Every Chart Tells a Story

Today I woke up and checked my Substack Dashboard. The day starts with 1.000 Subscribers!

This is great and I'm super happy with. This means 1.000 people automatically get a e-mail with my latest articles about Data Strategy in a Nutshell!

This curve represents nearly 3 years of a journey. Going to Substack was rather a “let's try something new” action in 2022. After starting and just relocating some articles from my former Medium site, the result was... nothing. As you can maybe see in the chart.

Lessons Learned No. 1 - in social media just throwing out someting doesn't help much.

In 2023 I wrote an article about Data Catalog in the context of different data architecture patterns. Oops, what happens now? My subscribers jumped up from 3 to 124 within some days. What happend? I post the article in 4 parts with for sure better quality pictures than before and my view incresed tenfold within some days.

Lessons Learned No. 2 - Good quality and regular activity make a big difference.

I did it. I posted more often and than even regularly. I started a real monthly newsletter which gives you a daily read about data & analytics. This was really an success. But to be honest, writing is rather a side hustle for me. And searching and reading all this articles was to much after some months. And it was not the joy I expect from. It was a steep Subscriber curve, but is was also just additional work.

Lessons Learned No. 3 - Do what you love, not only what others like.

From than I tried different things. Book reviews, laws for data, a small series about Data Fabric and so on. This was okay, but my growth curve started to flatten a little bit. In February I wrote an article about "Data Strategy - Why it is important?" which was a great success. I already startet in parallel to write more from my experience in the field of data strategy in a second publication. But after some months I went back and focussed on my main Substack.

Lessons Learned No. 4 - Try out to learn, but always come back to your focus.

Lately I read more Notes in Substack. Something I didn't understand for a long time. I thought it is a kind of Twitter/X or something. Couldn't be more wrong. Notes are the way to connect to the community. And it really works well. In terms of subscribers, my curve has risen very steeply. And Substack became more interactive and interesting for me.

Lessons Learned No. 5 - Get a better understanding how the platform works.

Using the possibilities of Substack just a little bit more, really change the game. And I'm sure, I use 10% or less of the possibilities. But see, 1.000 subscribers is a big number here for me. Data Strategy is somehow a very specific topic. And it's great to see so many people being interested.

Lessons Learned No. 6 - When you understand your business, data helps guiding the way.

So far the story of my chart. As Data People it is always super interesting to be able to see behind the patterns. This will not automatically help you grow, but it gives you an opportunity to create your future.