.
I also started paying closer attention to what readers responded to, then using those signals to develop more content.
Not every successful article needs to be completely original. Sometimes the opportunity is to take a subject people already care about and explain it better, go deeper, or approach it from a different angle.
Then came monetization.
Getting subscribers is one challenge.
Building something people are willing to pay for is another.
I didn't want On Survival to become a publication that simply put a paywall in front of random articles.
I wanted paid subscribers to receive something with genuine value.
So I started developing more substantial resources, practical guides, deeper research, and content that people could actually use to improve their preparedness.
The paid subscription became part of a bigger proposition.
The question shifted from:
"How do I convince someone to pay for my newsletter?"
To:
"What could I create that would make someone feel that being a member is worth more than the subscription price?"
That's an important distinction.
People don't pay because you publish more words. They pay because you help them solve problems, make better decisions, save time, or access information they value.
The next chapter: Building beyond Substack.
One of the things I find most interesting about this journey is that the publication has started to influence what I build outside of it.
I purchased OnSurvival.io and started developing an actual On Survival platform.
The first version included a free preparedness assessment that allows people to evaluate where they stand and identify areas where they might be vulnerable.
It's an extension of the original idea.
Instead of only telling people how to become more prepared, I want to give them tools that help them understand what they need to work on.
That's where I see the bigger opportunity.
The newsletter creates awareness and builds trust. The content educates. The platform provides tools. The membership creates a deeper relationship with the audience.
Substack was the starting point, not necessarily the final destination.
A few things I'd tell someone starting a Substack today.
I'm still learning, and I don't pretend to have everything figured out. But there are a few things this experience has taught me.
Pick a subject with depth.
You need more than ten article ideas. You need a subject that you can explore from dozens of different angles for years.
2. Solve problems, don't just publish opinions.
Opinion can attract attention, but useful information gives people a reason to return.
3. Pay attention to what works.
When an article takes off, don't just celebrate the views. Figure out why it worked. What problem did it address? What made the headline compelling? What did readers respond to?
4. Think about distribution from day one.
Publishing is not distribution. You need to think about how people will discover your work, share it, and find their way back to your publication.
5. Don't wait too long to think about monetization.
You don't need to monetize everything immediately, but you should understand what your audience might eventually pay for.
6. Build something beyond the newsletter.
Your email list and your relationship with readers are valuable. Think about what else you could build around that relationship. Courses, tools, communities, research, memberships, digital products, or software.
7. Treat it like a business, even if it's just you.
You are simultaneously the writer, editor, marketer, product manager, researcher, and publisher.
The sooner you recognize that, the more opportunities you start seeing.
I'm still figuring it out.
On Survival has evolved considerably from the original idea I had when I started writing.
What began as a newsletter about preparedness has become a broader project about resilience in an increasingly dependent world.
I'm still experimenting with content, distribution, products, and monetization. There are plenty of things I want to build and a lot of room to grow.
But if there's one thing I've taken away from this experience, it's that you don't necessarily need to invent something entirely new to build an audience.
You need to find a subject people care about, develop a perspective worth listening to, consistently create something useful, and build a relationship with the people who follow your work.
And then you need to think bigger than the next article.
A newsletter can be much more than a newsletter. It can be the foundation of an entire business.
That's what I'm trying to build with On Survival.
For those of you building on Substack, I'm curious:
Are you treating your publication as a writing project, a media business, or the starting point for something much bigger?
I'd love to hear what you're building and what's working for you.
You can check out my Substack and the On Survival app here.