Greetings! – Midwestern YouTuber Trying Blockchain in a Coffee Shop

Hello, Steemit!

For starters I am definitely not the real Leeroyyy Jenkins, just a big fan. He’s quite hard to track down I’ve heard. However I do operate on YouTube and have a cat by the name. To put bread on the table, I create software tutorials focused on WordPress and just moved from Brooklyn to Minneapolis. I hope to share knowledge from both the YouTube and WordPress communities with the Steemian community. If you want to coffee chat on how to start a successful blog or how to start your own “how-to” YouTube channel, I’m always game fellow Steemians!

Under the hood of a typical wordpress tutorial

Another version of Leeroy Jenkins, not helping the team here

About My Work

My journey to YouTube stardom (and large exaggerations) began on a couch in New York City’s Murray Hill. My rockstar roommates were among the first to get a real apartment (ah, remember that feeling?) and I was driven to this bustling town. The energy NYC emits on a 22-25 year old has to be one of the most amazing things ever. I was so happy just to have a couch there. I felt like Casey Neistat scrubbing pans, it doesn’t matter what it is as long as you can earn a few pennies and stay there another day. Networking daily I soon got a 9-5 desk job as some analyst at the government and not long after infiltrated their website world. My job for three years was creating government websites using their government CMS.

Used to eat lunch here

Oddly I loved this job for a while. Former skateboarder working in a cheap suit for the government. But the paper work only got higher and higher and there was a turning point when they decided not to promote me. Seated in meetings with tables so long you couldn’t see who was speaking (usually one of Bloomberg’s cronies) I’d wonder if I would ever escape. Yes it was fun working for the government and having a desk. but at some point you’re either Peter or Neo and either way you want out.

Couldn’t tell if I was becoming Peter or Neo

A small part of me wondered if I could teach about websites for a living, as a huge chunk of my job at City Hall involved explaining how our websites worked so others in the bull pen could create content.

Apparently they ranked us in terms of importance. #18032.

I met @design-guy at a local pub near Union Square one night when all of our university friends roamed the city.

Warm atmosphere, cold beer and plotting online domination

This was years before Blockchain. Would have been interesting to see where Blockchain was then actually? Design Guy wore a Seahawks Jersey and marched with me ahead of the pack talking of becoming a web developing team for hotels and restaurants. I obliged and we soon made our first website.

Our first freelance website featuring a real estate investment firm

We made many medium sized corporate websites to follow, and with the income we generated I quit the desk job to front end develop full time.

Real estate websites become our bread and butter

But what’s a good developer without a blog to go with him.

So I should note I’ve run a blog since graduating college in 2010. It’s been fun, slow at times, then really fun — growing up in the last decade of blogging will be a central theme in my posts.

Small fast-forward. If you made a blog 2012-2015 it’s possible you saw this goofy logo.

Fast forward 4 years, I still manage the blog but work on a how-to YouTube channel for a decent living, @design-guy and I still get all excited brainstorming new sites, and of course he introduced me to this wonderful little world of Steemians. Who knows, maybe Blockchain is the next blogging?

I’m super excited to join everyone here, and will try not to “Leeroyyy Jenkins” all the work we’ve created :)

Looking Forward

Going onwards and hopefully upwards I would love to Steem blog about how to start a YouTube channel, how to make a blog, and how to rank the two in Google search engines (this makes it all more fun, trust me). I also will mention my mishaps and stumblings through investing in Blockchain. Given my day-to-day is helping people start and build blogs, I hope to give ideas and answers on how to grow the projects of Steemians wherever I can.

I figured here would be a good place to list my fav Steemians so far. I’ve been observing the Trending list for weeks before this post, getting all nervous to make my entrance, and trying to mine inspiration.

I love getting Steemy with:

@ScaredyCatGuide - The rise averse need your pawers!
@Sweetsssj - Incredible review of Sultanahmet, makes me want to go back!
@Timsaid - Just downright eloquent intros, hook me for days.
@LukeStokes - Love following Steemfest, also perception vs reality.
@Sndbox - The helping hand that got me going here. Awesome, supportive dudes.
Of course, @Design-guy - Web dev PiC with the freshest workspace in Soho.

You guys are posting incredible stuff, thanks for the inspiration! And seriously thanks DesignGuy for letting me practice golf swings at your workspace when I'm roaming Lower Manhattan as a non-resident now.

Far out projects include designing a WordPress theme and hopefully getting my cat outdoors more now that we have more land to conquer in the Midwest.

I’ll definitely be documenting things I learn about Blockchain, investing in Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin and others and anything else I discover to leave crumbs for those entering this exciting space after us.

That’s my abbreviated story, what’s yours? Happy to divulge more below and chat about yours, what brought you here or anything we might have in common!

Where to next, Steemians?