What is this all about?

I found out about Steem less than two months ago and almost immediately saw the great value and potential behind the concept. I decided that rather than just making a passive investment in the currency, like I’ve done with Bitcoin and others, I wanted to get involved and see first hand how it all works. So I started posting and set out to build a following and ultimately profit from my investment of both time and money.

I think I’ve done pretty well so far, though it’s still early, so I thought I would share what I’ve learned with everyone else who is trying to do the same thing, and invite everyone to share in the rest of the journey with me!

To start I’ve listed out all of the key things that I think are necessary to build a successful and profitable following on Steem. I plan to write a post about each one in a new series I call: “How to Steem”!

This post is part 1 of the series, and it focuses on the first thing I think any new Steemian (Steemer, Steemitan, whatever we’re called?) should do: Learn!

Learn, Learn, Learn!

With pretty much anything in life - the more you know about it the better you’ll do at it. Steem is no different, but there is a LOT to learn. If that scares you, or you feel like it doesn’t matter if you know how it works, then you’ll have a hard time and this may not be for you. On the other hand if you’re excited to learn about new, and potentially revolutionary, things - then you can do very well and this is a great place to be.

Since Steem is, at it’s core, a piece of computer software, it helps a lot to have a technical background - but it’s certainly not necessary. For those who are not technically minded it will probably be more work, but it will be worth it. Those that are willing to work the hardest will likely end up ahead in the long run.

Enough chatting, let’s get down to business!

So getting down to business, here’s a list of things I set out to learn in my first couple months using Steem (including some I haven’t gotten to yet!) and that I recommend any new member learn as well:

1. Learn how blockchain technology works in general, starting with Bitcoin, and including Ethereum.
2. Learn how the Steem blockchain works in general and how it’s different from Bitcoin and Ethereum. You should be able to explain this to someone else and list some pros and cons of the Steem blockchain as compared to Bitcoin and Ethereum. I highly recommend reading the Steem whitepaper. Even if you don’t really understand most of it, that’s ok - don’t be intimidated. I’ve read it a few times so far and each time new things become clear to me.
3. Learn all of the details (again at a high level, so you could explain them in conversation) about the Steem blockchain that are relevant to posting and earning, since that’s what you’ll primarily be doing. For example:
   1. The difference between STEEM, STEEM POWER, and STEEM BACKED DOLLARS (SBD)
   2. How voting works
   3. How rewards work - both author and curation
   4. How to buy, sell, and transfer the three Steem tokens
   5. How the SteemIt.com user interface works
   6. The difference between the SteemIt.com website and the Steem platform - it helps to look at another site built on the Steem platform such as busy.org or chainbb.com
4. Follow @ned, @steemitblog, the top witnesses (more about witnesses later) and other popular authors who post about the Steem platform
5. Learn all of the “meta” features and services built by Steem users such as voting bots, re-steem services, curation guilds, Steem Power delegation / leasing services, etc.
6. Learn about witnesses - what they are, what they do, why they are necessary to keep the platform running. I suggest also learning a bit about each of the top witnesses. @jerrybanfield and @lexiconical have put together a great series of information about each of the top witnesses. I recommend reading all of them.
7. Learn about the future of Steem, specifically Smart Media Tokens (SMTs)
8. Finally I suggest really getting into the details of how everything works:
   1. Re-read the whitepaper and make sure you really understand it all. If there are any points you still don’t get, research/ask about them until you do. 
   2. Learn the actual formulas for calculating vote values, author rewards, curation rewards, etc. 
   3. Learn about the global system properties and what the witnesses do in detail. Learn how exactly SBD are pegged to the value of a USD.
   4. Learn about BitShares - the predecessor to Steem - and understand how it differs from Steem and how it is the same. Also learn about some other similar blockchains such as PeerPlays.
   5. Read the SMT whitepaper and really understand the details about how that is proposed to work and how it might change the Steem platform - again, you should be able to state some pros and cons.

I’m currently in the middle of step 8, and it’s getting progressively more difficult to find information as I get into deeper levels of detail. Whenever I am finally able to understand a topic that was very hard to find a detailed explanation for, I note it down, since that’s probably a good topic for a post. If I want to know about it, and had difficulty finding information about it, then others are probably in the same boat and will benefit from my knowledge - but more on that in a later post in this series!

Stay tuned until next time…

That’s it for now but please stay tuned until next time when I talk about how to write high quality posts that create value for others!

I’m sure I’m missing some important things in my list of “things to learn”, so please let me know what other things you’ve found it helpful to learn about in the comments. Thanks for reading!