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The 9-Day Launch Sequence Planned in Excel

The Story

Substack doesn’t have email automation, so Tom planned his paid-tier launch sequence by hand in an Excel sheet (Source 1). The full schedule (Source 1):

  • Day 1 (Wednesday): Long launch email with social proof and 24-hour discounted pricing
  • Day 1 (Evening): Reminder with added value, not just “don’t forget”
  • Day 2: Sale extension due to Stripe issues, another reminder
  • Day 3 (Friday): Book launch
  • Day 4 (Saturday): FAQ about the book
  • Day 5 (Sunday): First chapter of book free, subscribe to read more
  • Day 6 (Monday): Social proof from new paid subscribers
  • Day 7 (Tuesday): Smaller sale, ending Friday
  • Day 8 (Wednesday): Another reminder
  • Day 9 (Friday): Campaign ends

Not every email went to everyone. Some reminders only went to his 2,000 most engaged subscribers to avoid unsubscribe fatigue (Source 1).

The single best-converting email of the entire sequence: “the first day’s reminder email with 10 hours left on the sale. Urgency works.” (Source 1).

The result: 500+ paid subscribers and $50,000+ in revenue in the first 72 hours (Source 1).

Lesson for Creators

A launch isn’t an email, it’s a campaign. Each email had a specific job: introduce the offer, add urgency, switch the framing (book vs. newsletter), provide social proof, soft-extend, hard-close. The 10-hours-left reminder converting best is not a coincidence — deadline pressure is the most reliable conversion tool in email. The other lesson is segmentation: sending every reminder to your full list trains people to ignore you. Reminders to the 2,000 most engaged worked because those people were already paying attention and weren’t tired of the asks. If your tool doesn’t have automation, the spreadsheet still works.

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