Connect with Yana G.Y: https://substack.com/@yanagy

Welcome to the launch of the Sustainable Side Hustle Podcast with Vinayak Ramesh.

Today’s episode features Yana G.Y, who built a six-figure Substack business generating roughly $20,000 a month — entirely on the side of her 9-to-5 job.

We talk about how she became a Substack bestseller in just three months, grew to over 1,000 paying subscribers, and uses AI and automation to run the business in just a couple of hours a day.

>>> Don't forget to follow the show, download these powerful launch episodes, and drop us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts.

>>> Claim your FREE gift for supporting the launch — the Substack Notes Starter Pack + Substack Growth Engine. Leave a review and DM me on Substack: https://substack.com/@vinayakramesh1

Hey, this is your host Vinayak and welcome to the Sustainable side Hustle podcast.

Today I've got Yana with me.

She spent 20 years in corporate before starting her Substack newsletter Unplugged and became a Substack best seller in just three months.

She has since built it into a stable six figure business doing roughly $20,000 a month entirely on the side of a 9 to 5 job using AI and automations to run it in just couple of hours a day.

Let's dive into the insights shared by Yana.

If you lost everything tomorrow but you still had your day job, what would your first 30 day look like trying to build it all back up?

I think I would do everything the same as what I did about two years ago without the trial and error of 10 years trying to do money on the side of my job.

So I would go straight to building a email list and I would definitely do it on substack.

And I would not start with building my audience or writing content or try to learn how to write online because that's also a skill that you have to build.

It's not like corporate writing.

I would start with the product first and with the paid membership or whatever I try to monetize.

So I would think about strategy about that specifically.

So what would be the problem that I want to solve and how to turn it into a product that I sell and then I would create all of my content out of it and connect it to it because that is how you build an audience, which is also an audience of buyers and not just freeloaders because many people are doing the opposite.

They're trying to build an audience and then try think about how to monetize later.

But that's a very common mistake because chances are that you will come up to a stage where you have found yourself, that you have built an audience that is not buying anything from you.

Before Substack, what all have you tried before?

Other side Hustles or anything?

Yeah, before.

Yeah, that's a really good question.

I have been trying to build a site, something on the side of my job for more than 10 years.

So I was trying pretty much anything but nothing worked.

It was Amazon, KDP, it was drop shipping, it was NFTs and crypto and all kinds of sorts of things.

Also social media as well and some of those.

I also have a lot of YouTube experience as well.

But some of those things worked actually and I learned a lot about how to do business online.

But along that time I always knew at some point I Understood that I had to actually build an email list because that's the real asset that you can have when building an online business and that's something that you own, it's not depending on any platform.

And whatever happens, you can take your email list and then start from scratch.

So, and I knew that and before Substack you had to go on social media to do this and I was avoiding this because it was a lot of time consuming.

But.

And I'm so happy that Substack started and launched and especially Substack Notes, which is basically the only social media that allows us to build our email list organically just by creating short form content, much like on social media.

So it was your corporate marketing experience that translated into your substack business, right?

Yes, it's not only marketing.

So when people say marketing they think about promotion and advertising, but it's actually building the product and how to build them so that they sell, which is a very valuable skill, especially when you start to do something online.

And like for example, it was very clear to me that I have to start with the product and not with building an audience, which is not the case for most of the creators.

And that's why I'd like to call myself that.

I'm a business person who creates content.

I'm not a content creator because I approach it this way.

What does a normal day look like for you?

Splitting time between the 9 to 5 and your substack business as a whole.

So I don't get up in 5 o' clock in the morning if that's something that most people think.

Not at all.

Some people were asking me if I, if I even sleep at all.

And yes, I do love to sleep a lot actually.

But I'm an evening person and I sometimes I try to get up a little bit early to answer my emails and answer my direct messages and some of my comments if I can.

But that's basically it.

That's what I do in the morning and when I come back from work in the evening I usually have some clients work, which I do in some of the days, not all of the weekdays.

And if I don't have meetings then I sit down and write for about two hours to publish something on, on Substack.

And then that's basically it.

Is there any revenue stream that you tried which did not work out the way you expected?

I would say that would be the paid, the digital products actually, because my paid membership was working really well.

But when I launched the Quest in March last year, I also enabled it to as a product like a course that people could buy it on teachable and in the beginning it didn't work at all.

And then I decided okay, I will have to, I will have to promote it.

And then I started writing emails and then I got three sales and I said okay, this is not really working.

Then I decided I just didn't have the right approach because this is every product needs a dedicated sales approach in order to make it work.

So when a product doesn't sell, it's not always the product.

Maybe it's how you communicate it to your messaging, how you promote it, how you sell it, how you launch it.

Even from the very beginning, start with the product, start with the product and then when you're ready with the product, then make it an offer and then you have just three jobs.

Figure out how to grow new subscribers and for that notes and recommendations are working really well.

Then figure out how to convert to paid and buyers and I have a lot of automations that I can show you within my paid membership and then figure out how to keep them buying and keep them paying which is the retention part, which is very important part most people overlook but I know it from a nine to five job.

So those are the three things that you have to figure before you go to scale.

And that's what I did also in my substack and that's what brought me my scaling strategy that I implemented after that brought me to my orange badge with more than 1,000 paying subscribers.

So in a nutshell, choose the right approach and it works.

It will work.

So that was just a trailer, but we are about to get into the real specifics.

How a six figure business actually breaks down when it's built entirely on the side with AI and automations and what it actually takes to teach that to other people.

If you have ever wondered whether something like this is realistic alongside a full time job, you probably don't want to miss this one and go check out Yana.

You can find her on substack called Unplugged and also check out her substack Quest and Right to Sell courses.

It is linked in the description and if you want more of this stuff I write about it every week on my own substack, the Sustainable Solopreneur.

Consider subscribing to it and I will see you soon.