"It'll definitely be a loss unless you are 100% self-voting"
Yeah, I've realized that. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be such a good investment if your plan is to grow others. I mean, judging by the numbers I got previous to this article, I would've lost about 60%, perhaps even a bit more than that... And for a delegation of, let's say 25K, it just doesn't work.
Another story if I had hundreds of thousands of Steem Power already. I wouldn't mind losing that amount for a few weeks, a month or two, as I knew I would be able to grow my account rapidly again afterwards. In my case though, it would probably take me about a year to fully recover...
It's really sad, but I'm glad there are services like this, and that some people out there are able to turn them into good use.
Good ways to grow others:
These are obviously great ways, but not at all what I have in mind for my project. :)
The road will probably be longer than I anticipated at first, but I'll reach the goal with time. I'm definitely not willing to give up this quickly. Not a chance. I'll just put my thinking cap on and figure out another, more sustainable solution.
Steem-ua? Get them to post via busy.org each day? umm, SBI's, concentrated voting (at least you get some curation).
Turn them into awesome Steemians who can attract larger votes :D