How to Build a 12 Hour Substack + Course Business

I see some course creators struggle with audience.

And I see some Substack newsletter writers struggle to get paid.

You see, Substack is a great platform for writing newsletters and getting your free information out there to change lives.

And if you want a paid higher tier of your content, you can do that on Substack super easy with paid memberships.

And having a course is a great way to get paid for your expertise, and get a higher level of your training information “out there” so it’s changing lives.

But at some level, if you ONLY have a Substack and a low ticket upgrade membership . . . you are leaving money on the table and likely also not impacting lives the way you can.

And if you have a course but aren’t getting it into enough hands, then you aren’t changing enough lives either.

So what if you were to bring both together?

Substack + Your Courses

When you do this, it’s like a symbiotic relationship inside of your business that allows you to both scale audience and sales at the same time.

And if you work it right, and use a strong layer of simplicity, you can have a nice home business writing a few newsletters a week, creating a new course from time to time, and possibly holding live virtual classes from time to time (which you convert to courses as well).

Here’s what it looks like:

• 3x - 5x Substack Newsletters Per Week

• Promote daily in Notes and in external social (X, linkedin, medium, YouTube, etc.)

• Have 1-5 courses of your own

• Rotate a mention of your course in each newsletter (look below to see an example)

• Hold 1-2 live virtual training classes per month and charge for them

  Optional:

• Have a low-ticket Substack Upgrade membership

• Have a higher-ticket off-Substack membership or coaching program

With the above stack, you can have a thriving course + audience business in about 12 hours a week.

Here’s how it looks:

• 3x - 5x Substack Newsletters Per Week - 3 hours per week

• Promote daily in Notes and in external social (X, linkedin, medium, YouTube, etc.) - 3 hours per week

• Hold 1-2 live virtual training classes per month and charge for them 2 hours per week average

• Have a low-ticket Substack Upgrade membership - 2 hours per week maintenance or writing

• Have a higher-ticket off-Substack membership or coaching program - 2 hours per week maintenance or writing
  

That’s 12 hours per week and that’s your full schedule!

You can scale it as big as you scale your audience, and how broad you choose to make your suite of choices!

By the way, if you want to see the exact way I have this built into my own business, and you want to see how I research and design niche businesses, I highly recommend my step by step course:

I hope to see you there!

P.S. Here’s my actual 2025 Substack Course Business Plan:

Anyhow, if you want to see the exact way I have this built into my own business, and you want to see how I research and design niche businesses, I highly recommend my step by step course:

I hope to see you there!