but I am going to take the plunge! I've read everything in the FAQs and tutorials, but there is a lot to learn here. So, please, if I muck it up - be patient and just tell me how to improve it for the next time!!
First of all, I am 63 years old, and have been earning a living online since 1992. I started out selling websites to real estate agents in San Jose, Calif, before I really knew what email was! From there, I added payment processing services to our product portfolio, focusing mainly on ecommerce businesses, and in 1996, a friend called and asked if I could get a merchant account for a guy he knew that was opening an online casino in Panama. I thought it was the dumbest thing I had ever heard of, but by 2000, I was speaking at gaming conferences all over the world about processing for the online gaming industry.
LOL - you just never know where things will go, do you?
Over the last decade, I have been fortunate to work with some of the leading fintech developers in the payments industry, and love being on the 'cutting edge' of new payment solutions. The industry is always changing, never boring and I absolutely love what I do.
And the best part? I work from home, with my husband. We shared the same office for 15 years, with (almost) no bloodshed. Hey, we're human! My client base is global, and I spend most of the day on Skype working with businesses all over the globe, from nearly every vertical, while in my jammies and bunny slippers.
No, I am not kidding.
I left the proverbial corner office in downtown San Francisco decades ago, and while it has not always been easy, I've never regretted the decision.
I probably work longer hours than most people in the corporate world, but it's okay because it's my choice.
One of our side projects is Venture55.com, a free website dedicated to helping people of all ages start online businesses, especially second careers and post-retirement businesses. Too many of us today have seen our nest eggs wiped out or pension plans decimated in the past few years and we hope that we can come together to re-energize our futures.
As I said at the beginning of this self-intro, I am a newbie among you, but I spent the last two hours reading posts and I am very excited to join this wonderful, vibrant and challenging community.
Very much the Stranger in a Strange Land - but I look forward to becoming a very active and contributing member.
Im a newb too, best of luck to ya, the community is great : )
Thank you!! And the same to you, too!
Welcome to our community :)
Thank you!!!
Hello venture55, welcome to Steemit! :-)
Wow - this is certainly a lot more friendly than Linkedin ;-)
Your path to Steemit is certainly both unusual and impressive! A lot of new Steemians don't do their research to the degree you clearly have before jumping. I can tell you have a lot of prior blogging/otherwise online experience. Your presentation and your content are clean and on-point; you are far ahead of the game already.
You are definitely on the right track. All you need is attention from the right quarters. A great deal of success on Steemit is networking. Joining Discord is at this point a necessity because it allows Steemians to engage in a Whatsapp-like chat environment. Join channels relevant to you and interact with the folks therein.
Related to this is that Followers Don't Matter. Part of this is how the feed pages are laid out, part of it is simply that you need "friends" far more. See above, re: Networking.
The other important point is that Not All Upvotes are Created Equal. If you've familiarized yourself with the differences between Steem Power, Steem and SBD, you probably already know this.
Last but not least, this Steemit site as great as it is, is very much incomplete. A great deal of functionality that should be natively available is instead dangling ancillarily on steemworld.org/@venture55 or steem.supply/@venture55 or steemd.com/@venture55 (and yes, you can just substitute any other username there to see every detail of their accounts too.No secrets on the blockchain lol) Things are improving in that regard though.
Anyway, I can see I have a lot to learn from you. I will be following your output with great interest.
And this what I love already about the community here - people actually take the time to respond, thoughtfully and helpfully!
I am having some issues with Discord - set up the account yesterday, validated my email and when I went to go back to Discord later, I received a message that I needed to 'claim' my account.....but it would not let me do so. Then later it was working....and today it's back to the same message.
LOL like all tech - you have gremlins occasionally! But thank you for the tips - I will keep trying Discord!
As it should be. Steemit has a lot of moving parts that work together to incentivize good behaviour. I love it, really 😁
Never too late for an adventure.. And joining steemit is the best way for that.. Welcome to the network with a large community of people with service and high level of intellect.. U gain all these while earning too...
Good to have you here.. Hoping to learn from u too.
I totally agree! Life is short - you have to do all that you can while you are here!
Looking forward to seeing ur posts.