I am now officially a part of the STEEM 1 percenter! My Steem Journey so Far

Hours ago, I finally reached half of my goal before the year ends and now have a natural Steem Power of over 500. I am also now officially considered a minnow which is backed by that awesome badge next to my Steem profile.

While many classify accounts with little Steem Power as a minnow, Busy.org and SteemPlus classify them as follows:

• Plankton 0 - 500 SP
• Minnow 500 - 5,000 SP
• Dolphin 5,000 - 50,000 SP
• Orca 50,000 - 500,000 SP
• Whale 500,000+ SP

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So, What's the big deal of having 500SP?

Nothing much really! But while many people can easily power up 500 Steem (at current market price it's only around $700-$750), I for one just don't have that much free money lying around. If I want to be a part of this awesome community I literally have to build this account from scratch. I started building my follower base and increase what little visibility I have on the platform to which I think is the hardest thing when you don't have any solid investment on Steem. If you are a newbie who don't know anyone on this platform and is new to this crypto thing, then for sure you'll understand what I mean.

As seen on the image above, my first posts barely earned anything at all. I am just glad that they were above the dust threshold as I would have earned literally nothing. Even my #introduceyourself post only got $0.22. This goes on for days which was the reason why I almost gave up on this platform.

But everything changed when the fire nation attacked (lol sorry can't help it, Avatar reference). Everything changed when I joined @abh12345 Curation Engagement League. At that time I honestly don't know how the whole contest works. He just said comment below if you want to be added on the list and the curious me did exactly just that. A week after, the results are out... and as expected I didn't win and was far away from winning btw :)

However these very comment on that post above changed my whole Steem Journey:

I still don't know exactly what happened, maybe @techslut was just in a pretty good mood at that time. Or maybe it was my profile pic? Was my DP that handsome back then? Lol I don't know. But one thing for sure is that what she inspired and motivated me to continue steeming.

Also, hours before that I just made my very first ever technology-related post. Her username has the word "tech" on it so I don't know if it's all just a random coincidence or just pure luck on my part, but everything just worked on my favor. She upvoted my post, and to my surpise is being trailed by an orca/whale @fminerten and @steempty.

The post above was my very first post to reach above $1 payout. Luckily at that time I was still pretty interested on CTF's(Capture The Flag) competitions. That time most if not all of my posts where all about CTF tutorials, what tools to use, how to use it. How to solve those problems. I am honestly just a beginner at that field but I want to meet people with the same interest as mine.

Anyway, she upvoted those posts from time to time, however as I've said I'm only a beginner on CTF's so my knowledge is only limited to the basics. After a week or two, I eventually ran out of things to write. I then chose to write the things I have vast knowledge about and that is "Anime". At that time, she started getting busier with her work on utopian (She's now the CMO of @Utopian btw, How cool is that! ) and might have forgotten about me. Lol jk

I then used bidbots to increase my visibility and slowly convert those SBD's to Steem Power. Honestly, if I could go back in the past I would probably still use bidbots. Looking at my past posts there's just no way that it will be curied or ocd'd. But those huge fake $ below and beside the post motivated me to keep on steeming.

To keep my losses to a bearable degree after using bidbots, I then looked for another means of support. Anddd I found @qurator. Back then their registration fee for new members was still at 2SBD/STEEM but it was the best 2SBD(Or was it Steem?) I have ever spent. Those daily guaranteed upvote and trails makes my blog posts more lively than it was compared to using bots. As for if it was all worth it I'm just gonna leave this one for anyone to see.

Although right now, with the current disappointing price of Steem/SBD their upvote really is not the same as before. However for all the support they have given me for 143 (♡♡♡) days now, I am planning on still supporting them and availing their services.

Because I was impressed as to how @qurator works, I made it a goal here on Steem to get a daily guaranteed upvote of at least $5. I then searched the entire Steem blockchain(okay not really) to look more for other communities that support content creators that does that and have found @make-a-whale and @jumbot to which I am thankful for accepting me in. Right now, including all the people who have set me on auto I am now at least guaranteed a $1.5 upvote daily ($3.5 more to go!).

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I just realized that this is now close to 1000words and I am still far away lol

As per my awesome schedule posted yesterday, I was supposed to do a livestream sketch today but @adelair went on a shopping spree so I had to do this impromptu post

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Anyway Fast Forward to May of this year. That month was when I really started to grow here on Steem. I've got to know (befriend?), two of the most awesome orca/whales I have ever known in the platform and the main reason for this little achievement of mine, @neoxian and @dimimp.

There are many things I am thankful towards @neoxian for and I would probably sing him praises if he wants me to, but I would probably do a separate post for that one. :)

Based on mysteemitfriends.online , @neoxian is my top contributor even beating a bid-bot I occasionally use. Neo single-handedly give me a total vote of $347.54 spread around 99 articles. WOW! Just wow!

THANK YOU VERY MUCH MR. DRAGON

While @neoxian is the main reason for this growth of mine, @dimimp is the reason why my blog posts have been pretty much active lately. An effective Steem Power of 1250+ allows me to give some upvotes for people I want to support and is in constant interaction on this platform. It also attracts spammers on my blog posts and since I am easily flattered I just can't help upvoting those comments. Lol

What makes it more awesome is that according to this post: God is now (back) on Steem ! , which was shared by @dimimp himself, it looks like @dimimp is none other than the creator of DPOS(Delegated Proof of Stake) @dan or @dantheman. A @god just gave me some delegation, how lucky is that right.

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As a quick summary of progress:

Month	Steem Power	Reputation	Followers
February	41	52	250
March	84	54.7	355
April	130	56.38	485
May	246	59.2
June	360	60.4	801
July	504	61.1	832

As I have joined the Steem platform on the 28th of December, I still have around 6 days left for July Oh well! Thanks again for the constant support everyone! And sorry again for this long personal rant :)