🐢 TREE 708: I’m not joking when I say ‘grow slowly’

Substack loves to share amazing growth stories. Here’s a growth story from the non-amazing end of the spectrum. Dear reader, I give you

How we grew our Substack from 188 to 498 subscribers in only three years!

The glorious graph:

I attribute the growth to two things:

• We show up every weekday and write useful posts. We are reliable.

• Skyler’s work to promote FFOREST. She is the reason why new people come to fforest.substack.com and have a look.

I attribute the slowness of the growth to several things:

• I don’t promote myself well.

• I’m a graphic designer writing about personal growth. (Behold! the worst elevator pitch ever.)

• I don’t write breathless headlines telling people that everything they know about fruitcake is wrong and I have the answers.

• I refuse to tell people what they should do.

• I’m not politically or religiously partisan in my writing.

• I don’t jump on the controversy bandwagon and sling hot takes at the crowd.

• I share weird drawings and songs that aren’t popular.

• No cute animals.

• Sometimes I break the format and tell stories, usually with talking animals.

• We post every weekday.

Fortunately, that list of growth inhibitors is also a list of reasons why the people who like FFOREST like it a lot.

Maybe FFOREST will turn huge one day.

Maybe I’m making a small thing.

Whatever this is, it’s fun and it’s a privilege to share with you every day. I think that’s a good measure of success.

You don’t have to let other people define how you will judge the success of your own projects.

The longer the meeting, the more detailed my doodle.

Grow slowly
Jeff

P.S. My book is available for your amusement.