When I first started on Steem, I was skeptical

Who wasn't? It's a new platform that promises to pay content creators for creating and curating good content. Sounds too good to be true, right?

I saw case studies, I heard about the new crypto-currency (honestly, I'd heard of Bitcoin but never heard the word crypto-currency), I saw people succeeding in doing something I love, creating good content.

But, still, part of me wondered if that could be me.

Did I have it in me to build a following on SteemIt? Could I make money doing something I love?

I wasn't sure, but like anything else in my life, I dove in headfirst.

My first post wasn't successful, nor was my second or third. I knew these things took time, so I kept experimenting.

I played around with posting different times of the day, in different categories, with different types and styles of content, nothing really worked at first.

So, I went back to my roots. My primary passion.

Music

I has this great little tune in my head for a new song I was writing (still am actually) and decided to see if my new Steem friends could help me out.

It was a success! A really success!

People started following me and engaging with me.

Even @berniesanders has joined in the fun and upvoted several of my posts. Who'd have thunk it!?

Then I posted about how I started making money on Fiverr, (as of now, I've made over $1600 since I started on Fiverr). That post made over $100 and I had my first triple digit post (before this one of course...hehe)

And just tonight I hit my 100th follower.

I wanted to say thank you to those of you who like what I do and appreciate the content I produce. It genuinely means a lot to me to see my posts supported by this community. Thank you.

I'm not here for the money - it's a nice perk that makes the incentive to write consistently a lot stronger and more viable perhaps. But, the real value here is in building an audience.

The real value is having a voice and people who will listen.

So, thank you for giving me a voice.

To the next 100!

Follow @caleballen for music, stories, and the occasional nerdy geek post.