Hi Stemians!
I come in peace! No probing, I promise!
Thank you for the opportunity to join this young network and be a pioneer in what will become the next big hit on the web. That's the vision I am working with here and to be honest, I joined to prove a concept. Demonstrating to my family (a rather old-fashioned bunch) that the internet works, and the opportunities for making new contacts and ultimately generating some income are endless.
I don't have any awesome images of things I've cooked or art that I've created to show you, but you might find my story interesting. My name is Stanislav and that's me on the terrace of my flat while writing this article (don't mind my laundry). Hi!
The reason that this is critical right now is that I ended up losing my job a few months back and ever since, I've been obsessed with the concept of making money online (bear with me, no shady schemes are to be outlined here). During this time, I've been under pressure from my family to get a "real job". My grandmother has been haggling me to work at a bank for as long as I remember. It is her understanding of a prestigious and well-paying job.
Let me give you a bit of background about me and why I am a big believer in everything internet. I was born and raised in Bulgaria - the poorest country in the European Union. I've followed the typical parental advise that I need to study hard and get a well-paying job.
My parents had never read "Rich Dad Poor Dad" or had any business experience to give me any better life lessons. Although its only logical that income is better than sallary, my parents didn't believe that this was possible for everyone. Rather they thought that business is a dirty word and all successful people around us had manipulated the system and gotten rich on the backs of others while cheating and lying.
Admittedlyy, we lived in a country which had just broken the shackles of communism in 1989 and started exploring the new and unknown economic reality of capitalism. What followed were times of shady under-the-table deals on a very high level, which eventually resulted in Bulgaria winning the prize for most corrupted country in the EU. We've been proudly carrying this title for a lot of years now. So my parent's beliefs we're just created out of thin air - they were formed by the society we lived in.
Long story short, my family doesn't believe in business or the internet. I wanted to be different from them and began exploring both concepts after I graduated. Having finished my studies, I realized that all of the effort I had put in would not provide me the immediate results I had hoped for - a job offer with a good paycheck was just a mirage. Instead, me and all of my friends who held a bachelors degree in International Economic Relations, began working whatever we could find - basically unqualified labor for around $320 per month (yes, that's a whopping $3840 annual paycheck). That wasn't working for me, and I knew I had to do something else.
Unfortunately, this is not the part where I tell you that I had an epiphany and came up with a million dollar idea. In fact that moment was 10 years ago and I am now 30 and I still haven't made it (so to say), but I think I now have something very valuable which will get me there - knowledge. You see, starting a business or engaging in a new online venture always seems to require some capital, which is something I never had. I was living payckeck-to paycheck and not because of poor financial decisions, but because of the amount of income I had. Imagine saving up $2000 to invest in something, when that figure represents half your yearly income.
If you've made it this far, I congratulate you! My rant has gone quite long. Let's try and fastforward to now. So basically the economic reality of living in the poorest country in the EU had dawned on me and I had to do something. I took my interest in cars and the idea of starting an internet business and created a website which helped people find used car parts. This was a custom website which took a lot of coding and I had to pay someone to do it (I borrowed some money). Soon after launching the site, I realized that I had to promote it. This got me into SEO.
Although this first site did not make me much cash, I learned a lot about SEO. I was working at a rental car company at the time, and although my resume didn't look promising, I managed to land a job as an SEO specialist with a local company. This is when my family first started believing that maybe I was onto something with this internet stuff.
What followed were two years of becoming the best goddamn internet marketer the world had seen. Okay, okay, that's what I was telling myself at the time to keep me motivated. Nevertheless, altough not the best in the world (who decides that anyway), I was pretty good and the company which employed me was paying me twice what I was earning at my rental car job. They were sad to see me go, but I had found an even better opportunity working remotely for a foreign company.
I was on a roll and making good money, but I began realizing that SEO was dirty business and that most companies who offered SEO services were a scam. With my high ethics, I had trouble staying in a place where I wouldn't have to withold information from a client or better yet straight lie to them. Most clients were paying for nothing, as they were already at the top of the search results for their keywords or were trying to pursue keywords which were out of their scope. Either way, we were performing a service for them which wasn't getting them anywhere.
This led to conflict and me losing my job in April. I have no regrets about it, because I am all about providing value and if a company can't do that while making a profit, I don't want any part of it.
Since then, I have a lot of free time on my hands to think about what my next internet venture will be. Thanks to the valuable information being provided for free on YouTube, I was able to uncover a really interesting opportunity that I am now pursuing. It's private labeling products for sale on Amazon and I think I can provide value to people while turning a profit. What's more, the information that people openly share on YouTube is nothing less than empowering. I'm all about helping others and I can't wait to prove the viability of what I started and begin mentoring others.
And that brings me to the reason I am here. I firmly believe that we should provide value with what we do on the web and stop spamming the hell out of it. Each of us has their own unique experience doing things that help them live better and sharing that knowledge is a noble cause.
If everyone here on Steemit, shares their story and their life experiences mostly to help others or entertain them, then we would have an awesome community to be part of. Conversely, if everyone here cares only about the money, then Steemit will never reach its full potential and money will simply run out at some point. It's all about the value you provide and that's a universal law of the internet - the ones which provide most value, are rewarded most.
What do you think, is providing value overrated or is it the governing principle of the web?