How to Fail at Building a Substack Newsletter

I Got Tired of Trying to Fit Myself Into What Works on Substack

I think this Substack has changed shape a thousand times already.

And I think that says a lot about me.

When I first started writing here, this newsletter was basically a collection of opinions. Thoughts about things happening online, trends, conversations, things that were going viral.

Then as I started growing it slowly became something else, more like a “let’s grow together” kind of space. I was trying things, learning things, sharing what worked, sharing what didn’t, hoping maybe it could help someone else too.

Over the past months I’ve watched the numbers go up, then down, then sideways. There were moments where my Notes got a lot of attention, a lot of likes, a lot of engagement. Then quieter periods. And if I’m being completely honest, this whole journey has never really felt coherent, never really felt authentic, maybe just at the very beginning.

Not because I didn’t care, maybe because I care too much and I was constantly trying to figure out what this was supposed to be.

What works. What performs. What people want. What kind of content grows. What kind of person grows.

And now I got tired.

I mean, not tired of writing because I love Substack. I love the feeling of publishing something and knowing there are real people reading it somewhere in the world.

But I’m tired of trying to optimize this space all the time.

I’m tired of treating every post like it needs a strategy behind it. Tired of chasing consistency for the sake of consistency. Tired of trying to become “the version of myself that works online.”

So this is me officially giving that up.

This is no longer going to be a carefully curated newsletter with a fixed direction, or a “you should post every Monday at 8AM” kind of project.

This is becoming my blog.

Just a simple blog where I document my life, my ideas, and the behind-the-scenes of building a brand from scratch, which is what I dream to do.

I actually want to talk about what I genuinely care about.

And right now it’s creating my own brand.

At the moment, it’s still just an idea. Nothing glamorous yet. No huge launch. No perfect branding. No success story.

Just an idea I believe in enough to try.

So I want to start documenting my personal journey from the beginning: writing the business plan, applying for funding, figuring out production, understanding logistics, building the identity of the brand, making mistakes, changing direction, doubting myself, trying again.

The real process.

I’m Sicilian, and although I lived abroad for a long time, a year ago I came back home and I decided that I want to stay here.

A lot of people from Southern Italy leave because job opportunities are limited.

But personally, I feel this huge desire to build something here instead of somewhere else.

Marketing and communication are the only things I’ve consistently studied and worked on for years. And I decided I want to use my experience and my knowledges to create my own brand instead of working on other’s ideas.

Maybe this project will fail.

Maybe it’ll stay small forever.

Maybe it’ll become something bigger than I imagine right now.

I genuinely don’t know.

Thousands of people start brands every day. I’m not sitting here thinking I’m building the next billion-dollar company.

But I do care about this.

A lot.

And I want to leave a trace of the process while it’s happening.

Not packaged into lessons. Not turned into “10 things I learned building a startup.” Not optimized into content pillars.

Just sharing honestly my journey and what it means to be 26, have big dreams in a small town and trying to build something, to create a job from nothing.

The bio will probably change again. The profile picture too. Honestly, they’ve already changed dozens of times over the years. The name changed. The direction changed. Everything changed constantly.

And maybe that’s okay.

I think a lot of us are exhausted from trying to become the thing that “works.” Social media makes us feel like we always need to optimize ourselves into something more consumable, more strategic, more productive, more impressive.

And eventually you wake up burned out doing something you don’t even care about anymore. And that’s what was happening to me while I was writing the perfect post about consistency and discipline.

I just want to build something I love and write about it while it’s happening.

And if anyone wants to follow along, support the project, or simply witness the journey, I’d genuinely love to have you here.

And yes, if you subscribe as a premium member, you’ll also directly support this brand while it’s still just an idea living in my head and in these posts.

So yeah, after all this oversharing and all these thoughts spilling out of my head at once, I just hope some of you will still want to stay here with me.

And if you’ve been here for a while, thank you for sticking around even while this space kept changing shape over and over again.

I know Feeling Pink has been a lot of different things already. Honestly, I think I’ve been a lot of different things already too.

But maybe this version is the closest one to who I actually am.

And if you’re new here, I hope you’ll enjoy whatever this becomes.

love, lux