Have Less Than 100 Subscribers? Here's The 4 Best Ways to Grow
The answer's sort of obvious..
Imagine this.
You need to grow your Substack, but you can’t post articles or Notes.
The Substack gods literally forbid it.
What would you do first?
Cry?
Yeah, sounds about right.
And I get it! Notes, even in August of 2025, is still the best way to grow on Substack.
But here’s the thing..
You don’t need to post 5 Notes per day to grow here.
It turns out, even in August of 2025, there’s still so many non-growth-hacky things you can do to get more Substack subscribers that have nothing to do with posting Notes or Articles.
In this article, I’ll walk you through 4 ways to do just that.
1. Send Every New Subscriber, Commenter, Or ‘Liker’ A DM
I want to shout out
because I first heard her talking about how she does this with new subscribers.I don’t know if she does the same for commenters and likers, so I’ll expand it to that.
“Tom, this doesn’t grow my Substack!”
Umm, yeah it does.
Let me explain something.
All you need to grow meaningfully on social media, in general, is about 20-30 raving fans. You know how you create raving fans?
By showing them some gratitude.
Yeah! It turns out, being a normal human being who takes 5 seconds to say “Thank you” can go a long way online! Especially in 2025, where all the growth hackers want you to do is post 904 times per day on social media and ignore your readers like they’re peasants or something.
I mean, sure, writing a lot of 100-word Notes is great for growth.. but I’d argue a 2-word “Thank you,” said 3-5 times per day, can be more powerful than publishing 3-5 Notes per day.
This is dangerous information that the growth hackers don’t want you to know.
Burn after reading, please.
Why do you only need 20-30 raving fans?
Because #1, it’s so cool to develop an actual relationship with your audience..
But #2, it feeds naturally into how algorithms work.
If you had 20-30 people commenting on your posts every time, the odds your posts will get pushed to their followers is very high.
This is how fires are started on social media: A lot of people comment on a post all at once, and it gets pushed to more people because of it.
And guess what? The vast majority of content creators don’t do this at all. Like, probably 90 percent. This requires effort, that’s why, and it’s not as “sexy” as going viral.
But it is something every single creator can do starting right now. DM every Note/Article liker, commenter, or new subscriber/follower, and say thank you. Try to strike up a conversation. It goes a long way!
2. Read The Writing Of Folks Who Like, Comment, Or Subscribe To Your Work
Let’s build on what we said in step 1.
Past saying “Thank you,” you can take time to read the work of folks who liked, commented, or subscribed to your work.
If they don’t publish stuff, that’s fine, just skip them.
I did this on Medium in 2017. I created a huge list of folks who commented on my articles, along with links to their Medium profiles. Every day, I’d go through the list of names, pick 5 of them, and spend time reading their work, and leaving a thoughtful comment.
Key word: Thoughtful.
Not “Great job!”
I’m talking like 2-3 paragraphs, baby. Big, long responses that I actually took 10 minutes to think about and write.
“That’s too much work, Tom!”
EXACTLY!
That’s EXACTLY why it worked.
Nobody else wants to do this. Everybody else just wants to go viral, or whatever. When I left these comments on my own readers work, it was like the equivalent of baking them a cake and hand-delivering it to them at their doorstep.
Who the bleep has time for that? Who the bleep is thoughtful enough to do that?
You are! And basically nobody else! That’s why it works.
If you’re a writer reading this right now who gets next to no engagement on their posts… how would it feel if I read your work and left a long 5-10 sentence comment on it?
Pretty good, right? It’d be like, the best gift you could receive today. You’d also remember I did that forever. What’s stopping you from giving that gift to someone else?
Sometimes the best methods to grow an audience are slow and thoughtful, not loud and obnoxious.
3. Find The Work Of Folks Who Have No Readers And Leave A Comment
This is a cousin of step #2.
It has to do with finding the work of folks who have 0 readers and giving them some love.
How do we do this?
Easy.
Go to your favorite Substacker’s profile.
I like
so I’ll use her for this demonstration.
Great, now click on the “Michael, Alexander, and 4.2K+ other subscribers” esque link there.
Great! Now you’ll see a screen like this..
Now scroll.
As you do, you’ll see folks you aren’t following. Those who have a Substack publication will have their publication showing beneath their name, like
here.
Great, now click into a few people’s Substack from this list who have publications.
Check out their work!
Do you like it?
Does it look like they aren’t getting a lot of traction?
Give them a chance.
Leave a comment.
Maybe even subscribe, if you really love their work.
Go on, make a writer’s day.
This is a fantastic way to find lesser-known Substackers who deserve more love, and I see no major Substack gurus talking about it.
If some random person left a thoughtful comment on your work when you’re getting 1-2 likes per article, what’s the first thing you’d do besides respond?
You’d probably go to their profile. Check them out. Maybe return the favor.
Here’s a pro tip: Search the Substack profiles of folks who write similar content to you.
Odds are, folks who follow these creators probably write about similar things to them, and by extension, you. So the fit is more natural.
4. Just Scroll Your Notes Feed And Leave Comments
This one’s obvious, but still very valuable—especially if you target folks who aren’t getting many likes at all.
If you scroll your Notes feed, you will find Notes that have 0-5 likes eventually. Leaving comments on these Notes (only if you legitimately like what they said) can be a great way to get on people’s radar.
If you really like their work, follow them.
The odds they check out your work in return are pretty large.
Do this every day for the next 30 days, and I guarantee you’ll see your average likes/comments go up on the work you DO publish.
If You Have 0-100 Readers, These Are Literally The Best Things You Can Do
If you have less than 100 readers, I’d be willing to say that you almost shouldn’t be posting notes at all.
You should be taking the time you would spend posting Notes, and just leave comments.
Do that for 30-60 days.
Now, you have a warmed up audience who’s ready to see your Notes, and give them enough traction to actually warrant posting them in the first place.
Here’s a harsh truth about social media: Your readers won’t magically find you. You got to go get them.
Especially if you have never built a following anywhere before. You have zero readers mostly because nobody knows who you are, not because your writing is bad.
Change that by commenting.
I guarantee you’ll see results.
If you ARE ready to post Notes, I put together a 24-page PDF with 25 Viral Substack Note Templates — it's a breakdown of my own most successful Notes, plus templates and prompts you can use to write your own.
Subscribe to get it here — totally free!
Thanks for reading!
Great post. It's good and helpful to offer people advice on growth.
Brilliant tips. I like the one about looking at the followers of someone you like, and finding some great substacks there.