Whew! What a fun one and a half years on the platform. I went from literally not knowing anyone, not having a cent in crypto, not having ever hosted my own programs or manged a github account/process, and look at me now! I have 15,000 followers! I founded a Discord group with (we think) just over 12,000 Steemians in it. We started a streaming internet broadcast station. We have programs that help people, have incubated and launched a few communities, and we're getting close to having 100,000SP on the @minnowsupport account again.

I know milestone posts can sometimes be just too spammy and celebratory, but I like to use them to reflect on life too. I'm extremely grateful for the opportunities this platform provides me. I really love this community. The moderators in the Minnow Support Group are like family. Hopefully I'll meet them in person soon. The other top 20 witnesses are really smart people. There are so many creative geniuses and programmers. Nearly every week we're seeing a new thing for the Steem ecosystem. We're not just growing. We're booming! I love it.

Muh Brain!

I have to consume information. I see it in my oldest kid too. There's not enough information on the internet for me. I have to fill my brain every day with media, data, and reports. I'm just wired like that. Hopefully as I've been poking around and experimenting on this platform the folks that do follow me feel like they get some benefit of that. I try to take a significant portion of my writing time to help guide other users.

I want you guys to find success faster than I was able to do it by building tools and communities to help you!

Muh Heart!

I know I repeat the story a lot, but it really changed my life. I wasn't getting far on the platform and I don't think my writing was working well. So, I tried to find someone to emulate. That person was @kaylinart. Though we don't write about the same things I learned a lot about how to formulate a readable post from her. I wrote a post about how she wrote and she was kind enough to resteem it. So did @fyrstikken.

Since that day I've had what I'd consider a meteoric rise on the Steem blockchain. And more than anything else I'm committed to helping other people find success here too. I try to delegate nearly all my witness rewards. I try to manage PALnet, MSP-Waves, and MSP to the best of my ability. I try to live my life by the mission of the Minnow Support Group: spread the values of Peace, Abundance, help grow the Steem ecosystem, and train and retain minnows on the platform. I see this as a service, an honor, a mission, and a way to give back for all I've been given.

In my head the way I track success of the work I'm doing is "how long is it taking active members to hit 5,000 SP starting from scratch?" A slightly better metric might be "how long is it taking them to hit $5000?" We got some folks that have hit $30,000 in 8 months working part time. I think that's a success!!

For me the answer was over 8 months. I think I hit 1,000 followers at the 8 month line and had $5000 closer to 10 months into my time on the Steem blockchain.

It's been a hell of a ride!

I'm over 5,000 posts! That's a lot of comments, but man... that's a lot of freaking posts. There aren't that many high rep accounts that post brand new content multiple times a day. I don't think any of the other witnesses do it. I think I'm the only professional blogger in the top 20 really. But I love writing. I love short stories. I finding data and telling a story about it.

I made up my mind that I wanted to

A Town

I gave myself the moniker Minnow Mayor when we hit a few thousand people in the Discord channel. I gotta say. I never envisioned this many people coming along for the ride. I know we have a large number of folks that come in and use the @minnowsupport account and then leave, but we also have a bunch of people listening to shows, talking in chat, organizing meetups, and so much more. I literally founded the equivalent of an internet town and it's rather quickly becoming an internet city!

PALnet is still growing by just under 1000 people a week or so. @discordiant hasn't released official numbers yet this week, but it's roughly that, and as the prices spike again I think we'll see an even faster rate of growth. Yes we're going to get more than 1000 a week very shortly!

Sounds of Steem

Tons of musicians lined up for today's "Sounds of Steem" please come attend!

https://discord.gg/dpGVBcy