Dear Substack - Your Notes Analytics Are Terrible. Here's What They Should Look Like

This is a Fake Dashboard. But the Frustration Behind it is Real

Hey there!

I love Substack Notes. I post several every day. They drive my follower growth more than anything else.

But here’s what frustrates me.

There is no way to see which Notes drove the most unconnected reach. No way to see your top fans — the people who like and restack you the most. No way to compare this month’s Notes performance against last month. No way to download your Notes history. No aggregate dashboard. Nothing.

You click each Note individually and manually read the stats.

In 2026. For a platform that is supposed to be the future of independent publishing.

So I did what any founder would do.

I built it myself.

In 20 minutes. Using vibe coding. No developer. No code written by me. Just a prompt describing what I wanted — and a functioning interactive dashboard appeared.

It has everything Substack should have built by now: — Monthly impressions trend with 30/60/90 day and all-time toggle — Audience breakdown — unconnected reach vs followers vs subscribers — Best note of the month with full stats — Month vs previous month comparison — Daily conversion tracking — Notes to followers and subscribers — Top fans — who engages with you most consistently

Is the data real? No — it’s a beautiful dummy dashboard built to make a point :)

Is the point real? Absolutely.

Dear Substack — this took 20 minutes. When are you shipping the real one?

This is also a live demonstration of what vibe coding can do for a first-time founder. You don’t need a developer to build a proof of concept. You need a clear idea and 20 minutes.

The GTM Readiness Scorecard I built the same way — bit.ly/tpagtm — is already being used by founders to assess their go-to-market readiness.

What would you build in 20 minutes if you knew you could?

This Week’s Prompt:

“I want to build a simple dashboard or tool to solve [describe your problem]. I have no coding skills. Design the concept for me — what fields, what charts, what outputs would make this useful — and then help me build a prompt I can take to Emergent or a similar vibe coding tool to build it in one session.”

If you enjoyed this post, you would love my previous edition here:

Work with me: I help first-time founders build their GTM engine— including positioning, content strategy, and demand generation. 3x founder, 28 years in GTM. 1 slot open. DM me on LinkedIn. Like and follow here.

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