How I Went From Zero to One Million Views on Medium

Two years, hundreds of articles and a lot of lessons learned

According to my stats, I’ll be hitting a total of one million views on Medium this week.

Even though I believe you shouldn’t be too focused on numbers, if you want to make it big on Medium, one million views is a nice milestone, and I’m doing some reflection on what I learned along the way.

And as I love sharing my insights and journey with aspiring writers, I decided to do the whole reflection as part of this post.

So, here we go:

I joined Medium and the Partner Program back in July 2018.

I came across the platform by accident, but I immediately knew I could like it.

Ever since I can remember, I loved learning and writing, and when I heard about Medium, I already had a side business around personal development, so I had the ideal requirements to join a writing platform as I had a lot of in-depth knowledge in a particular field.

And even though I didn’t have much time, I managed to make time for my writing.

At the time I started writing on Medium, I was finishing my studies in business administration, doing a full-time internship, and hosting personal development workshops for students.

Most of my writing back then was either done at 6 am or after 10 pm.

That’s why I don’t have much sympathy when people tell me they don’t have enough time to write or pursue their dreams in general.

Nobody has time.

If something is important enough, you just make time.

I see women with babies building million-dollar businesses.

I see 16-year olds building incredible products besides school.

And I see people writing on Medium every day despite their day jobs.

If you genuinely want it, you will make time instead of excuses.

Now, I don’t say you should feel bad for not being ultra-determined and giving everything you got to grow your writing career.

I’m just saying anything is possible for anyone if you do the work and manage your time and energy well.

But back to the topic: After starting my writing journey in July 2018, and publishing almost 100 pieces until the end of the year, I wrote another 100 posts in 2019.

Until the beginning of 2020, Medium has been a side-hustle for me.

I always enjoyed writing and publishing here, and I loved analyzing the work of the big players, but I never dived deep into achieving better results myself.

That’s why I barely made $1,500 from July 2018 to December 2019.

Considering I’ve written more than 200 pieces, this equals around $7.50 per post. Not the hourly rate I hoped for, to be honest.

Admittedly, right now, some of my posts still underperform and hardly make $50.

Some others, however, make thousands of dollars:

But these results wouldn’t be possible without all the effort I made during the past two years.

Even though mentors and coaches now play a massive role in my life, back then, I chose the path of trial and error for my journey on Medium.

And looking back, it was an incredibly wrong decision.

I spent so much time writing articles nobody ever read because I didn’t know how to do it better.

Now, here’s the thing:

You can succeed on Medium by just writing, trying out different styles, and learning on the go. That’s how I did it.

But it will take a lot of time and effort.

And eventually, it might not even pay off.

When I started back in 2018, Medium wasn’t as crowded as it is right now.

If I had been consistent with my writing and if I learned more quickly, I’d probably have even crazier results right now.

One simple decision changed everything

In December 2019, I did my regular yearly reflection. I looked back at the past twelve months and asked myself what went well and what sucked.

And while doing so, I also asked myself what I want to focus on in the upcoming twelve months.

I analyzed everything I did so far, and surprisingly I realized writing on Medium was one of the projects I enjoyed most right from the beginning of my entrepreneurial path.

I realized Medium allowed me to work wherever and whenever I want and to write about anything I was passionate about.

Even though I’m usually great at overthinking, this time, I made a quick decision: I knew I wanted to dive deeper into writing on Medium.

I realized it was still an incredible opportunity to grow my audience, make an income through doing what I love, and to build my personal brand, and I wanted to have all of it.

Fast forward: Four months later, I’m making more than $5,000 per month, and thousands of people are reading my posts every day.

That’s not only an honor but a dream coming true.

It’s just crazy to be touching so many lives and impacting so many people across the whole globe.

Now, four months into my Medium growth project, I can say I’m achieving much better results than I expected.

But all of this is no coincidence. I’m achieving these results because I already had the experience of the previous 1.5 years and of more than 200 failed articles.

From 2018 until the end of 2019, I spent hundreds of hours reading the work of great writers, analyzing what they are doing, and figuring out how Medium works.

And now that I managed to make it all work for me, I’m supporting new, aspiring writers to achieve similar results.

I honestly believe there’s still enough room for newbies here.

You probably won’t make your first million after a few months of writing on Medium, but you can indeed build a nice additional income stream and find an audience that is interested in what you have to share.

Given you put enough work into writing and understanding how the platform works, of course.

Now, during the past few weeks, I talked to many new writers. I did some live Q&A sessions and answered their burning questions during and after the sessions.

Additionally, I’m mentoring a few people on a 1-on-1 basis and assisting them in building their own writing career through Medium.

And what’s funny is that most people ask the same questions and have the same wrong thoughts about how succeeding on Medium works.

Now, admittedly, I don’t know if other prominent writers here would entirely agree with my point of view on the following aspects but here are some truths about Medium, presented by someone who failed for 1.5 years until it finally paid off:

It’s not easy, but it’s simple

Seriously, there is no hocus-pocus when it comes to succeeding on Medium.

If you look at some of the most prominent writers here, you’ll find some similarities.

That’s no coincidence.

Some strategies work, while others don’t.

If you keep doing the same things without success, you’ll fail.

If you, however, analyze the work of the most successful people here and adapt their strategies, you are well set for success.

It’s funny, and I didn’t even realize it until I started working with new writers so closely, but most people make the same mistakes: Cryptic headlines, horrible formatting, publishing without publications while having zero followers,…

Seriously: Medium is no get-rich-quick-scheme.

You need to put your butt in the chair and do the work, but getting some excellent results here isn’t that hard if you apply the strategies that are proven to work.

It will take time

I see new writers getting curated and making hundreds of dollars from their very first posts, but that’s not what usually happens.

I honestly believe at least 50% of success on Medium depends on perseverance.

You don’t need to write 200 shitty posts for 1.5 years as I did, but you need to keep going for more than just a few weeks.

Admittedly, I’m getting angry whenever someone tells me Medium doesn’t seem to work for them because they’ve been writing for two months and didn’t get their desired results yet.

Writing on Medium is a business, not a gamble.

And there’s not a single form of digital business that will pay off in just a few weeks or months and generate significant amounts of money or an audience.

So why do people expect Medium to pay off quickly?

You can’t look at the earnings of some of the best and most prominent writers here and expect your results to be similar. That’s just not how the world works.

These people have been writing for years, and they are still publishing daily.

It would be quite unfair if you’d join Medium and made your first thousand dollars after writing five posts.

A writing career is a marathon. So is succeeding on Medium.

Human connections matter

I can’t stress this enough: Real people are reading your stories, and real people can help you on your journey to success.

You can’t make it big on Medium without human interaction.

You need to build deep relationships.

With your audience but also with other writers, especially with those who are ahead of you.

Read the work of people whose success you admire, leave thoughtful comments, connect on other platforms, and in the best case, learn from them.

Many great writers, including myself, offer courses and mentoring programs to support you on your journey.

Of course, you can do it as I did and try it on your own.

But you can also choose to learn from people who are way ahead of you and accelerate your journey.

“Mentoring is a brain to pick, an ear to listen, and a push in the right direction.”

— John Crosby

The only thing I’d be doing differently if I started on Medium from scratch is getting a mentor and learning from those who are already way ahead of me.

Trial and error often works, but it’s not effective.

If you look at Medium as a fun side-project to publish your writing without expectations, keep trying.

If you, however, expect results, want to get paid for your writing, and want to build an audience that is interested in your pieces, learn from someone who already walked the path.

Want to succeed on Medium? Join my free 5-Day Medium Writing Course.