Teardown No. 72 · Newsletter

17.9%: How Yana G.Y. turned the welcome email behind her paid upgrades into a Claude skill

Yana G.Y. uses a Claude skill to write the welcome emails that pitch new free Substack subscribers on a paid upgrade. She built the skill from her own welcome email formula, PPSA (Pain, Proof, Solution, Action), and a 6-element structure. The skill interviews the writer in three short rounds and then writes up to four welcome emails, each with three subject line options. A cleaning layer bans AI filler vocabulary and hype. She says that last month 17.9% of her new paid members upgraded from her own welcome email, but the post reports no results from emails the skill wrote for others.

Yana G.Y.Verified Oct 30, 2026Markdown copy

The problem

In an earlier post she gave readers the full method for writing a welcome email by hand: “the PPSA formula, the 6-element structure, the 3 objections to handle before they show up.” Some readers hit a wall. They understood the method but did not get the email written. Her heading for this is “The blank page is where good methods go to die.” She writes, “Knowing the structure and writing the email are two different jobs.”

A paid newsletter can need up to 4 welcome emails, each with a different job. One goes to free subscribers and pitches the upgrade. One goes to people who already paid. One goes to founding members, and one goes to subscribers imported from Kit or Mailchimp. She says most people write one generic “thanks for subscribing” email instead. Her verdict: “Leaving money on the table.” She says she sees this almost every time she does a review for a VIP member.

The blueprint (as she describes it)

  1. Package the formula as a skill. She “took my entire welcome email formula and turned it into a Claude skill.” You install the file into Claude once, and Claude then follows her framework. She says it works the same way as her earlier Viral Notes Writer and Sales Sequence Generator skills. She describes it this way: “It works like having me interview you.”

  2. Interview before writing. The skill refuses to write until it understands the newsletter. The interview runs in three short rounds:

    • Round 1 is setup: free, paid, or paid with a founding tier; whether subscribers are being imported; newsletter name, author name and URL. This decides which emails to write.
    • Round 2 is positioning: who the newsletter is for, the exact pain it solves, the transformation for a reader, the contrarian angle, the author’s own vulnerability moment with the problem, and the strongest proof points. She says these answers “become the Pain and the Proof in every email.”
    • Round 3 is offers: the lead magnet and how people get it, what is published and when, paid tier benefits and price, any founding tier, and the reply question for subscribers to answer.

    You can skip the interview if Claude already knows you well. She asks users to answer in detail and to “do not use AI for those answers” if they want quality output.

  3. Read back and check. The skill reads the answers back in two or three sentences, flags anything vague and lets the writer correct it. A fuzzy lead magnet answer (“I have a welcome PDF”) gets pushed for specifics.

  4. Write the right set of emails. A free newsletter gets a free-subscriber welcome built around the main offer, plus an imported-subscriber welcome if migrating. A paid newsletter gets a free-subscriber welcome that pitches the upgrade and a paid-subscriber welcome that orients them, “never re-selling what they bought.” It also gets a founding welcome if that tier exists. Each email uses PPSA and the 6-element structure and comes out paste-ready with three subject line options and the full body. She says you only need some final edits.

  5. Run the cleaning layer. She “baked into the skill a strict list of AI fluff banned from using.” The list covers dead vocabulary such as delve, leverage and seamless, fake-depth reframes (“it’s not about X, it’s about Y”), corporate transitions and hype words. The skill applies her “sell without selling” framework, so the emails avoid “buy my thing” and fake deadlines. It varies sentence rhythm and matches the voice the writer describes in Round 2.

  6. Install. She says installation takes about a minute and the instructions come with the file.

Stated results

  • Last month, “I got 17.9% of my new paid members upgrading from that very same email.” This refers to her own welcome email.
  • “71% of them upgrade within the first 30 days.” She adds, “I track it, I’m not guessing.” The post does not make clear who “them” refers to.
  • Her conversion rate from Substack organic channels “hit 11.3% when the industry average is 3 to 5%.” She calls her welcome email “one of the reasons” for this.
  • She credits the PPSA structure with taking her “from $108 a year to $10k+ a month.”
  • Results from welcome emails the skill wrote for other newsletters: None stated.

Caveats

  • This post is on her own Substack, and it sells her products. The skill is a paid-member benefit and is also sold on Gumroad. She also sells paid tiers, VIP reviews and a coaching program, and the post links to the coaching program twice.
  • All stated numbers describe her own welcome email, written with her formula. The post does not report results from emails the skill wrote for anyone else.
  • The claim that a generic welcome email converts at 1 to 2% is hers, with no source given. The post says a specific one converts at “10%+” in one place and “5%+” in its FAQ. The 3 to 5% industry average also has no source given.
  • The text says “Here’s the breakdown:” after the 17.9% figure, but no breakdown appears in the supplied source.
  • Step 2 lists three subject line options and the full body as the output. The FAQ also mentions preview text for each email.
  • She says the skill is going into the Unplugged toolbox, which is marked “coming soon.”
  • The skill runs inside a Claude conversation that the writer drives. It is not an autonomous agent.
  • Handles: Bluesky @yana-g-y.bsky.social, Instagram @unpluggedbyyanagy, TikTok @yana_g_y, Substack @yanagy, LinkedIn company page linkedin.com/company/unplugged-by-yana-g-y (all verified 2026-10-30: linked from the footer of yana-g-y.com). Threads @unpluggedbyyanagy (same handle as her Instagram; Threads uses the Instagram username). No X profile is linked from her site, so X is not tagged.

FAQ

Did the skill produce the 17.9% result?

No. The 17.9% figure is about her own welcome email, written with her formula. The post states no results from emails the skill wrote for other writers.

How many emails does the skill write?

Up to four, depending on setup: free subscriber, paid subscriber, founding member and imported subscriber. Each comes with three subject line options.

Does it work outside Substack?

She says yes, if you give Claude more details about your newsletter. The post gives no examples of it being used outside Substack.

How do you get it?

She gives it to all paid members of Unplugged, and it is also sold on Gumroad. The post does not state the Gumroad price.

Sources

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