Behind the Scenes

Building a Newsletter on Substack

This is what radical transparency in business looks like

Practical Wisdom

5 min readSep 15, 2024

Here is what we are covering:

Quick Backstory
Why Newsletter
Step by Step (1 to 8)
Next Steps

Quick Backstory

I set out on a sabbatical expecting rest, reflection, and growth. What I didn’t expect was failure. After 10+ years in Data & Tech, as my sabbatical proceeded in Brazil, I found myself teaching in-person workshops, 1:1 classes, and guest lectures on AI for 100+ professionals. What started with a small session for my parents grew into a full curriculum.

Here was my conclusion:

The Problem:

AI is evolving fast, and it can be overwhelming to know which tools are worth your time and how to integrate them into your day-to-day life.

The Solution:

I created a newsletter based on the lectures I was giving and it is meant to breakdown AI tools into stacked habits. Once a month, we break down one AI tool, giving actionable habit forming steps to help professionals integrate them into a routine — no tech expertise required.

Why Newsletter

Because I am a fan of it, I sign up to many and love it. Sometimes, I get a bit overwhelmed. I especially dislike the daily ones. Although the humor of MorningBrew is on point. So, I thought, well I am a busy professional and this method works for me. Perhaps, others will see it too. So, I am currently testing this hypothesis.

Step by Step (1 to 8)

Step 1 — Help & Company

I first built a customGPT called Ana to (1) guide me through this process in a structured manner, as I can get distracted easily, (2) keep me company since I am used to having a team, and (3) to brainstorm and hear me out when I need to vent.

Step 2 — Medium Selection

Decided to use Substack, because Beehive authentication process by phone did not work and I lost my patience. Yes, that simple.

Step 3 — Branding

Name: One AI at a time, the most obvious thing I could think.

For the logo vibe, I had the words: stairs, ladder, zen, hourglass and focus in mind because I wanted a vibe of continuous but controlled progress and in my head these words reminded me of focus and consistency.

Here were some inspo I got from Canva.

Then, I proceeded to make it my own, where the horror starts for any designer, so feel free to skip this part …

The color pallet was inspired by my AI consulting services agency 7anima.

After playing with it and really not getting anywhere, I started to make slow progress, and I mean by now I am 5 hours into this process.

I landed on these 3 options, but would love feedback. The overall idea is that this is a ladder. Do you also see it? I find the first more sophisticated but abstract. The other 2 are cute and fun in my opinion, which makes me slightly more inclined towards it based on projection of myself which sounds like self-confidence but perhaps not paired with branding acumen.

For the youtubers out there, most of the substack tutorials are outdated and did not represent the actual platform. So, I spent more time than I would have liked figuring it out.

My main inspo for design was this newsletter.

Step 4 — Pause & Energize

Here I walked Katchucha Wakanda (my dog) and watched one episode of Rings of Power. Then, I had an idea of adding a genie wish to my newsletter, and got energized to go back to the grind.

Step 5— Email automatic replies

I was surprised with the amount of options depending on where your user is in the customer journey. I went one by one and made it unique. See below some of the examples of what it looks like.