I was willing to be underpaid to build this.

There’s no place for ego in business. And here’s the Founding tier.

Hey, friend.

I made a few changes around here, and in the name of transparency (and showing you what’s going on behind the scenes of a writing business), I decided to write about it.

I’ve been offering the Substack Growth Audit for a while now. And here’s the part I haven’t shared yet.

Each Substack Audit took me from 3 and a half to 5 hours. Each member paid me 50 euro (or more depending on the payment solution they used) as it was a bonus for the annual paid tier.

And they get access to premium content, the weekly Q&A and more for a whole year.

So, if you do the math, I’m crazy.

But we’re in the creator economy. Anything is possible. And the traditional business advice doesn’t really apply here.

Plus, being crazy is an asset more often than not :)

Below, I’ll share why being underpaid is a good thing when it’s done strategically (for the record, I didn’t know this in the beginning. Only after doing a few audits did I realize what an asset it is. I could have changed the offer structure sooner, but I didn’t. I had more to learn, and more confidence to build selling on Substack).

Here’s what I learned from doing audits:

• How I reviewed publications, and content and monetization strategies improved with each next one;

• I saw patterns, now I have a lot more to teach and know exactly how I can help my readers, (not everyone, of course, but many have the same struggles and gaps.) And honestly, what I learned gives me solid content ideas to write for years to come. Both free and paid!;

• Substack users are different than anything I’ve seen before. 50 euro is nothing for people here. In the blogging world I come from, it’s a lot. There, I mostly attracted freebie seekers, and my actual courses weren’t easy to sell even though they were very valuable;

• I also didn’t know I could help people on Substack so much, that they value my time so much, that they trust me so quickly, that they give me great feedback and recommend me to others, that they share my work, genuinely want to see me grow, and that paying customers can also be friends. It doesn’t get any better than this. And it initially looked too good to be true. So I had to make sure it wasn’t;

• With this, I’m basically telling you that I needed to get confident selling Substack advice. Something I started learning 5-6 months ago, and I openly say this and make sure everyone knows it. Now, I can confidently charge more for the audit (and upgrade it), and have a Founding tier. Before that, I wasn’t ready yet. The offer wasn’t clear. Now, there’s no doubt.

Here’s the thing:

There’s no place for ego in business.

So if you’re coming from a professional background or a profitable business, and aren’t willing to be a beginner here, it might not work.

This platform is different.

If all my 7- and 8-figure mentors took the time to study Substack and begin writing long-form content, you can do that too even if you have a big pay check already.

The audit did well, but it was deep, time-consuming work. So I had to make it more manageable and take things to the next level.

That’s why in the beginning of September I announced that it will move to the Founding tier in 2 weeks. And the price will reflect that.

And in that first week, many people took me up on that offer. I expected it, and invested all my free time to do audits.

I knew that would never happen again in exactly this way, so it’s fine to do it like this for a bit.

I actually stopped promoting this offer actively (it’s a 2-week promo campaign after all and I could have talked about it much more), because there was enough going on.

And now, things look a bit different around here.

Introducing: The Founding Tier.

It’s here. 🎉

It costs $297, and you get:

• The Substack Growth Audit

And everything from the paid tier including:

• Exclusive articles + full archive;

• Weekly Q&A;

• Behind the scenes updates;

• And more.

Speaking of which, I also want to introduce…

The Substack Growth Audit 2.0

What I learned from the audits I did also allowed me to see more gaps people have that I haven’t dived into, like Engagement on Substack, and where they actually spend their time. It’s often on the wrong things, which takes them away from the activities moving the needle forward…

And as I myself like how I’ve set boundaries and make sure I first take care of high-priority activities, and make it work on limited time and energy (because of being in my first year of motherhood and many other things happening), I guess I can help others narrow things down a bit too.

So the audit will now have a new section.

I’m also upgrading the onboarding experience.

Till now, I was asking people questions in the chat.

Now, it will be a Google form with more questions, so I have more to analyze and more data to work with.

I’m also more specific about the writers I work with. I previously said that the people here I can help the most are the non-fiction writers who’ve already built the foundation, and now need some guidance.

But to get even more specific, this audit will work best for the people teaching something with their written content.

So, the audit is still available as a standalone product (for now), but now costs $397.

And the Founding tier is, of course, the best way to get access to it, as that subscription costs $297, but gives you the audit + everything the paid tier already contains + something even bigger things that will come in the future.

What’s the lesson for you here?

Launch that offer you’re thinking about. Even if it’s not perfect.

You will learn more about sales by doing this and iterating than by reading a post about sales.

It will be uncomfortable. And whether someone buys or not, you might be challenged in ways you never had if that’s your first time selling something.

But even if it’s not, selling on a new platform is slightly different, so it’s worth exploring that.

And don’t forget - selling is serving. And promoting an offer is simply informing people that it’s available, so the right ones can know about it and decide if it’s for them.

So that’s what I wanted to share with you today.

Let me know what you think and if you have any questions.

Also, do you have a Founding tier? What does it offer? If not, are you planning on starting one any time soon?