9 Secret Business Moves I'm Making In 2025

Or, how I doubled my annual revenue in 4 months

Photo by Radek Grzybowski on Unsplash

Hey y’all!

I’ve been going a mile a minute since 2025 kicked off. I wanted to write a more personal letter to you now.

This is going to be a behind the scenes type post, and it will be juicy.

Look at this like a strategy call with me. I’ll give you some of my secrets, my unfiltered opinions, and tell you where I’ll be spending my attention for the rest of 2025 and why.

I hope you enjoy it.

Let’s start with Substack Notes.

Substack Notes

Substack, for me, is both very exciting and somewhat depressing right now. Let’s start with Notes.

Substack Notes Is A Whole Different Ballgame Now

Last year I managed to average about 300 likes on every Note I wrote. Now I’m averaging about 30-40 likes per Note.

Last year, I felt really in tune with Substack Notes. I was writing stuff that felt fresh, and people were resonating with it. Then, around September, I saw a noticeable decrease in likes and comments on my Notes. The algorithm changed.

At the same time, we started seeing growth hackers migrate to Substack from other platforms, and they started doing what growth hackers do best…

Analyze the frick out of what goes viral, and replicate it themselves.

In a few months, my “unique” messages about slow growth and taking it easy as a creator were absolutely everywhere. People stole my messages because they saw they got views, and, once again, I was left picking up the pieces of what once was.

This happened over a span of months, y’all, not years.

Notes Has Become LinkedIn

Notes has evolved into what every social media platform eventually evolves into:

• The most basic, lowest common denominator content goes viral

I used to see beautiful, long Notes telling vivid personal stories. But as I write this in May, I’m seeing nothing but 50-word Notes on my feed with hundreds of likes about the most basic stuff.

It has become LinkedIn, which was inevitable, I guess. You can’t outrun human preferences, and we prefer to not work hard when we read short-form content. We want it spoon-fed to us. We want the quick hack. It’s just who we are, and that’s, unfortunately, what Notes has become. I’m just being honest.

Notes is now LinkedIn, and I don’t see it ever going back to what we saw last year.

My Clients Are Having Incredible Success On Notes, Though

It’s not all bad on Notes, though. Last year, Notes were very writing-oriented, but now I’m seeing viral Notes in a variety of niches. Notes, in one sense, grew up. And sure, I might not get 1,000+ likes on my Notes anymore, but sometimes I write one that gets a couple hundred. That’s fine with me.

I’ve seen clients of mine go bonkers viral and win 1,000’s of subscribers in days from their viral Notes. I might not be getting crazy traction myself anymore, but 30-40 likes is nothing to scoff at, and my clients have never seen more success on Notes than they’re seeing now. That’s cool.

Substack

Let’s talk about Substack as a whole, now.

This will be a more positive part of this article, I promise. 😆

Paid Subscribers Are WAY More Important Than Free Subscribers

One of the things I’ve realized about Substack is that getting new subscribers isn’t the most important part of the process—it’s converting them to paid.

I’m averaging about 400 new free subscribers per month to my publication, which I’m really happy with, but it’s a drop in the bucket compared to what I was getting last year.

In the past, I would be on high alert about this. But now? Well, it bothers me, but it doesn’t bother me too much.

In the last 4 months, I’ve doubled my annual revenue here at the Writing Long Game, and I’ve found a workflow that should help me double it again by years end.

What changed? Well, I’m providing a mountain of value to people! I created AI tools that help folks write better Notes. I’ve created a community where people can escape the void on Substack. I’ve created mid-ticket programs that sell pretty well.

I’ve dramatically increased the benefits people get for becoming paid subscribers, and I’ve raised the price to reflect that.

I’ve been on Substack full-time for almost 2 years now, and I feel that only now I’m starting to truly understand this platform.

Furthermore, I started offering mid-ticket programs again! Like, $200-$300 programs. If you’re a small creator with a smaller list, these are absolutely essential if you want to make decent part-time money online.

You can make a couple grand easily by running bigger programs once every few months.

One video that really helped me a few months ago was this one by

Nicolas Cole

:

It’s worth its weight in gold. Part of me can’t believe he released it for free. It’s really helped me conceptualize my paid offering, funnel, and more here at the Writing Long Game.

For the last few years, I became allergic to sales funnels. They felt slimy and I HATED writing the emails for them. But in the last few months, as I’ve used AI more and more, I’ve found ways to get AI to help me write these emails so I don’t have to.

It’s been a major boon to my business.

I now have:

• An actual funnel for converting free subscribers to paid.

• A funnel for converting paid subscribers to founding members.

• Plans to offer quarterly mid-ticket programs.

What I realized is, it’s not so much that I hate sales funnels, it’s that I hated making them. I can’t stand copywriting. I’d much rather write a personal email like this one with straight value.

But AI has taken copywriting off my plate, and even helped me rethink some of the preconceived notions I had of sales funnels as inherently “bad.”

Substack’s Network Features Are It’s Best Invention

One thing that makes me feel amazing is that I still get a couple hundred subscribers every month from network features.

These are subscribers that will come to me even if I stop posting on Notes cold turkey. That makes me feel really cozy.

But it’s not just recommendations, it’s guest posts, and Substack Lives, and just getting more involved in the community.

One thing I’ve really underestimated in my life as a solopreneur is the value of collaboration. You can get a lot of new subscribers through a collaboration, and they’re good subscribers because your collaborator’s audience trusts them.

It’s not always a game of posting more content, or creating more paid subscriber benefits.. sometimes it’s just about making some new friends, and giving more than you receive.

I’m inherently a pretty shy guy who doesn’t go out of his way to collaborate, but doing more collaborations, alone, could probably add $10,000 in annual revenue to my bottom line by the end of the year. It’s just something I’ve become a little bit more aware of recently.

Substack Is Still The Best Writing Platform By A Mile

You might read all this and think I don’t like Substack anymore. Not at all! I think it’s awesome here. Notes has become more like LinkedIn, sure, but there’s still great opportunity there.

On Substack, I control my audience at the end of the day. These subscribers are mine, and that makes Substack still the most solid foundation for building a business and following of any social media platform.

Substack IS the home base..

But it doesn’t mean it’s my only base anymore..

TikTok + Youtube

A few weeks ago, I started to make Youtube Shorts again (subscribe here).

Why?

Well, I wanted to create a lead gen on my terms. All the growth hackers have solved Substack Notes, and I can’t compete with them anymore. To compete with them, I’ll have to do it on THEIR terms..

• Post 78 times a day

• Repeat the same messages over and over

• 50 word Notes or less

I don’t want to do that. That’s the part that sucks about a social media platform reaching maturity. Innovation stops. Originality goes out the window. People just copying each other into oblivion.

That just…makes it not fun for me.

I want to do something different. I’ve always loved making videos—especially skits—and sometimes I can be decently funny because for some reason God gave me a face like a piece of putty. I love making ridiculous facial expressions. See for yourself!

So, to TikTok I go. It’s been fun to start from zero again.

I asked ChatGPT what would be best for my business, reposting my Notes on LinkedIn or Threads, or making shorts for Youtube. It recommended Youtube by a mile, which was music to my ears. The rationale was, on platforms like X, or LinkedIn, going viral typically means getting 1,000 likes or so and that’s it.

But on Youtube or TikTok, going viral means getting millions of views, which is a much more powerful type of virality. It can transform your life in a matter of hours.

Another thing I love about videos is that there’s way more opportunities to be creative. Writing is a pretty straightforward medium, but video? You got mise-en-scene, baby. You can paint with your camera. You can become anyone you want by playing different characters. You can let all your personality shine through, which sometimes gets lost in the words we type.

Also, people trust folks they can see and hear more than folks they simply read.

But really, I just wanted to be different from all these growth hacker idiots posting the same slop as everybody else in their niche. I wanted to show some personality, and be me, and leverage everything that makes me different, rather than play by their boring rules.

Will they copy me? Maybe. But I find that my ideas for shorts literally never run out. I just have a pretty good mind for video—I’ve been making them since I was 12. It’s time I start leveraging my strengths again, and build a lead gen that’s fun, can’t be copied, and very powerful.

That’s why I’m on Youtube and TikTok (follow me here).

I’m testing out a variety of video types right now, and ChatGPT tells me I need to post at least 20-50 videos before the algorithm figures my channel out.

Here’s to slow growth!

Artificial Intelligence

It’s no secret that I’ve fallen in love with AI in the last 9 months or so.

AI has transformed my business dramatically in the last 4 months alone. It’s single-handedly quadrupled my writing output, saved me hundreds of hours of work, and helped me move about 3x faster than I typically would (with half the stress, too).

It is absolutely essential to my success, and I have zero idea why anyone who is serious about making money writing online wouldn’t be using it.

Full stop.

But more than that, it’s helped me create tools that scale myself, which have been essential to me doubling my annual revenue so quickly.

Now, instead of me having to spend time giving Notes feedback to all my paid subscribers, I can create a tool that does it for me, and says 95% of what I would’ve said, without it taking up any of my ACTUAL time!

Now, instead of me stressing out about what important action to take in my business, I can describe my dilemma to AI, and get Jeff Bezos grade clarity on what I need to do in seconds.

The amount of mental clarity, stress-relief, and time that AI has given me feels miracle-like.

It’s been so mind-blowing to me that I created a whole ass spinoff section on my publication called Scale Yourself With AI. I’ve learned so much in just 4 months, and I need to teach people how to do what I’m doing, because my annual revenue is skyrocketing, and people LOVE the tools I’m making.

Speaking of…

Paid Subscribers Love What I’m Making

*Eyeroll* Ugh, Tom’s selling again.

No, I’m not. I’m just letting you know how much AI has helped me create tools and tight-knit communities that paid subscribers LOVE.

Ever since I made AI tools like the NoteSmith part of my paid subscription, paid subscriber retention has gone through the roof.

After four months, I’ve retained 86% of my paid subscribers from January, which is way above my 55% average from last year.

I also launched my 45-Day Note Challenge, which people loved, and the Notes Underground community, which was basically made with black magic or something.

Last year, I couldn’t dream of making ANYTHING like the Notes Underground, a place where you can track your Notes stats, find other people’s Notes, find a writing buddy, and escape the Substack void. Never. In. My. Wildest. Dreams.

But with AI, it’s possible, and seeing my paid subscribers literally raving about it, and everything I’ve released the last few months, feels really validating.

In a sentence, paid subscribers are staying because my tools work.

And that’s the most crucial part. If none of this worked, nobody would be staying.

I Feel So Darn Amazing

In general, I feel incredible these days. I feel so excited about what I’m making again in a way I haven’t felt in years.

Substack, AI, and short-form video have coalesced into this delicious cocktail of excitement and joy for me, and I want to ride this wave all the way back to the top.

It’s been a while since I’ve been there.

My business used to make 6-figures a year, but since 2023, I’ve barely made $40,000 a year. It’s just the truth.

But with these moves, and this newfound motivation, I’m confident that it’s only a matter of time before I get back there. And I’ll bring you all along for the ride, don’t worry.

Thanks for reading!

Tom Kuegler