Famous Venture Capitalist Fred Wilson talks about Steem
http://avc.com/2016/07/some-thoughts-on-steem/#disqus_thread
"Some Thoughts On Steem
About a year ago, in the middle of the Reddit soap opera that played out last summer, I wrote a post about how someone could (and would) build something like Reddit on the blockchain.
A number of developers and entrepreneurs have done that and the one that has garnered the most interest is called Steem.
The community is still small and the links are still a bit all over the place. But things are happening at Steem and I think its worth paying attention to.
At the heart of Steem is a tipping system, called Steem Power, based on a crypto-currency called Steem. All of this runs on the Steem Blockchain.
Readers can buy Steem Power with Bitcoin and then they can tip posters who receive Steem Power. Steem Power can be converted into Steem through a mechanism I don’t really understand to be honest.
So unlike Reddit, where posters receive no compensation other than upvotes, on Steem upvotes are done with money.
Steem is traded like other crypto-currencies, and currently has a market cap of $287mm. That feels a little bit ahead of itself (Reddit was valued at $500mm a couple years ago), but markets go up and they go down. We will see where the Steem market cap goes from here.
Another thing that is interesting about this whole model is that Steem can finance itself, the cost of its team, an office, bandwidth, servers, etc by selling Steem vs selling equity.
This is the Decentralized Autonomous Organization model that many blockchain entrepreneurs are following today.
So if you like the idea of Steem, and want to back this company, all you have to do is buy some Steem, some of which you might be buying from the Company. And if you change your mind, you can sell your Steem and move on.
I think Steem is a really interesting experiment that may turn into a really nice business. The Steem founders are experimenting in multiple dimensions at the same time. They are trying a “paid” model vs a “free” model for curating a content discovery engine. That’s interesting. They are using blockchain technology vs some centralized system to build all of this. That’s interesting. They could finance this business via their users vs VC or something else. That’s interesting. And their users can participate in the value creation, if this turns out to be valuable. And that is interesting.
I am rooting for Steem. They have some things to get right and watch out for (including the rapid rise in the value of Steem which is concerning) and I hope they take steps to avoid the “dollar/hype cycle” I talked about in this post. That is one of the great challenges with this whole DAO model of starting and building a company. But someone is going to figure this out. The Steem founders have already figured out a few things which I am sure others will now emulate. And that is what is great about experiments, even if they fail. We learn something. And when they are done in public more of us learn something."
(I claim absolute no ownership to what Mr. Wilson wrote in his blog, I am merely reposting it here to show everyone here. Hopefully he doesn't mind.)
To be honest, I was a bit iffy on the fundamentals of Steem. But having great minds like Fred Wilson comment positively on Steem really gives us reason to have confidence in the Steem model, in my opinion. This feels like great news for Steem, and it's really a great time for us to all be here. We are all very lucky.
"I've been a big fan of Steem since their early days, and was invited to do their first AMA. My experience has been very positive and I saw the direct benefits in more ways than one. And it netted me real dollars and Steem Dollars.
https://steemit.com/ama/@wmoug...
One of the interesting innovations about what they are doing is that it's the blockchain that administers the payouts and awards distribution to users. It's automated via their algorithms and you can't game it. Everyhthing is recorded on their blockchain. A key factor for their market cap rise is that they actually delivered their first payout in early July and users saw that it was real.
(Disclosure, I have a relationship with them)."
And William, the person who did the first ever AMA on Steem also had a positive comment in Fred Wilson's blog
(Again, I claim absolutely no credit for any of these comments, I am merely sharing them with everyone here!)
I feel your pain. You were so close to a big payday.
Perhaps redo your story with commentary about how others took the same story and profited from it. There are actually two versions of this same story doing well.
https://steemit.com/steem/@blackmask/wow-fred-wilson-the-famous-venture-capitalist-today-published-a-post-about-steem
Don't spin it from a woe-is-me perspective. Comment on how @kevinpham20 had a more polished presentation along with more information and context of the author. Include that @kevinpham20 has more influence and that this could have added to his success. Add that the 3rd post came after yours and @kevinpham20 and that you, the original person to post the article suffered a double blow of sorts. Getting leapfrogged once was bad enough, but another one coming later added more salt to the wound.
Just suggestions. Good luck.
Give it a go. You have nothing to lose.
Thank you for your suggestion. I think I'll take it.
You know, in a way, I don't feel "pain", in the sense that I don't feel like I deserved to have made it big with this anyway. I mean, even if I had better presentation, ultimately it's really Fred Wilson's post that is valuable, not what I'm doing.
But I do feel a bit of a shame... being a long time Fred Wilson fan, I was super excited to share this. But this is my lowest quality post. In my opinion, my other posts (particularly the most recent one) is much, much better. I'm also trying to write a fictional story. It would've been nice if I had been able to get some readers of my content through this... that's what I really feel like is a pity. Ah well.
Totally understood. Hopefully, if you are lucky, you can get the support of a whale or two to upvote this new post you're making. As far as I can tell, if you don't get a patron to upvote/support you, it doesn't matter how good your post is.
Good luck
This is very true, and honestly is the thing I'm thinking the most about for the past two days. How do we get adopted by a whale (or at least a dolphin)?