Climbing From Minnow to Dolphin (My Story)

in #dolphins8 years ago (edited)

Normally I try to keep my articles concise and to the point. Don't put too much information in your article, or you will lose your reader's attention. Nobody wants to read a giant book..

This is not one of those posts. Trimming my journey down to a few highlights would defeat the purpose. Becoming a dolphin was a lot of hard work. It took months of dedication! It is not as simple as "one, two, three". There is no magic formula (at least that I'm aware of).

I plan to share this with future Steemians who are on their way up, but might have become frustrated along the way. "You were an early adopter, of course you have tons of money" I can hear them say. "It's not like that anymore. It's impossible to get noticed unless you were here before it got big."

I'm sure that things will be much different years from now, but I believe the path that I followed will always be there for people who are willing to take it. It is not an easy path, and the specific steps along the way will likely be different than mine - but it can be done. You can go from dust to minnow to dolphin if you stick with it and try.


My brother told me about Steemit a few months ago. It was right as Steemit was on its way to the moon. He is heavily into the "crypto-currency" scene, and always passes along hot tips that come his way. When he told me about Steemit, I was really intrigued. After learning what it was about, I told him I wanted to invest in it. He told me that the smart thing to do was to wait until it came down in price, as coins that are pumped 1000% pretty much always do. I said if this is really going to become the next Facebook, then who cares. It will be worth a ton more eventually, and I don't want to risk missing the boat. Sign me up!

After spending time to read the "white paper", I realized that the smart thing to do was to power-up. I took my $250 worth of STEEM (a medium sized investment for me - I'm not rich), and powered up my 62 STEEM. After that, I started exploring the site. I work in software development for a living, so I was not really turned off by the "crude" site. It was beta after all. This is supposed to become the next Facebook (future tense). I shouldn't expect it to be that level of a website right out of the box. It will get there.

I spent a lot of time looking through the top trending posts at the time. I was amazed that people were making thousands of dollars on their posts! I decided to write my first post and get a slice of the action. I was curious how long a post could earn money for, so I created Is there long term earnings potential for posting good Steemit content? as my first post. I got an answer to my question (no, not currently), and 6 upvotes. No $1,000 yet though - OK.

After watching lots of other people earn tons of money, I thought an article about how the whales think might attract the attention I was looking for. My post on Steemit Whale Psychology got me 29 comments, 13 upvotes, and $0.05. Still not the $1,000 I was hoping for.

It was really hard to get your posts noticed back then. There was no "Resteem" yet. There wasn't even such thing as Followers and Feeds! Pretty much the only way people would find your content was manual digging or bots. I certainly hadn't made my way onto a bot list yet. You had to 'know people' for that. I was just a random person on the site. Why should anyone pay attention to me?

I spent the whole weekend creating posts, trying to get something to stick. After several posts that maxed out at $0.67, I was starting to get a little frustrated. I spent my whole weekend posting and earned less than a dollar. I still thought it was a cool concept, but I couldn't afford to spend my time doing this if that was all I was going to make.

I am not an amazing 'content producer', so I figured my spouse (@artist1989) who is a lot more talented than me, might have better luck. We posted his introduceyourself post, but right around that time, there were spam bots doing DOS attacks on the introduceyourself posts. Every time we tried to open the post, it wouldn't load in the browser. It had received a little attention before that happened, but since it was down during most of the "critical time" (one hour after posting), it did not receive much attention.

Right near the end of the weekend, he decided to post a funny video he took of a bumble bee getting into a "fight" with another bee in our garden. At first it got nothing, but then all of a sudden it shot up to $900! Holy cow, we thought. This is actually happening! It turns out @ned liked the video and had upvoted it :) By the time it was about to end, it had gotten up to $1,304.89! We stayed up late to watch the final amount come in. Right at the last second, it dropped to $979.08. Well that kind of sucks we thought. I mean, you can't complain about $979.08 - but a $300 drop right at the last minute took away some of the fun.

He knew about the 50/50 SP/SBD split, so we started the process of cashing out our $489. $500 bucks for posting a video online was really cool! He thought it was exciting but was still skeptical. I told him to wait until he got his money; then he'll know it was real. I started the process of converting the SBD and sold it on the exchange. By the time the conversion happened and we cashed out the STEEM, he got about $300. In the end it was very cool to get $300 cash for posting a video online, but there was still room to improve the user experience. $1,304.89 to $300 in your pocket is a pretty big drop. I created [Important] Why Steemit Needs to Change the way Pending Payments are Displayed! to try and bring some attention to the issue.

I continued spending tons of time on Steemit, posting on lots of different topics. My posts rarely made more than a few cents, but the hope/dream of making it big kept me going. No matter what I posted, I barely managed to make a few cents. The few times that I wrote about suggested improvements for Steemit though, those actually got some attention. $4.87, $1.73, and even one for $17.72. It wasn't a $1,000 trending post, but at least it was something!

I continued my posting for pennies an article. I knew I wasn't making even close to minimum wage, but I was still having fun. I just needed to get that one "big hit" and I'd have thousands!

Along the way I recruited several friends to the site, but after the first month or so I was the only one still posting. Even I was starting to get a little burned out from all the small payments, but I didn't want to give up. The site is in beta I told my friends. Don't worry about making thousands of dollars yet, just try and make friends. The money will come eventually if you keep at it.

By the time all my friends had left and had started making fun of me for "still spending time on that website", I decided we had a problem. If this is how most people are seeing the site, how are we ever going to become the next Facebook? I decided to take action. Dear Whales and Dolphins - Please Read This Letter I wrote. This was an urgent call to attention! My friends were leaving, and I'm sure they were not the only ones!

With all my friends long gone, I still decided to carry on. I would post whenever I could. I kept writing article after article, most of which made $0.00. The few $1-2 posts that I wrote were a big deal. (These were my success stories that I held onto.) Every bit of SBD I earned, I powered up. This 5 cents of STEEM could be worth $50 bucks one day. Why in the world would I cash it out to earn 5 cents? I'm in it for the long haul!

Along the way I came across someone who was spamming links to their content. I downvoted their comment and replied to let them know why. They retaliated and downvoted several of my posts. It turns out they had a higher reputation and more SP than I did. I at least learned not to pick a fight with someone bigger than you :)

I continued on posting. I kept covering a wide variety of topics. My experiences with drugs. STEEM mining. Improvement suggestions for the site. Tutorials.. Lots of things, but nothing stuck. A few bucks was still considered a big success. I was not really discouraged though. I never lost track of the potential of what the site could be.

After spending a lot of time on the site, I had seen and wrote a lot of "Let's make Steemit better" type posts. I thought I could add value by organizing everything into a giant centralized / organized "Wish List". I spent an entire weekend gathering content. I stayed home while my friends went out for the night, so I could keep working on "that website". After spending the whole weekend on it, I launched my post. I probably hit the refresh button 10,000 times that weekend. By the time the weekend was over, my post had only made a few dollars. I was used to it, so it didn't really bother me, but I was kind of disappointed that I put in all that work and it seemed like barely anyone saw it.

There was a different thread where @ned was commenting on things, and I decided to engage with him. I wasn't really trying to "plug" my post. I was mainly curious if I should keep spending more time on the 'wish list' project. Reading through hundreds of people's thoughts on how to improve the website and put them all together in an organized way was fairly time consuming. I didn't want to keep doing it if nobody (important) cared. Within a few minutes he had upvoted my post and it was worth $54. I had to wait for the end of the 30 day payout to receive anything for it - but I didn't care. Ned liked my post!! The money was really a small thing in comparison to how cool it felt to have Ned like something I had worked hard on. It definitely made it worth it!

I spent the next several days improving the wish list. I read article after article and tried to create the best possible list I could with all the community's enhancements. At that time people were writing a ton of posts about feature requests, so the list had grown by a lot just within a few days. I posted an updated wish list with a ton more content. @dantheman upvoted it! An upvote from Ned, and then one from Dan! I must really be on to something here. I had found a way to add value! By the third edition, I started to get comments and replies from the actual Steemit developers! It only made $0.30, but I kind of expected that since it was a lot of repeat content. I couldn't expect to make "big bucks" every time I added new content.

I decided to take a break and work on some other content. The falling price of STEEM had started to become a big deal, and I was pretty sure it would keep going down. I wrote Down Down We Go – And why that might not be a bad thing. Even today, this post still outlines how I feel about the price of STEEM. Now that I had earned a bit of publicity, my posts were getting some attention. I made $19.31, which was one of my highest paying posts!

I continued posting. And posting. Many of my posts barely made pennies, but I could tell that I was getting more attention. I would post things and a decent amount of people would upvote. I wasn't making thousands of dollars or anything, but it was slowly going up. I just need to keep at it, I thought.

One day I decided to get personal, and wrote an article about a subject that is a big part of my life. Finding a balance between being out and accepting other people's uncomfortableness with being gay was the first time that I really showed Steemit part of "me". It was by far my most successful post too - $91.56!

I am not a very interesting person I thought. Was there anything else about my life that could add value? What makes me 'me'? - I thought. Well lots of things, but what would other people care to read about? I happen to have a very weird 'diet' that I had been on for several years (mainly to save money). I wonder if people would be interested in that.. I posted How I have eaten Breakfast and Lunch for under $2 a day for the past 5 years. It also got decent attention - $32.16.

I kept trying to think of ways that I could add value to the community. After a lot of brainstorming, I decided to create something called "The Daily Steem Poll". Basically it would ask the community questions (like what is your favorite movie) and get everyone's input. It wasn't really about making money. I was more interested in gaining followers and connecting with people. I decided to give away whatever SBD I earned on the posts, as a way to encourage participation. I consider the project a fairly big success (all the questions got lots of people to answer) but they took lot of time. I still try to continue with occasional polls, but it is no longer something I do "daily".

Several months in to my Steemit experience, there was a big divide. @steemitblog had announced a change to the voting weights, and it was a controversial change! The community was arguing for days. Everybody had their 'side', and were convinced the other side was wrong. They eventually announced that they were pulling the feature since it was so controversial. After the dust settled, I spent a day researching both sides, and wrote up an objective analysis: The Battle of Upvote Weights - Reviewing the Arguments with Extreme Use Cases. It was my best written article up to that point, and I was really proud of it. @sigmajin - who was one of the main people I was afraid was going to tear it apart (because he was strongly against the change, and my article was leaning slightly in favor of it) actually complimented it and said it was a well written article. We had a very long back and forth discussion about the pros+cons of the argument. It was one of the more enjoyable conversations I've had on the website to date. By the time the article closed, both @dantheman and @ned had upvoted it, and it was worth $325.64! "The Battle of Upvote Weights" article that I wrote is really where I feel things started to change. After that point, people knew who I was. I had started to earn a reputation.

Almost a month had gone by since my last "Wish List" post, and I decided that I should make the next one really good. I spent another weekend putting together the best list of suggestions for the website that I could. I read tons of posts form other people and brainstormed a ton of my own. After posting The Steemit Wish List - Avatars, Notifications, Multi-Language Support, and More - Oh, My! (v2.0), I was happy to see a big response. I got a decent amount of upvotes, and a lot of comments. It was just around the time "Resteems" had first been introduced. As I was browsing my feed, all of a sudden I saw my post. At first I was confused, because I thought I was in my feed (not my blog). Then I realized @dantheman had resteemed my post! Holy cow!! - I thought. This was big! I was honestly in shock. Not only had Dan liked it - he shared it with all his followers! To this day, that was still one of my most memorable moments on Steemit.

I continued to post and post. As usual, most of my posts did not make much. One thing that I started to learn though was that in order to do well, I really had to create an epic post. An epic post was not a guarantee for success (I have several $0.00 epic posts in my Steemit graveyard as proof), but it was a necessary ingredient. To this date, every time I have had a successful post - it has been something that I really poured my heart and soul into to make great.

All along the way, I continued to curate, upvote, and comment. In my mind, this is a really important aspect of Steemit for many reasons. You learn about what other people are interested in. You get to see what does well and what doesn't. You get inspiration for new posts. You meet and interact with all kinds of cool people! It's really a large part of the fun of being on the website!

As part of the "wish list" project, I had started to make connections with people on the Steemit dev team. One of them suggested that reading through the activity in GitHub, and providing the community with a "non technical" summary of what is going on, would really add a lot of value to the community. I started creating a periodic Steemit.com Development Updates series, and he was right! There were a ton of people who really appreciated it, and started following me to get the updates.

As I continued to add value to the community, I decided I would become a witness. I spent a lot of time looking into it, and paid for two hosted servers out of pocket (a witness node, and a seed). It has been an interesting process, and I have continued to learn a lot along the way. I am currently at position 65. To me this was another turning point along my path. Not because I have newfound fame and fortune from being a witness, but I have a newfound sense of responsibility for what happens here.

Two weeks ago, things were really starting to look bad on Steemit. Everyone was discouraged about the continuous dropping price of STEEM, and I felt the community had lost track of what made it great. I still remained as hopefully optimistic as my first day here, and was having a really frustrating time with people that just didn't see it. Had people given up? Was it really just about the money? Now that rewards were dropping, that was it? Was Steemit even worth investing in anymore? I put all my thoughts together, and wrote Attention Sharks - There is blood in the water. Are you ready to invest? Again, I poured my heart and soul into the post. This needed to be epic! The future of Steemit depended on it! Well - the community agreed it was epic. Still to this day I cannot believe it, but my post made it to #1 on the trending page!

It might seem really silly to people that look at Steemit as just a "social media website", but that milestone was truly one of the special moments in my life. I had really worked hard to become a part of this community. When I joined I was a nobody. I had gone from posting 10-20 posts a week that made practically nothing, to the #1 post on Steemit!

I remember when I first joined, there were all the big shots getting tons of upvotes on their posts. I wished I could be one of them. I had no idea how they did it, but I didn't think it was possible for me. It seemed like they all knew each other, and the only way to be part of the 'in group' was to be a celebrity or to have joined before the site got big. After months of hard work though, I've now made it up to 17.7 MV of Steem Power, and I'm even having conversations with lots of the people I looked up to and admired when I first joined. I guess that makes me a dolphin :)

I'm not sure where I'll go from here. Maybe its time to get started on a post - "Climbing From Dolphin to Whale"!

I feel like I should conclude with a good "moral of the story" for everyone who took the time to read all this, but I don't really have one. I suspect that that each person found bits and pieces that were useful or interesting to them. Everyone will probably take away something different. I hope you enjoyed my story.

Thanks for reading!

Sort:  

Tim this post really got me pumped about Steemit! I'm new to steemit. So I'm not sure if you will even see this comment since it is a year old post. Maybe you get an alert when somebody comments on your post? Not sure. Hope you read this. Thanks again for posting. Following you for sure!

Oh wow, fun blast from the past :) Thank you for reading my article.

If you enjoyed this, you would probably really like this interview I did with @terrybrock:
https://steemit.com/blog/@terrybrock/steemit-success-series--timcliff-on-who-to-target-with-your-content-1512178826-124805

Thanks for linking me to that interview. Enjoyed it. Just found the replies button. Now I see how people can see your replies.

I also enjoyed this a good deal tim,
not even sure how i ended up here though lol,
oh yes actually,
i was checking out another profile and they had replied to you.

is there a place in steemit for "killer whales"?

lol i don't mean that they kill,
because most mammals do,
and whales eat literally BILLIONS of tiny crustaceans,

and Orcas are actually almost harmless giant dolphins.

My main characters is named "MythOrca™".

Would love to talk if and when you ever have any free time.

Thanks, Alx.

Screen Shot 2017-12-24 at 4.12.51 AM.png

Sure :)
Just message me on steemit.chat.

Cool. Thanks. I've never really used steemit chat yet to have any real conversations.

Another great post! As a newbie I am finding your content very helpful. It is all overwhelming at times. I am new to crypto currency as well. I am trying to learn as much as I can. Sharing your experiences is so helpful. I try to think of content to add and think what can I add that will be of interest to others. Your post is motivating and I will figure it out!

Thank you for sharing the link! Thoroughly enjoyed the interview. I was impressed with @terrybrock as well. You both seem very genuine and eager to help. Thank you!

Wow this was an extremely inspiring post. Currently working on an initiative to link more artists together here on steemit and offer art sharing, sometimes feels hopeless as a lowly minow. Any advice, tips, help would be great. Thanks for the inspiration

Thanks! It would be good to have a chat channel where your members can go to discuss. You bay be able to create one within the MSP group in discord: https://discord.gg/HYj4yvw

Great story! I love steemit for all the reasons you do! Followed!

Cool, thanks! Thanks for reading :)

An inspiring story. I haven't had quite the success as you have, but something inside me urges me to press on, and keep posting. I feel very optimistic about Steemit and I am here for the long haul, despite several of my posts going to the "Steemit Graveyard", as you have cleverly called it. Great post!

I follow his work and it is true this post should be the longest he has published, in a very interesting post. Congratulations for it, the valuable information, his words are very motivating especially for a person like me who is in search of my financial independence, who lives only what he generates working on the internet. These words do not make you see that if you can with great sacrifice and hard work.
Many thanks my friend @timcliff for sharing this excellent post.

Yup, this definitely resonates with me. I only heard about Steemit in July, but I signed up immediately because that's what I do. LOL

Okay. A social site, blogging, and potential to earn money. Yeah. Yeah. Been there. Done that. But then I read the white papers and one thing seemed very clear to me. Sustainability. Transparency. Blockchain. Cryptocurrency.

I could barely rub 2 nickels together my first month here. I'm sure I'm on a bot list, which is great for upvotes - but not so much influence on the wallet. But I've kept a positive attitude even as STEEM and SBD were dropping. Hell, we're all beta testers. If anything, we should expect change - and you know as well as I do, that change is often pushed back on, and not always good. But that's the purpose of beta.

I love being an early adopter. Chances are I will stick with Steemit until my (or it's) last breath. LOL I'm not yet into the mining/witness side of things, but I may eventually get there. Right now my goal is to help build a solid community base and help newcomers out, even launching @collabornation to bring people together so they don't feel like they're always working alone. Yeah - starting from scratch for the great good - or insanity. Both could be argued. LOL.

Anyway, thanks for sharing your thoughts and experiences. I'm right with you @timcliff - I think that's why you're one of my favorite people on the site. Now let's get you higher on the witness food chain!

Haha, thanks @merej99! As always, I appreciate your continued support. You're one of the people that's been right along side me on my journey - always adding thoughtful and encouraging comments to my posts :)

Well done. Hope you continue to progress :)

Thanks :)

Great job & story!
Shared on twitter

Steem_Land Steemland.com tweeted @ 10 Nov 2016 - 01:56 UTC

Climbing From Minnow to Dolphin (My Story) — Steemit steemit.com/dolphins/@timc…
@SteemUps @SteemitPosts @steemit @steemiobot

Disclaimer: I am just a bot trying to be helpful.

This post has been linked to from another place on Steem.

Learn more about and upvote to support linkback bot v0.5. Flag this comment if you don't want the bot to continue posting linkbacks for your posts.

Built by @ontofractal

This post is great! I can relate :) Thanks for sharing.

Welcome :)
Thanks for reading!

You surpassed me, but you deserve every bit of it. You've managed to do the work, effort, and spent time to get this status, and you've earned every bit of it.

Congrats timcliff. It's a pleasure watching you excel.

Thanks @intelliguy! Your encouragement along the way really meant a lot :)

I thought this was a great read - a great success story. It would be a good story to share with those who are newer to the site or feeling like giving up because they are losing hope. Great work!!

Great article.
Thank you for sharing!

Thanks for sharing your experience on Steemit. If you allow me to add a few comments based on my personal experience (actually even if you don't, I will do it anyhow :p):

I continued my posting for pennies an article. I knew I wasn't making even close to minimum wage, but I was still having fun. I just needed to get that one "big hit" and I'd have thousands!

Having fun is in my opinion one of the important aspects. Especially today. And having fun goes through reading, commenting and answering articles. The future of Steemit mut be strongly connected to have fun on the platform. Fun in writing, fun in reading, etc.

Two weeks ago, things were really starting to look bad on Steemit. Everyone was discouraged about the continuous dropping price of STEEM, and I felt the community had lost track of what made it great.

Two weeks ago (or maybe three, I am not sure anymore), was also the time I was starting to question myself about being here. I am feeling highly concerned with the science category on the platform and it was the time were good science posts were rare and unnoticed, whilst inaccurate, wrong or trending-to-the -moon posts were skyrocketing. Finally, I didn't resign (otherwise I would not be answering) and things are kind of better today. Not in a great state, but better. And for a few days, together with other steemSTEM fellows, we are motivated again ;)

And good luck for your ascension to the whale status ;)

Thanks :)

Cool story!
It was really interesting to read you :D

Interesting post...I also started very low sometimes even $0 but i kept my "Steem ON" was never discouraged...now things are becoming better...seen few upvotes from @ned and other big whales which really means a lot to me...that keeps me coming back and writing more.

This post has been ranked within the top 10 most undervalued posts in the first half of Nov 10. We estimate that this post is undervalued by $32.11 as compared to a scenario in which every voter had an equal say.

See the full rankings and details in The Daily Tribune: Nov 10 - Part I. You can also read about some of our methodology, data analysis and technical details in our initial post.

If you are the author and would prefer not to receive these comments, simply reply "Stop" to this comment.

Thanks for sharing your story @timcliff. Glad to have your stuff in my feed. From my perspective, I thought the work you put out was high quality and only took time and persistence for discovery and reward to happen. I considered your posts a staple in my Hidden Gems series when I ran it.

Just think your success happened before @curie, @robinhoodwhale, @voteinterestpool (now discontinued) and @steemplus (now discontinued as well. I think these initiatives have done alot to make content discovery and reward much better and easier.

I agree. Thanks for featuring me in your hidden gems series back then! When you are just starting out, anything that helps get you exposure is a big help :)

Your persistent optimism and and commitment to innovation here have definitely brought value to the platform. I'm particularly impressed with your clear reporting of github activities, as these reports have saved me tons of time. Glad to see that your work is beginning to pay off!

Thanks @mada :) Now that they added profile pictures, it's nice to be able to put a face to your name!

honest intentions deserve honest attention

This is a great story! Not all too different than my own! Thank you for sharing!

Very interesting story. While it is going to take some effort to follow in your footsteps, so to say, I am sure that socializing at SteemFest is going to help in that for a lot of people.

While I was never as active as you are, I am actually speaking there, which is something really cool that I am looking forward! :-D

Awesome! SteemFest is going to be an amazing time. I can't make it, but I plan to watch as much as I can over live streams and posts. What are you presenting about?

I am a part of the team that is bridging between the Russian speaking and wider audience, @rusteemitblog. While the launch of Golos could have stolen our thunder if we had any, we're actually a bunch of pretty modest guys and gals, but we have our tentacles in many pies, so to speak. :-)
Main thing that we do if you need Ru/En or En/Ru translation, but we also have a curation guild, a #spreadthepower initiative, our own witness is non other than king of the latte art — @smailer; and various other things, which I'll mention. But we were keeping our activities somewhat low key, but SteemFest is a good place to tell about them.

I am sharing my speaking slot with @anasya, who does Crazy Challenge, which is quite simple and fun game, and a good way to promote Steemit to people outside it, and helping her with translation of her part of the presentation is well, a good demo of what we do. :D
And one of the things about us, is that we are all firm beleivers in the future of Steem/Steemit, because it is much more than next Facebook!

Very cool! I hope you have a great time, and good luck on your speech :)

Thank you very much for this article. It is encouraging to see that you went from nothing to something here. I hope that I can do the same. I do know it does not feel good when an article makes $0.00 but at least I still get a couple votes on it that to me gives me hope that one day I can do better.

Steem on

Great post from probably my favorite Steemian!
I admire your persistance. Glad you are part of the community.

That's quite an honor - thank you :) You are one of my favorite peeps on here as well!

Great post. Well done on your progress. I think your experiences will resonate with many people here.

Your grit and effort paid off in the long run, but you were also lucky that Ned and Dan were more active on the platform. Today we have a slightly different scenario I believe. Most users with large accounts interact mostly with their close friends ignoring the rest. There are few exceptions obviously and luckily there are some communities like curie or steemstem that are working hard to help new users. Probably now you find yourself more on the other side of things, and a comment or a vote from you could mean the world for a new user.

Every "generation" has it's challenges. I still consider it very possible for anyone willing to put in the significant effort required to succeed.

True, I can't complain myself as I am surviving but I see several talented users just giving up because it's not simple...