My turn to answer my own question!
I was (and still am) a user of Bitshares, the former project of @dan that laid the ground work of what was to become Graphene: the state-of-the-art blockchain technology framework that made Steem possible.
One of the things that always frustrated me with Bitshares was that it was at the same time the best implementation of blockchain technology on the market, the most thought provoking, and unfortunately the most cryptic, confusing. poorly marketed and therefore misunderstood project in the whole space.
Like many other early joiners, I heard first about Steem on Bitshares forum. Initially, it wasn't known that @dan was behind the project as only @ned was doing the PR. Later, @dan stepped up and confirmed his involvement. That's when I understood that @dan had cracked the problem of finding the perfect application where Graphene would be able to demonstrate its power and change the world. That day, I became a steemian, and never looked back.