Good post, friend! It is quite the process to build up a little bit of a community, but it does snowball a bit as you go--a lot of people really do want to help those doing good work (I'm often on the hunt now that I have at least a little voting power) and are really generous with upvotes, comments, resteems, so there really is a lot of truth here to working hard and seeing results. Of course there is a huge element of fortune to some degree, and no promises, but a gradual increase over the course of time is reasonable if you're being sincere in your work.