Brett and me at SunshinePHP in 2016
Just over three weeks ago on Friday, February 16th, from a hotel room in Acapulco Mexico, I sold my half of FoxyCart.com to my business partner. I'm now focusing full-time on cryptocurrency-related opportunities and ventures. Technically, I'm no longer a business owner.
That's a really strange feeling.
As I talk about that feeling, I'll include some screenshots of the FoxyCart website from the way back machine.
February 2007
Major Foxy releases
I created FoxyCart, which has now become Foxy.io, with my business partner and friend @brettflorio over ten years ago. It's a platform for enabling merchants to add custom ecommerce to their existing websites and projects. It's just the cart, checkout, and receipt instead of trying to do everything including inventory, order management, and fullfilment. Even with our narrow focus, we still include recurring payments, downloadables, shipping, taxes, coupons, discounts, single sign-on, and more.
I've put so much of my life into this code with many major releases over the years and a really kick-ass Hypermedia API that got a lot of attention in the API space. I'd go to API conferences and hear people talking about this Medium post I did in 2015 Why Your Colleagues Still Don’t Understand Hypermedia APIs (which I also published on Steemit).
In 2014, I gave a keynote presentation at PHP World on turning my code into a company. I've spoken about FoxyCart and what we developed at conferences in Texas, Tennessee, Washington D.C., Florida, and South Carolina. I've spoken on a number of podcasts including:
- WCN14: Luke Stokes on FoxyCart and Bootstrapping a Startup
- Wide Teams #39: Luke Stokes and Brett Florio of Foxycart
- Voices of the elePHPant: Interview with Luke Stokes
- The Entrepreneurial Mind: Luke Stokes - FoxyCart
- Entrepreneur On Fire #705: Luke Stokes: How to live life on purpose
FoxyCart has been a major part of my identity for over a decade. People would see me at conferences and say, "Hey, you're the FoxyCart guy, huh?" The funny thing is, over time, they started to call me the "Bitcoin guy" as well. I've been talking about cryptocurrency pretty consistently since the beginning of 2013 (I'll be sharing a bunch of bitcoin tweets from 2013 soon, so stay tuned).
May 2012
FoxyCart has been such a big part of my life that it's strange to imagine being without it. The team Brett and I built and the thousands of stores who use Foxy daily now get along just fine without me. I know, because I've been mostly uninvolved since the beginning of this year as a sort of trial run and things have been great.
Over the years, we've built so many great relationships with the PHP community both by sponsoring events and by speaking. Brett even gets into the crazy stuff like Regex:
Our rainbow-pooping unicorn and shark-with-friggen-lazer-beams shirts have always been a hit in the community.
It'll probably take some time for people to not think about me as the "FoxyCart guy." It's taking me some time as well.
December 2012
I shouldn't be too surprised, as I could see this change coming from a long ways off. Back in January 2013, when I bought my first bitcoin (I paid $50 for 2.5 BTC), I knew blockchain technology would revolutionize the world. I gave a Nashville BarCamp talk about how Bitcoin may be more disruptive than the Internet. I was already fired up about it way back then.
I remember trying to convince Brett shopping carts themselves would go away once everyone started using Bitcoin. I pushed hard to get a Coinbase integration in January 2015 and BitPay before that in 2013. We actually have an entry on the Bitcoin wiki which I didn't know about until writing this post.
I've been pushing cryptocurrency through FoxyCart for quite some time:
- April 2013: Why Does FoxyCart Support Bitcoin?
- November 2013 Could Bitcoin Be More Disruptive than the Internet?
- December 2013: Why Shouldn’t You Accept Bitcoin?
- February 2014: We Took a Risk with Bitcoin. Should You?
April 2015
Working with cryptocurrency projects has been my passion for a while now. I started the first Bitcoin meetup in Nashville in 2013 and was mentioned in the Tennessean as well.
I also watched as the price of bitcoin skyrocketed up to ~$1,200 and then crashed back down to ~$250. I didn't sell then because I truly believed in the long-term value being created. It was sad to see community excitement and involvement go down with the price. I got voted in to participate in a non-profit idea to help onboard people to bitcoin in Tennessee, but that unfortunately turned out to be a big waste of time. Fortunately, I met @sean-king through that group who was one of the two people (along with @billbutler) who first told me about Steemit.
Steemit changed everything for me. When I joined in June of 2016, I immediately knew this is what I've been waiting for. This is a killer app for mass adoption of cryptocurrency. All my efforts to get stores to accept bitcoin were not helpful because everyday users weren't demanding to pay in bitcoin. Critical mass had not yet been reached and wouldn't be reached for quite some time without a way for normal people to get some exposure to cryptocurrency.
Even when I was promoting FoxyCart, I was rocking my Steemit shirt:
I've been excited about this place since day one. I've heard many people tell stories of quitting their jobs and "going full-time with Steemit" and it always made me cringe just a little. I had to ask myself what value are they bringing to really justify quitting their jobs and cashing out enough STEEM to live on or support their family? Are they just living off the value of other investors supporting the price of STEEM?
Foxy.io Today, March 2018
I don't want to tell another story about how I'm cashing out STEEM which only has value because others are investing in it. Since I've already paid off my house with bitcoin, I'm in a pretty good financial place to take some risks. I'm able to focus full-time on what I'm currently most passionate about: distributed ledger technology practically implemented to improve the world. I hope to diversify within the cryptocurrency space to have multiple forms of income instead of just relying on value increases in my portfolio.
I plan to blog on Steemit, remain active as a STEEM witness, support interesting masternode projects like SmartCash, engage in more cryptocurrency trading opportunities, and (eventually) focus on learning C++ and learning/contributing directly to blockchain (and possibly DAG in the future) core technology. I may also engage in some for-pay consulting and conference speaking.
I plan to continue adding value because I do believe, if you help enough people, you'll never have to worry about money. I do think the early adopters who are educating and empowering others for the future tokenization of the world will be greatly rewarded for their efforts.
I believe in a decentralized future where we use technology to live more free, voluntary lives.
I'm so thankful for Brett Florio who made this transition easier than I could have imagined. I could do a whole post on how we went about exiting from a 50/50 partnership and how we worked so well together for so many years. He remains one of my best friends and someone I enjoy talking with every day. I'm also so very thankful for my amazing wife @corinnestokes who is willing to take a risk with me and leave behind a stable company we spent ten years building to branch out into the unknown, even with three kids to care for. Her support is invaluable.
It's taken me a bit of time to write this post because there are so many emotions involved with changing something so fundamental to my identity. I'm not yet sure how I'll answer the ever-so-common "So, what do you do?" question. I don't know what the future will look like. Interestingly, multiple amazing opportunities have been put before me already. I hope to continue living a voluntary life, spending time with my family and friends, and adding value to the world. I hope to never have to take a "job" again (even one I bulid for myself as I did with Foxy). I hope to dynamically, each day, work on what interests me most and what adds the most value.
Thank you so much to all my friends and supporters here on the STEEM blockchain for being with me on this journey.
The family and I are headed to Puerto Rico for a couple weeks to celebrate and attend the Blockchain Unbound conference. If you're in the area, come say hello!
Congrats to you and good luck on this new direction in your life. If you put as much into it as you obviously put into FoxyCart, it looks like you will not have a problem! Very interesting to read about your past venture and the transition to where you are now.
Thank you. I've really been enjoying this year so far and the freedom it has brought me.
I bet letting go wasn't easy after all the time, passion, sweat and tears invested into the company but like they say all good things must come to an end, so great things can take its place.
I like the sound of that. Here's to great things!
Thanks for your words of encouragement.
Awesome stuff Luke...the transition from "the main career cog" of your life does feel a bit odd at first, but you have done it right.
Multiple projects that provide an ever growing stream of incomes.
And yes, diversify in crypto...but also remember you will never be more than 20% diversified when in a single asset class, so hold on to that rental, assuming you still have it ;-)
Yep, we still do, and I certainly hear you about diversification. If the crypto markets have another spike up, we may diversify a bit more. It's going to be an interesting ride in the years to come to make stuff work, but so far I'm loving it.
Best of luck for your full time in crypto. Invite Brett Florio on Steemit. And make him the part of our community.
Congrats on the leap, Luke!
Thanks Bill! It's like flying without a parachute, but I think it's the right call, and I'm loving it so far. :)
WHAT?
You know I still think you're crazy, but best of luck with your new move. I hope it works out well for you.
Wait, does this mean you won't be at PHP conferences anymore???
That's kind of the crappy part I didn't get into here. I probably won't be as engaged in the PHP community as I have been with speaking, sponsoring, and such. That said, even just doing that little unconference talk at SunshinePHP about @utopian-io got me thinking about doing a talk around that for open source developers while also covering the basics of blockchain technology and STEEM. I think that could be a very well-received talk, and it could work at any tech conference anywhere. The blockchain space needs so many developers right now as the demand far exceeds the supply. I'd love to see more PHP devs getting involved.
And yes, I may be crazy, but so far, following my crazy ideas about the future value of blockchain technology and cryptocurrency has paid off nicely. My reasoning in 2013 hasn't changed much, I just see more people agreeing with me now.
Maybe I'll do more regular conference speaking that would include the PHP community and many others. I at least have more of an excuse to put a talk together and start submitting to conferences again.
It shows how much you believe in crypto, well it would have been a hard decision and I think you would miss its shares quite often. And I love the motive of your life, **create a world where we all want to kive in ** best of luck fot that
I believed in it in 2013. I believe in it now. Now I'm fully committing to helping this space as best I can.
Disclaimer: I am just a bot trying to be helpful.
Is that your friend you sold the foxycart to in the first picture.. My regards to him
Yes, that's @brettflorio.
Waoooo.. My greetings to him... Say me well to him as a friend on steemit.
Sir its my pleasure to see your post. Its a valuable post about "I Sold My Half of FoxyCart"
Thanks for share your knowledge sir.
Really i appreciate you.
Have a good day sir!
Congrats, Luke, and best wishes on the next stage of this journey.
Thanks so much. :)
It's an exciting time to be involved with all the projects that are on the cusp of literally reshaping major aspects of society and how humans interact and value things.
great post :) @lukestokes
why you sold it ?
good post :) @lukestokes
Steem is the most interesting and undervalued Masternode-Project :P
But on a serious-note: Kudos to you for pulling through and making (in my opinion) a very important good decision!
I sure hope we feel the same way many years from now. :)
First, congrats on your achievements! I am inspired by your success and the way you demonstrate humility on achieving it!
Myself, being blessed to have live in Puerto Rico for years, I wanted to let you know of some places of interest for your family and yourself. I was just there recently and although the devastation from Hurricane Maria is still visible, nature has done its part in recovering the beauty of the island. El Yunque is the only American Rainforest and it is a place of beautiful hiking trails and waterfalls that you can enjoy. La Parguera is a coastal town to the south that has beautiful views of the ocean with great scuba diving and one of the only bioluminescent bays in the region and very impressive on a dark night. Lastly, the Caves and Caverns of Camuy (2 different places close to each other) are one of the longest systems of underground caves in the Caribbean. It is also a great day trip for the family.
I hope you enjoy your visit!
Thank you so much for your recommendations! @corinnestokes read through them and will be keeping them in mind. I'll report back to Steemit on our trip, I'm sure.
this man is in heaven already
Well there you go ! Crypto got your heart it seems ;-)
Congratulations Luke! You really are an inspiration! I wish you all of the best in future endeavors and am looking forward to seeing what you get involved with next. It's an incredible story you tell here, very cool to get to know you, and your legacy, better.
Thanks man. It's funny to say "legacy" but in a way, that's what it is. That's a big chunk of my life and now it's living on without me. :)
I'm a wannabe entrepreneur, so I look forward to following your ventures going forward!
Great to hear the news!
It's a success when you can gracefully exit a business. I'm happy to hear that the transition went well. I'm looking forward to reading about what's next for you, even if that's a lot of things instead of one big thing.
Thanks for your example of how to connect with people and build relationships on Steemit. Wishing you continued success!
Thank you so much. Yeah, it's been fantastic this year so far. If I can continue adding value while learning from and connecting with amazing people and capitalize on opportunities that come my way in the process... well, I can't imagine anything better.
Damn you invested so much effort in that project. You should be really proud of yourself and what can a little man do in this world. It's about dedication and smart choices.
I like how you conveyed your emotion and shared it here with us.
I wish you very best and much luck and happiness with cryptocurrencies. You're the crafter of your own luck.
Have a nice day - @tonac :)
Thank you. It really is about dedication, rational choice, and just showing up to do the work. Consistency and actually caring to strive for excellence, in the long run, pay off.
all the best, man! you are such a great individual wanting to contribute to humanity, there is only success ahead for you.
Thank you so much, Luis. It really is amazing time to be alive, and I'm so thankful.
Congratulations! I'm sure you have some mixed feelings about cutting the cord, but life is about growth and discovery. I always liked this one: 'Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.' Besides, you have plenty of support between here and family.
You probably don't need any more moral support, but I quit my job and am moving on too. So, I think if it's the right time then you're doing the right thing.
One thing I will say is momentum is key. I'm glad part of your vacation is relevant to your work life. Keep up the good work and good luck!
Thanks for the encouragement. Good luck on your journey as well!
you're the best! so humble, with such a great contribution...
Congrats bro! The best thing is that you are happy about it! Glad I could witness it! Much Love!
Yeah, that was a fun moment. "Hey Jan, I just sold my business." :)
Congrats Lukes! I know this is a huge deal! This is really cool!
Thanks so much. It really is a big deal and it feels good to talk about it.
Congratulations on this massive life leap. Here’s to even more exciting future projects.
@lukestokes Hope the next chapter bring you fortune :)
Congratulations, Luke! You are an inspiration to all of us here at STEEM and thank you for sharing your successes with us. Things are looking up and up for you! Best wishes to you and your family!
Thank you for your words of encouragement. :)
Wow what an amazing story. As I beginner peeking into the (slightly overwhelming) world of development I love to hear these types of stories. Thank you!
P.S. https://jsfiddle.net/v5c2jo97/ My JavaScript calculator! It can only do 2 numbers at once, but you can use your keyboard!
This sounds great!
An incredible journey comes to an end. The Foxy guy is soon going to be called the Crypto guy instead of the Bitcoin guy. Best of luck with your future plans. It's a difficult moment emotionally.
This is a quote from a Rocky series movie. I think it apllies to businesses, professions and places alike. A part of you is Foxycarts perhaps and so it will remain.
I congratulate you on successfully going through an epic phase of life.
Thanks so much. It's a really good reminder to not label or define myself too strongly and remain dynamic in my thinking and action while continuing improving how I implement unchanging principles.
Wow, Luke. That is huge news and a bold step - not just financially, but letting go of something that has been such a core part of your identity for so many years. With your passion to add value to others, I'm excited to see what creative ventures follow. I believe this will be a very natural step for you as you're already having a great impact introducing many people to the world of cryptocurrencies. Everything I've learned about crypto I can trace back to that video about Steemit you posted on Facebook back in July 2016. I'm super thankful for how you've influenced me in a positive way.
Thanks so much, Jason. You've watched me go through two major transitions now starting all the way back from graduating in 2001 and joining EN. :)
I'm so glad to hear my content started you on this positive journey.
Luke, I’m so happy for you! Your passion and pursuit of purpose is so clear. You’re brilliant AND able to articulate it (2 very different skills that don’t always come together....) You’re honesty and self awareness is evident here as you acknowledge the oddness in relinquishing a title that has long been a part of your identity. You’re willingness to engage in open debate on divisive topics while always (that I’ve seen) remaining kind, respectful, and empathetic to opposing views. You’re just a good human and I’m glad to know you.
Thanks so much, Cindy. It was great to see you all last night, and I really look forward to hanging out over the next two weeks.
This comment was so encouraging to me that I handed the phone to @corinnestokes and had her read it also. :) :) :)
Big smiles for sure.
😘
Luke, what an amazing news! I am sure it was not easy, but as I said in another post, it's the right decision at this time. You have to feel proud of what you did. Still, it won't be easy, after so many years, but you will do great, can't wait for what comes next!
Thanks Pablo! I sure hope it's the right decision. I guess we'll find out a few years from now. :)
Congrats to you and good luck on this new direction in your life.Awesome stuff Luke...the transition from "the main career cog" of your life does feel a bit odd at first, but you have done it right.
all the best...please upvote me please.
Congrats Mr.Luke, something bigger than FoxyCart is coming; More ideas and more innivations through the Disruptive nature of the Blockain i declare!
Hi @lukestokes ! All what you have done in the past have put yourself in this context, now, today, in the present. Glad you were able to achieve a Freedom you were looking for, and glad it can be now, when you are still young, to enjoy your life with your family. Freedom is invaluable.
Hope many people that take good decisions today, and that have been taking good and smart decisions for a few years now, are able to live the same emotions in the near future.
Regards, @gold84
Thank you. Freedom really is an amazing, incredible thing. Our species thrives on autonomy.
Totally agree! The world is going to the autonomy direction, and technology is giving people the power again to change the world like never happened before.
This is the start of a great Journey!
Your story is a great story to inspire so many people.
Thank you @lukestokes for this inspirational post. This is not inspirational only, it's also a way to get to know more about you. I admire you about what you have been able to achieve in few years only : having a business (and able to sell it), paying your house in bitcoin, educate people about bitcoin, empower people about crypto, learning stuff, and having kids on homeschooling...
As you I believe that this technology will change the world forever and we are still early adopter. As you I hope the humanity will be more free and able to live freely in the futur.
... And as you I hope that (I am not convince yet, because I don't have great examples or roll model about it except Andreas Antonopoulos fews months ago). But I hope, really hope that...
You are a real example for me... As severals people here on Steem. Without Steem I wouldn't be able to read, to be " so close " from people with your mindset (which is mine too, but how hard it is to be like that when nobody is like that in your family/friends circle).
I wish you a lot of success in your new life, I am sure " It's only the beginning " !
Roxane
Ps: By the way, to the question, " What do you do?", I am use to reply : " I try to live my life, doing what I love most and I try to impact people to build a better world ".
Thank you, Roxane. I love the answer you give to that question as it really resonates with myself as well.
That is awesome Luke and I'm glad the transition has been smooth! That is a big step and you have been very valuable to the crypto world and especially this platform. You always liked that you are willing to play devils advocate and call things into question. It has allowed the STEEM ecosystem to grow in a better direction.
Well, promo-steem does not know you as the foxy cart guy!!
wow, did not see this until now.... I don't need to wish you all the best because you definitely will be.
Instead, I wish I can be so lucky like you to work full time for crypto related jobs... It would be harder for non-technical guys like me though... but I am working on it. ^_^
Thanks for the encouragement! It’s been super fun this year working for fake internet money tokens created out of nothing. :)
We’ll see how it works out.
well, fake internet money tokens have led us to see through the surfaces of the real moneys or securities and realize that one is not more real or less fake than the other. oh sorry, maybe the fake one is actually a little bit more real? lol