I think almost if not all of us have our story of trying to bring our friends and family to the hive, and here is mine. Try to get yourself some popcorn and enjoy this ride with me.😊
When I joined hive over two years ago, I was onboard by a very busy family friend of mine, about to wed young man with a time-demanding workplace.
He was always busy with work and his offline life but he never failed to squeeze out time to help me navigate the platform as much as he could.
If not for him, and his encouragement it is more likely I won't be here today.
He was more than willing to attend to my questions about the hive despite his busy life, and more importantly, I was willing to learn.
But he was a kind of newbie as well, which put some limits on how he could guide me to navigate the platform.
I spent my first few months on the platform, learning from one dApp to another, from one community to another, and reading as many posts as I could. At that time, reward was not my major focus.
I just wanted to learn about this platform as much as possible, I saw the great opportunity that lies ahead.
Sometimes I get stuck on the way but one thing was sure, I was so determined more than anything in the world, that giving up was not on the table.
I remember running to my referee many times, sometimes he could help and other times he couldn't, I kept learning, making mistakes, and learning from them, until I found my way around the platform. Even though I'm still learning until now. To me, #hive is simply a place where learning never stops.
How many comments have you made today?
One great Advice from my referee is this;
He would chat me up, and say "Hi Funshee, how many comments have you made today?" Sometimes I would say, between five to seven, and his response was, you need to do more than that, you can do more than that. You have to make at least ten or more.🙄
Then I would go around again to interact with more authors that interest me. Doing this, I met amazing and lovely souls, some of whom are still very active today and I still enjoy their work on hive. Also, I earn a lot along the way.
That advice was what helped me on the hive, it is the most fun and rewarding part of my hive journey, though my engagement is kind of low these days due to my son taking a lot of my attention. I'm striving to balance things and interact more on the hive this year.
Due to the challenges I faced, I took it upon myself to learn a lot about how to navigate the platform so that anyone I brought to the community wouldn't have to face as many challenges as I did. The only thing I would require from them would be their willingness to learn.
Did I succeed in bringing in active hivers? Follow me while I dive into my journey so far.
Oh, Funshee don't worry I'm ready to learn, and I have passion for your crypto blogging platform.
Will you be kind enough to put me through? Asked a friend who was referred to me by another friend.
Of course, it will be my pleasure to guide you until you can find your feet in the hive as long as you are willing and ready to learn, it can be very fun and rewarding but you should be ready, I will not hesitate to kick your ass if you ever try to be lazy.
Please don't worry, I promise to be a very hard-working student, as long as you are willing to teach me.
Okay, then, I will start by sending you some helpful posts that can guide you on the dos and don'ts of the platform.
Afterward, I sent her some posts from hivers that I think can guide newbies.
I gave her some time to read and understand the content and tell her all the ways to go around about hives that I have learned.
The next face was to let her choose her user name and a link to register was sent to her.
"Hello, I'm finding it difficult to register, can you tell me what I should do?"
Okay, sure you can send me your username, let me help you from this end, and once I'm done, I will teach you how to change your password at your end.
After trying all the free get-a-hive options without success I decided to use the paid option for her from my wallet which cost 3 liquid hives because she has been showing so much seriousness about joining the platform.
In less than two minutes, her account creation was ready and she was very happy and grateful.
So, now what next, please? She asked.
I'm going to send an example of an introductory post to you, read it to learn what a hive introductory post looks like.
Once that is done, I will guide you on how to draft yours, using one of the hive fronts.
I did some screen recording of how to write a post on peakd front end and sent it to her. Hmmm, what more can a newbie ask for? lol.
Now you follow the video and write yours, if you are confused you can always chat me up. All these tutorials and guides took us around one week.
It Has been some weeks, and this friend has not replied to my WhatsApp messages, I have even tried reaching out to her referee who happens to be my friend but he told me he would talk to her but I haven't heard any response.
The story above is very similar to some others I tried to onboard.
In my experience, that is where most prospective hivers give up. The oh, now it is time to draft your introduction post I almost gave up at that point when I joined the platform, my introduction post was a mess but I kept going and it got easier.
Success story
I have had some success in bringing in some active user but a higher percentage of those I onboard ended up giving up along the way, after giving them all the tips, does and don't of the platform some made it into writing their introduction posts, some stayed a while longer while some gave up the moment I told them to draft their introductory post.
Among the few who stay active is 
I used to tell them right from the start that it was not going to be easy at the beginning, but with time it would be worth it. All that is required from them is their willingness to learn how the hive platform works.
Bringing family and friends to the platform can be fun sometimes because I get to share in their interesting stories and be part of their journey but it is also very challenging due to the tedious learning process that is involved and the challenges of registering a hive account.
To Keep a user I invited to be active is like taking a horse to the river, but you can not force the horse to drink the water.
At the end of the day, it takes a lot of seriousness, determination, and willingness to learn how the platform works and to be active on their part.
Lastly, as the hive is progressing, I'm looking forward to the onboarding process and the learning curve becoming simpler and easier for the sake of those who are coming to join us and for the sake of us all.
One thing is for sure, I love to invite friends to #hive and regardless of the huddle I will continue to do so.
This is my story today, thank you very much for visiting and for your support, do have a great day.
