In my opinion, if we publish stories of Steemians success, it will help us to attract a new audience. For this purpose, I decided to find such stories and bring them up here. I prepared 5 stories to start, and if it is going to be helpful to anyone, I will carry on with that.

How come will it get new users here?

When people touch Steemit for the first time, they don't really want to go deep into details. We need to make them understand what benefits they will get from it and how it will change their lives. After that they will see it as a valuable thing, and they will be interested to know it better.

So, here is the first story. The way @smailer made it work on Steemit can teach us a lot of things, it will help many people to choose the right vector of the development on Steemit.

Username: @smailer	SteemPower: 2,894 SP
Name: Alexander	Reputation: 63
Place of residence: Minsk, Belarus	Followers: 218
On Steemit: since17 July (≈ 2 months)	Earned: $2,198

Photo from the Minsk Meet Up. Alexander right

Alexander signed up on Steemit on the 17th of July, almost 2 months ago, the first post he made was the very concise greeting, he earned 0 with it. 

Further, he took the road which was taken by many authors, and he began looking for his niche on Steemit. He tried to post recipes, pictures of funny dogs, had attempts to talk about Steemit in broken English, he even put cannabis. Of course, there were different kinds of funny posts, memes and even ideas to add some new features to Steemit. It all was in vain, his income, in average, was 0, the largest achievement was $1.17.

All of that was happening while other posts were making thousands, like The Dollar Vigilante Is Now On Steemit! which earned $15.967 or THE FIRST STEEMIT MAKEUP TUTORIAL, which brought to its owner $31.543.

Alexander posts the article in which he reflects: Why I will NEVER be on TOP Steemit. But even that didn't make him stop, he kept posting - humor again, posts about food, science - and, again, he made no profit of it. 

Finally, on the 12th of August he posted his first article about coffee, where he told about his own coffee corner and published the results of the first experiment with Latte art, and that post gave him $7.62, it was unbelievable for him. 

None of his posts made that much before. There was a series of failed posts about health and food before finally on the 22nd of August he posted the first Latte art which brought him $ 277 at once.

So, what do we have after all? 36 days and 29 posts before he really achieved something. Since then, Alexander has published 33 works from Latte art, which earned for him $2000 in 3 weeks.

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Statistics from SteemWhales

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I contacted Alexander through Telegram to ask him some questions

@lehard:
Could you tell us a little about yourself? What do you do for a living? What are you keen on?

@smailer:
I am 34, I live in Minsk, I am into a lot of stuff :)) That's why it's hard to say what I do exactly - computer parts, car parts, kid clothes, for a few months I've been thinking to open a coffee house :)) I like reading different scientific papers on Neurobiology and Human Biophysics, I am fond of archery, diving, fishing, don't mind to go cycling

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@lehard:
A lot of people just give up and surrender after they failed couple of times. Why didn't you surrender? What were you hoping for?

@smailer:
Hmm.. business taught me to spend my time and strength wisely, stay in a good mood and give up only those things which cannot be profitable in general. That's why giving up something if I failed 1-3-5 times never was my style. Despite the fact that I'm an atheist, I remember a wonderful phrase from Scripture: "perseverance is given instead of talent." That means, even if you cannot do something, but you are very stubborn, you will get your way anyway.

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@lehard:
How come did you find your niche on Steemit?

@smailer:
I just went to the rocket chat and asked why my posts were not gaining votes and there was no any reaction in the promotion chat as well? I don't remember who it was, but he told me after reviewing my posts, 'What do you want? You post memes, dogs and cats. You want memes and that sort of crap - you're welcome on Facebook, I am sure you'll find yourself there. Here you need to do something special, something that's yours and very close to you. You were shown, as an example, that a post about coffee would, probably, get a lot of people interested, especially if it is original, has pictures and drawings. 

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@lehard: 
And still why coffee and Latte art? What place do they take in your life?

@smailer: 
:) I do not know, I know how to make coffee, I spent a lot of time to study it and invested quite a lot of money to equip my coffee corner I wrote about in my blog. I'm a perfectionist by nature:)) and in my house I cannot let myself to serve it-seems-ok-coffee to a guest. While I am making it I can say whether it'll be good or not by how it sounds and looks like :))

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@lehard:
What are your plans? Will we see something from you except Latte art?

@smailer:
Perhaps, I'll do a series of posts about different drinks based on espresso. I have plans to collaborate with a guy from Steemit who has his own coffee plantation.

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@lehard: 
Sounds great!

@smailer:
Also, I am planning to spend more time on participating in the project @rusteemblog. I plan to start another project on Steemit, when I get about $3500 on my account.

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@lehard:
Will you tell us?

@smailer:
I think it will reach the highest positions, but for now I'd wanted it to be a secret;))

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@lehard:
What changes would you like to see on Steemit in the nearest time?

@smailer:
SP delegating from whales, ui modification... I'd like to have more services using Steem tokens – it'll improve the situation on the market and make it easier for newcomers to join the project, cause, you know, sometimes it's not easy to figure everything out.

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@lehard:
Did you have any special feelings when you saw that your first post "worked"?

@smailer:
It was surprising ;)) because the post was really weak.

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@lehard:
What do you find attractive on Steemit? Why are you here and what do you think its future will be like?

@smailer:
Actually Steem is very friendly and helpful, no one should be afraid to contact with the audience. It's hard to anticipate its development, it's a beta-version and it's getting better, it will be an awesome project, if it reaches the size of Facebook. But people need to understand that it's not a place to make easy money, it's a long-term project where you grow gradually and become successful. Be yourself and honest with everyone!

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@lehard:
What would you like to say in the end?

@smailer:
Sometimes people abandon all hope if they don't get enough for their posts, but they forget that while posting they level up their skills, improve their level of language proficiency, find like-minded persons and company.

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@lehard:
Good luck on Steemit and thank you for the interesting conversation.

@smailer:
Thank you. I hope my experience will be useful for someone.

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If you have in mind an author, who could become the hero of the next review and example for others, please drop me a line in the comments.