15k Subscriber Live Q&A Friday!
Hey FAANG FIRE! It has been a minute since we’ve done a live FIRE side chat!
Let’s fix that.
Make yourself an avocado toast and join me Friday November 1st at Noon San Francisco time!
We are celebrating FAANG FIRE passing 15,000 subscribers! It is also peak FAANG earnings week, which means open trading windows!
Happy to answer any questions during the live Q&A on anything from FIRE to Avocados.
The second FAANG FIRE Book Club discussion of Christine Benz’s book “How to Retire” will be November 15th at 12pm PST. We will also be using that time to discuss the next book!
The Journey to 15,000 Subscribers
🥑 Launch Date: 2021/07/02
I came out of the gates with what remains one of my most popular posts of all time “The Analysis into Leaving San Francisco”.
Over the next 3 years I went on to write 97 FAANG FIRE posts! Keeping a leisurely pace of ~2 posts per month.
Milestone Dates and Times:
0 to 1,000 subscribers: Reached on August 24, 2022, taking 418 days from launch.
1,000 to 5,000 subscribers: Reached on July 8, 2023, taking 318 days.
5,000 to 10,000 subscribers: Reached on March 25, 2024, taking 261 days.
10,000 to 15,000 subscribers: Reached on October 27, 2024, taking 216 days.
Top Weekly Growth Increases:
1,000 subscribers added in the week of May 28, 2023, marking the highest single-week increase.
584 subscribers gained during the week of July 9, 2023.
The week of May 2023 would be when I was laid off from Meta! So, if you are looking to replicate my success, getting laid off is a solid growth lever. It has very low repeatability though.
Top Monthly Growth Increases:
May 2023: A peak month with 1,406 subscribers added.
March 2024: Saw an increase of 1,288 subscribers.
July 2023 (layoff) and October 2024 (this month!): Both added 1,200 subscribers.
Substack Recommendations
One of the powers of Substack as a newsletter platform is the recommendation system they built. If you are writing on a topic that has a strong niche on substack, and you are able to connect with those writers on a personal level, it can be incredibly powerful.
Major thanks are in order to the following newsletters:
Zach from
Georges from
Jordan from
Dave from
(who also wrote an excellent guest post on FIRE)Peter from
Sherry from
While Ryan from The Developing Dev doesn’t recommend me directly, he has hacked the invite system to drive over 734 signups.
I also give back! Driving a decent chunk of subscribers to publications I recommend.
LinkedIn Influencer
While not as cool as Youtube, Instagram, or TikTok… I have embraced the LinkedIn creator life.
I regularly have weeks where my posts on LinkedIn reach more than 1,000,000 impressions… which is wild to me. Especially considering the fact that I am not posting thirst traps, I am posting content on maxing out your 401k and selling RSUs!
If you are not already, give me a follow on LinkedIn. I post 3-5 times a week to gauge interest in FAANG FIRE topics that might be worth a deeper dive.
I also promise to try my best not to post anything that is greater than a 5 on the #punchabilityindex.
More Questions?
Want to know more? Sounds like you should be sure to go to the live Q&A this Friday!
-André
This article is awesome!