I've seen several people now write a post about their Steemit Story. This is basically a challenge started by @whatsup to learn about how people got started on Steemit.

So far two of the people I follow have participated in it. It was interesting reading the posts by @slobberchops and @verhp11 about how they got started in Steemit.

If you want to participate, simply write a post using this title and add the tag #mysteemitstory.

How did you find out about Steemit?

My history with Crypto Currency actually goes all the way back to when I was working at Servcom. One of the other techs was talking about this new digital currency that was coming out called Bitcoin.

At the time, I was just out of college and trying to get more established with my finances. Sadly, I didn't have the inclination or the money to jump on board with Bitcoin. I also didn't have the foresight to setup a mining rig to see if I could snag some of my own in the early days. I simply saw it as a fad and something that would never amount to anything.

Fast forward many years later to November of 2018. I had been reading here and there about Bitcoin and the other crypto currencies that were now out. I didn't know a ton about them, but I knew something was going on.

That year for Thanksgiving a couple of my wifes relatives were in town and we got talking about crypto currencies. We were talking about how the price of Bitcoin had jumped from $700 to $7700 in a relatively short time. Her cousin @robrigo also mentioned that he had been active in a project called Steemit and he had been able to do some travelling using the profits he had made from there.

I was instantly intrigued and started to do my own research into Steemit. Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, I picked up my first cryptocurrencies using Coinbase. I bought some Litecoin and Ethereum while they were still decently low in 2018. I tried to sign up for Steemit, but I was discouraged that I didn't get a confirmation email right away.

I didn't realize at the time there was such a huge waiting list and I just assumed there was something wrong with their site. We were lucky enough to see @robrigo again at Christmas time and he started explaining about how things had been going well for him and he was starting to work in a new crypto project.

I mentioned to him that I was trying to get on Steemit but couldn't and he said he would send me the faucet link for his group that were a witness at the time on Steemit. He also helped several of us in my wifes family get a Bitcoin wallet setup and make an initial investment.

What were your initial experiences and thoughts?

Now that I had my Steemit account and the intial SP that the witness group gave me, I was ready to hit the ground running.

Like most other people who have responded to this challenge, I immediately found myself in the trending area. I saw people writing posts about their life and their dogs and making hundreds of dollars.

I thought, I have a dog that is cute, I can totally do this! You see when @robrigo initially pitched me the idea of Steemit he explained it is a place where people get rewarded for posting high quality technical content.

Now, I am a pretty technical guy, but I know there are others who are way more adept than I am. I thought sure I would look like a moron if I tried to "run with the big dogs" on Steemit.

When I saw the kind of content that was actually on the platform I grew a little more comfortable and thought to myself, I will be making thousands in no time!

I threw out some pictures of my dog, and some other photos I had taken through the years thinking I was going to be rolling in the dough!

I found out later, that @robrigo was starting to power down his account. The group he was working with were starting to get more involved in EOS and were beginning to commit more of their time and resources to that. I in turn moved some of my Ethereum and Litecoin into EOS as well and was able to have some holdings for the genesis snapshot.

It was kind of a bummer though, because at the time I started he had a pretty big Steemit account, probably being considered a dolphin or whale. I never wanted to ask him for an upvote because maybe my content wasn't good enough or wasn't something he agreed with. It had been my hope though that he would read one of my posts and possibly give me some love.

As I said though, I later found out he just wasn't as active on the platform as he used to be and I totally respect that. He has a solid team now with @eos.detroit and they are doing some great things over there. If you hold EOS consider giving them your vote as a BP.

I soon started to forge my own way on Steemit. I joined some groups like @qurator and @thesteemengine where I quickly learned about making good quality posts. Eventually I also learned about bidbots and upvote bots and the reality of the trending page became much clearer to me.

I am a couple months away from a year on Steemit now and my knowledge, commitment to the platform, and account have all grown. I have even started to invest some of my own money into my account to build my SP. In this way I can delegate to groups I believe in and ensure that my upvotes are worthwhile.

That's my Steemit Story! Thanks for reading!

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