Halp! Steemian in trouble, searching for some assistance.
Hi. You may not have heard of me yet, though there is many here who I have made a lot of effort to connect with. I have spent a lot of the last 2 months here since arriving, doing my best to win a following, and from what I read on 'my progress' posts, I think with 300+ followers, I have clearly either got charisma, too much luck, or maybe I'm even good at writing.
EDIT: I just need to add in here, people are saying 'so, make a business proposal' so I am going to insert it near the top of this post:
https://steemit.com/venture-capital/@l0k1/host-your-witness-or-miner-with-l0k1-seed-capital-sought
I have even won not too shabby amounts of rewards, so far, at least, enough that I have managed to rack up some 600 Steem Power purely from rewards. Maybe 30 was curation rewards, but the rest was from my posts. And I did make some money, but it's not ever been enough, at $278, my biggest win was just enough to pay a month's rent, and man cannot live by a roof-over-his-head alone. One needs internet and food also. In that order, of course!
Amsterdam?
I have considered going back to Amsterdam, where doing the Hobo Journalist thing might not be quite so brutal, especially with winter coming up, as it would be here in Sofia. I can even get a welfare payment, after a couple of months wrangling the bureaucrats. There is drop in centers, but they are full of moroccans and crackheads and general drunkards. Things go missing. But the worst is that outside of the depths of subzero temperatures in winter, you are on the street, yes, you can go to the drop in centers, get coffee and day old pastries, but then they close in the afternoon, and then you are stuck wandering around. But even in the middle of winter, you still have to trek 8-12km a day chasing breakfast and lunch, a warm place to sit, and an internet connection.
I found, thanks to a friend, a place where the police do not come and issue us fines for sleeping there at night. The neighbours are even nice. But it's one place in a whole big city, and maybe there is some nasty person moved in to viewing angle to see our shelters, which often have to be rainproof, since it rains so much there.
So, I don't really know what to specifically ask. I suppose I can explain what the terms are for living here. I need to have a job, to easily get a rental agreement. I did have that opportunity, but I went with a grey market rental, and now I am still stuck in it, and the saving from before has not proven very helpful now, because I still have hassles with 'proof of address' nonsense.
Costs of living in Sofia
It is the general practise here, if you have enough money to pay 3 months rent up front, plus 1 month is a security deposit, that you can get into almost any rental. There is rentals here for around 150 euros/month, even quite close into the centre of town. Central locations would be best, since as I discovered, a great deal on 6 months prepaid 45mbit ethernet into your apartment, does not extend to this outlying area where I currently live. It's 35 euros, for a connection that generally has no more than an hour of downtime every 3 months.
I can, once in a suitable apartment, with a 45Mbit connection, easily host people's miners and witnesses and the like. I have a lot of experience working with Linux and with building servers and miners. This could be part of an arrangement for this. It would also reduce my heating bill. The heating bill is not so bad, maybe 25 euro a month.
This is mainly what I am asking for. Having a formal lease also lets me have some proper proof of address, and anyone who knows how it is being in the crypto-world, in particular, american based services and many european ones, demand proof of address, and one does not simply have an address when homeless.
And food. Well, here it's pretty cheap. I already earn enough on average to eat well, drink myself stupid on a regular basis, and always have a pack of cigarettes sitting around, maybe 100 euro/month if you are careful. I have been trying to be careful, always eating the cheapest, most nutritious food I can get together, cooking it myself. I would very much like to stop smoking, but you know how that is... and I can probably track down a source of untaxed tobacco... about 25-30 euros gets you a kilo...
So, anyway... I figured what the hell, why not put the query out there onto the blockchain, maybe someone wants to help, and doesn't realise, because I, like most people, don't think that complaining about my situation is going to win me upvotes. But since I am about to fall onto the street, what have I got to lose at this point. Post falls flat, nobody helps me out. An hour of writing time is lost. No big deal.
Update
Thanks to kind donations, I at least now have a reliable network connection again. The POS (in this case, also another meaningful acronym) despite having a working network link, three times failed, and forced me to draw cash, costing 3 euros, just barely had enough for the cost of the new sim card, and so I am back to zero, though I have a day's food stashed in the fridge.
My situation has only improved a little at a time over the last year. I tried to win some profit trading Bitcoin, and at first did very well. But then the bitfinex hack, and I got badly hammered from the panic selling. Yes, I should have better spent more, got a proper lease, my residency permit, and with job the bank would have given me credit, and I could have been in a better position. But as you might know, the circumstances of that robbery were very suspicious. I certainly wasn't the only person to be wiped out.
I calculate that about USD$900 sees me in a proper lease, in a better location, covered for 3 months on rent, and a 6 month 45Mbit unlimited connection. It was very stressful last time when I started the job, at the cloud support company, for the first two weeks I was still sleeping often on the street. My benefactor did not see the sense in my saying that an arrangement like this proposed $900 seed capital was better spent money. He spent about this much on things other than putting cash in my hands, and in the long run, it just ensured I would land in trouble again. Being unwashed, wearing dirty clothes, for the first month at a job makes for a bad impression. But it was all that was being offered, despite more sensible options.
So, if people want to help, what I ask for is realistic and effective. And with this in hand, I am set up to reciprocate in internet technical services.
update 2
I am feeling very despondent... I really have no resources to get that project from above off the ground, I can't even feed myself at the moment. All this talk of the hustle of venture capitalism, and I might as well be walking on the ledge at the edge of the Empire State Bulding's rooftops. I am feeling dizzy, and it's probably because I cooked half my what would normally have been whole meal up, because I can't go and buy any more food, until I go pawn my fitlet mini pc, and I'm sure that my groaning stomach is not going to make sleeping very easy tonight either. The jitters from running out of cigarettes is going to really get to me as well.
I look back at the retrospective post, and every single one, almost without exception, is dreamy, abstract, fantastical, and generally, not very practical. I feel like, if I let myself not be practical, and dream I can make it as a Steempreneur, and not just as a Creator and vision-giver - and not go and get myself some practical winter clothes and a sleeping bag, so when I inevitably am unable to pay the rent in the next week or two, that I'm not going to wind up getting sick from the cold.
I am feeling very intimidated and I already just went through 4 days stuck in Plovdiv, with no warm place to sleep, no sleeping bag, no beanie, and knowing absolutely nobody, or nothing about the place to scrape by. I am staying here in Sofia because I know the street life here. I don't think people really understand how my life is right now, or how it has been, for most of the last 3 years.
We can't stop here! This is Whale country!
Have an upvote. You might need to start powering down, and hope the steem price rises so you make some money from selling steem.
@l0k1
Let's fix this. First,
couchsurfing.org go there and find a place to stay.
Second, I demand you stop planning poverty. It's silly as all hell. Make yourself a plan, publish that plan, and ask the community for help in making it a reality. Make sure that your plan is actionable and specific and will support your income needs which you should under no circumstances estimate to be less than $1000/mo.
That is a lotta money here. Really, living costs would be around $500/month, including internet, utilities and rent, in a good place, the dump I am staying at right now, I am probably living on more like $350/month. I have somewhere I can stay for the time being, but not for long since the landlord is also poor, and for 4 months already I have stayed there with no washing facilities, in a very inconvenient location for doing anything else. With a stable housing situation I can easily get work here in Sofia, about 1200BGN/month, so, I guess around that figure you say.
I did have a job but as was the case in the previous time I had a job here, it was in a high stress environment with bad behavior from management... and I did the same mistake again, accepting to take on long hours, not realising there was no substantial benefit in increased pay (none at all, and I looked carefully at the contract, and that was basically within the terms). But beyond that, the internet connections here are amazing, and I already have had people ask me about running crypto-distributed nodes, one friend wants to mine zcash and others have mentioned running witnesses. I'm not sure what else to talk about, there is other things but most of them require further capital base.
I couldn't agree more with @faddat. I've seen the proliferation of your posts and comments and you seem like a pretty intelligent dude. I generally don't support what I consider begging, but I gave you my small upvote because you've definitely contributed to the community.
That said, I think you need to take the advice and come up with a real plan, not vague generalities. You speak of things you could do and the fact that you'd need a capital base to do them, so come up with a plan to open a revenue stream for yourself, figure out what it would cost, and let the community know what you are going to do.
There are a lot of generous people with money available to support projects, especially those that benefit them financially or enrich the Steem community. Pitch them on a real idea, not charity or the potential for a plan.
Sorry if this seems aggressive, but it didn't really feel like you listened. No one's going to hand you much because you're a nice guy, but they'll support you if you're a rainmaker.
It's not taken the wrong way at all. So you are basically saying, I need to market the idea of something. Like:
Specialist Crypto Mining Services and Hosting
Need seed funding to procure the real estate and network connections, consultation provided to client-funded procurement of suitable hardware, setup, administration, security and maintenance at 10% of ongoing yield.
That's what you mean, right? A marketing pitch. I am a total babe in the woods when it comes to marketing. Well, I can try, I guess. I just never know the right platform for it, or who to talk to, or where to place the marketing. It's always been my weak point in my entrepreneurial activities, and I don't want to sound like a whine but it's the main reason why I am in this position in the first place - because I have yet to manage to get any of my projects to get enough startup capital.
Finance and marketing. I need help there. I thought I had found someone who was going to handle that, but sadly it seems their marketing skills mainly extended to making me think they were serious, and then they reneged, back tracked, and left me in the cold.
And by the way, I have been pitching ideas. One of them even got a really big (relative to my successes) reward, but it is a big project, and my ideas are still somewhat vague. So I need something to bridge the gap.
Well, maybe I do in fact have the 'right place right people' issue now sorted out, with 313 followers and a lot of people I am networking with. Maybe I just need to make the pitch. Sure, I can do that.
https://steemit.com/venture-capital/@l0k1/host-your-witness-or-miner-with-l0k1-seed-capital-sought
It's a step in the right direction, but I think you need to consider your narrative and the details of the plan further.
Luckily, you're pitching for a relatively small amount in a friendly community that wants to see you succeed. You have the opportunity to continue iterating on your message, getting feedback, and strengthening your pitch.
I left a comment in the thread you linked that you may find helpful. It's a lot easier to pitch if you're a money guy or incredibly persuasive, but if you keep at it you'll find a story that resonates with your audience.
Again, best of luck to you!
Well, I'm just not that ambitious, with what I am up against, I wasn't aiming to get a huge audience, to be honest, I would not be equipped to deal with the administration of communications let alone the technical side. It's just me, like the pitch says. I can get high speed connections at very good prices here. I have the technical skills to assemble, install, configure and get everything going. The rental price is quite low.
And even, the fact that it's 'keeping it in the family' has a certain power, that maybe is not the same in the highly aggressive VC scene. I am not a hustler! I don't know how I can re-iterate that any further! I am humble, I tend to explain too many things, I do not make assurances that I don't feel confident in proclaiming, or promises of profit that I can't honestly see being viable.
I don't know in what kind of role such a person as myself has, except as being the direct contact, the person who the client knows very well that what I say, is not something to trick them into a false sense of safety, and that I am not getting some kind of buzz from speaking down to them. I'm not the guy you ask when you want breezy, optimistic assessment, I'm the one whose outcome always exceeds my promises, because I don't promise more than I am 100% certain about, anything beyond that, I strongly preface and reiterate how speculative it is.
And I am certainly not offering my skills in speculating of any sort. Simply, you want someone to build a miner system for you, hook it up to a good network connection, with a UPS, and me sitting there to fix things up, monitoring sensors to make sure everything is humming along. That's me. I can't tell you how much you will make on it, but I think I can reasonably ask for a percentage, although maybe I am being too generous saying 10%. I don't know. I figure with 10 or more machines running, I have enough to pay the rent, utilities, connection bill and feed myself, and probably a reasonable surplus, depending on the success of the various projects I would be supervising and administering.
I forgot to answer a direct question - I have a wirex bitcoin-loadable debit card, and they have a direct interface button to set up a shapeshift transfer from Steem to Bitcoin into the card's attached wallet. Yes, I have been funding part of my existence up to now through the rewards I have been getting here on Steem.
Hey Loki. It's not exactly clear what you are asking. You want enough upvotes to make rent and to have reliable internet connection? Or? I humbly suggest that you make a post with specific headline that you are offering X service in the future, with more direct detail as what you can/will do, and maybe even someone might read and think of something they could pay you to do right now.
That's actually an excellent idea. You could get some income coming in immediately that way. I've upvoted you. I think my vote is worth a penny now. I'll be following your posts to see the outcome for you, which I hope is a good one.
Also, are Moroccans a bad thing?;) Just curious, since you mentioned them as a nuisance in your post.
Well, someday, if I am in amsterdam again, I can take you to visit these places, and spend a few hours, bearing in mind that after they close, you are back out in the street dodging police writing tickets, and as is the case, something else you will see, half the people in the drop in centres did not sleep well the night before. I am not sure.
Yes, I have services I can offer. I can, with a proper housing situation, run people's miners and witness nodes. I can write code, I was already in the midst of doing some simple php/mysql coding for a Steem related application, but it required full control of the server and the cheapest way to do that was to run the server myself.
I think my upvote only gave you a penny, but I resteemed you.
Honestly, I don't normally pay attention to help me ads, but I went through your blog and found your travel post, so I sincerely believe you are on the up and up, and going through tough times. Good luck, love. Try and stay warm.
Thankyou :) I sorta felt like I had graduated from being a minnow but it's becoming obvious I got a long way to go. Having a difficult life situation makes it difficult to put out good effort all the time, and traveling around, sleeping in parks, makes it a lot more difficult. I jumped out into the abyss because someone had given me the impression that I had won myself some kind of VC angel. But that proved to be a false impression. Oh well.
I'm torn between two pathways forward at the moment, neither of which I like. Live on the street where nobody really bothers you, but you gotta work hard to get your daily intake of food, or live somewhere that the police will issue ridiculous fines against you, for 'camping' without a permit. And probably at least a couple of months before I can get the welfare, and years, maybe 5 is common right now, before I can get into a house. So... I want to stay here in Sofia, because it could have been a lot worse, and it was better than Amsterdam. With my feet all healed up compared to then, things won't be so difficult.
But the important thing is, I don't need much to get on my feet here. When I am housed, I can directly find ways to work for other people. Finally, I am much more capable of applying more of my energy to writing well.
I didn't have it nearly as bad, but it wasn't long ago that I was evicted from my house with nowhere to go. We were lucky to be able to get into a hotel room that accommodated 3 adults, 2 dogs and my ferrets until we found somewhat decent housing. We're still treading water but it's getting better. I was actually hanging out in the parking lots of the local stores for nearly 2 months so I could have internet access!
Good luck to you, love.
Yeah, I had to make a choice today, between getting a 4G internet service, or continuing again to have to walk around the street and sitting in public places to get unreliable, oversaturated wifi connections... The 4G is far superior, and is now becoming better than what you can get in your own house because so damn many access points are everywhere.
I in fact partly relocated here, again, back to Bulgaria, because I knew already from living here before, that the prices of certain things are absolutely rock bottom, specifically, internet access, and basic food ingredients. With internet access, you can more easily make business internationally, and there is many things here you can arbitrage against price differences. So, for me, I am here, and I love this place, but also, here the obstacle of getting seed funding to get over an obstacle I have had in front of me since I was released from prison, is a much smaller obstacle than it would be anywhere else.
Re-steemed, in hope of encouraging a few more upvotes to you! All the best :-)
Hang on, man! I've sent you some SBD, but while it isn't much to change your situation, I think some other people from telegram chat pitched in.
Maybe you could post some services that you offer on peerhub.
Also resteemed.
Well, I won't be much good for offering much in the way of services without having a more regular living situation... Your gift, and that of the others, was greatly appreciated, and @dek has also linked back, writing his own additional appeal linking back to my post.
I love all you guys and gals... Steem is really a whole different social network, to anything ever before.
You will always be the Minnow of my heart : )
Steemon ; today is your only true possession , make everything you can of it ; )
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I think most of us can say we've been there. Sending you good vibes and my upvote. Truly hope things start looking up for you.