So you want to make a million dollars, eh?
Well I got news for you bucko, that shit isn't going to happen any time soon. It takes a massive amount of work to get there. Not a very popular thing to say, but it's true. There's no magic pill you can take, no audio book you can listen to, no video you can watch that's going to suddenly spark your mind into a fire of success.
If anything, it's like learning a language from scratch. Takes an enormous amount of work. You have to be in many situations to blah blah blah.
Fuck I'm so over writing this article. So over it.
I'm over everything in general lately. Not sure what the fuck is wrong with me. Just affected by a general malaise.
In fact, I've tried to write this article many times but always end up deleting it. I figure if any of my remaining clients saw it, it would be bad for business. But thankfully they're all in safe hands now. And if this blog post is what prevents them from being successful companies, well then at least I'll be famous.
Malaise = Malaysia? Illuminati confirmed
So two weeks ago I lost a big client who was paying me a lot of money to work on their social media. Ok fine. Happens. It was a pain, but what can you do?
Then I had to go to Malaysia to renew my visa for Thailand. Without getting into too much detail, to stay in Thailand long-ish term, you have to do visa runs which is basically where you just cross the border and come back a few days later.
I decided to go to Malaysia because it was the cheapest flight. Looking back, I should have paid the extra hundred bucks and gone to Vietnam. The Malays I met were unfriendly and Kuala Lumpur is a dumpster of a city. I have absolutely no desire to ever go back there again. Sorry to any Malays reading this. I was not impressed.
This is especially true coming from a place where I have scantily-clad females walking around half drunk at all hours of the day. A place where there's a 2 mile stretch of beach, a walking street where people party 7 nights a week, and my own cozy little hostel with acceptable internet speeds and periodic visits from slutty European girls very, very far from home.
After four days in KL I was miserable. I wanted to come back to Phuket so bad. And finally I did.
This was about a week ago. But I was so shaken by the experience of not being able to spend 3 hours a day at the beach with half naked women that my depression lingered. I just couldn't shake it.
It was right about this time where the whole crypto market started deteriorating. I'm a bag holder extraordinaire, which for you non-crypto "investors" means I have a bunch of worthless tokens that I bought during the Great Crypto Boom Of Q4 2017. I've got so many coins that I don't even remember them all.
They're all down right now. So is Bitcoin. Everything is down. It's gotten so bad that I don't even check my portfolio anymore. I just wanted to focus on making new money and getting new clients. Not a bad idea, right?
It's not what you know...
Two interesting things happened around this time.
The first is that I was able to hook up with an international marketing syndicate that specializes in promoting ICOs on various social channels. These guys are what they call "shills" on Reddit. Basically they go places where crypto "investors" gather and talk about whatever company they're trying to promote. It's also sometimes called grassroots marketing or guerilla marketing.
When I made this connection I almost shit my pants. Without a doubt, this was THE MOST powerful way to promote any company, let alone an ICO, that I had come across during my time in the crypto space. With tens of thousands accounts across dozens of platforms in various languages, these guys can put any company on the map. And more exposure means more investors.
After solidifying this connection, I felt like I was walking on air. I remember walking through one of the main streets in Patong feeling extremely powerful. It was like I had the keys to the castle. I could make a king or destroy one.
Now here's the thing: people hate shills. They're essentially salesmen and everyone hates them too. And I say this as someone who has worked as a salesman for his entire professional career. I know everyone hates us. I don't give a shit though. I'm trying to make some money.
The thing with shills though is that they need to stay under the radar. They're 100% confederates and have to make it seem like they're just a random person talking about a random thing like people do.
Who you know > what you know
The second interesting thing was actually set in motion a few months ago as a result of the networking I've been doing in the crypto space. One of the connections I made was an individual who is very well-connected in the crypto space. After our first phone conversation I knew I had found my role model. This guy was a straight hustler.
You know that feeling when you meet someone and you're both on the same level? Like right away? That was me and this guy. Made me very optimistic, as this guy is worth mega bucks.
A few weeks go by and we exchange a few emails. Nothing much happens until I'm working on a deal with a new client who has an ICO coming up. I'm pitching him on my PR services as usual when he hits me with an amazing offer: he won't pay a monthly fee, but instead will give me a fixed % of the total amount of money raised during the ICO.
Now, I won't say how much exactly, but suffice to say that it would be a seven-figure payday for me. Just for a few months work.
So I'm thinking "alright, that's a great offer - but how the fuck am I supposed to help this guy raise $20m?" I mean, sure I can run this guy's Twitter account and write him a few blog posts, but $20m? Nah. I'm good, but I'm not that good.
I reach out to Mr. Well Connected and tell him about the offer, adding that if he gets involved and works his magic then I'd split it with him 50/50. And not only that, I'd lay it on the prospect so thick that I'd even get him to increase the fixed % of the total raise. Mr. WC likes that and refers me to his partner.
So now I'm acting as a dealmaker for the dealmaker, pitching these consultants on why they should work for this guy for free. And on the OTHER end I'm pitching the CEO on why they should pay the consultants an exorbitant % of the total funds raised.
Long story short, both sides agreed. And just like that, homeboy is virtually guaranteed a successful ICO.
These consultants have mega connections with crypto publications, private investors, angel groups... fucking everything. And not just in the West either. They have their hands in the Asian markets too, which have way more money than we do.
Not only that, I was able to work out a deal between these consultants and each one of my clients. So take that deal that I told you about before and multiply it, plus add it to whatever I was making before.
Sounds good, right? So why the fuck am I so depressed?
I can't really put my finger on it, but I think it's because I realized that all this crypto shit is basically 100% speculation and bullshit. Okay fine, that's what everyone has been saying all along. But I was drinking the Kool Aid and didn't believe it.
Crypto was supposed to redistribute the wealth! It was supposed to be our generation's way of making the big bucks without putting in years of hard work. Like the Boomers who bought cheap houses and paid $500/year for college, this was our "right place, right time" moment.
But nope, looks like it was a bubble after all. We got taken for a bunch of fools. Suckered by Wall Street and beaten at a game we had no experience playing.
It's not even that, though. You have all these shit ICOs with their irrelevant ERC20 tokens that literally have 0 use case. Literally none of them are necessary. It's all just a cash grab pitched as "a way for people other than institutional investors to get involved with early stage projects."
Give me a fucking break. People were throwing money at blockchain startups just to create their own coins. I can make a hundred million tokens right now and sell them in my ICO for $0.10 and make ten mil. No product, no team, nothing. Just an idea and a whitepaper.
And the worst part? It doesn't even matter if my platform, token, team, website, idea, and whitepaper are ALL shit.
Why? Because I can use the paid shills to pump the ICO to the stars and get the few people who aren't bleeding to death to invest in it, OR I can just hit up my new best friends and be like, "yo bro, I negotiated another deal with this client. Tell homeboy to go to Asia and bring back $20m."
Why am I depressed? Fuck, I don't even really know. A lot of reasons I guess, but the main thing is that I realized that the project doesn't matter. The team doesn't matter. The tech doesn't even matter.
All that matters is the hype. Hype = money.
Time to find a new hobby
Now that the market is contracting, it's hard to BUILD the hype in the first place. The crazy thing is that even THAT doesn't matter, as I can put together a deal with these ICOs and some fundraisers and they'll get the money anyway. And once they get the money, they can throw some at the project until they have a working platform that changes the world (lol) or create enough hype to jack up the price of their token so they can dump it on an exchange and collect their money.
Don't get me wrong, my conscience isn't bothering me. I don't give a shit if you think this is unethical or not. I'm not promoting scams and all these companies truly 100% believe in the work they are doing. They're dedicated and work on their projects 7 days a week. At least the ones I'm working with.
I mean, I should be happy, shouldn't I? If these deals go through then I'm on track to make millions of dollars this year, just from a few emails. I guess I just didn't know it would be so easy. But now that the bubble is popping, what's the future for ICOs? I have no idea.
The worst part is that now I feel like I have nothing to do. No more ICOs to pitch, I lost my biggest client and I just don't have the motivation to write about crypto that I had a month ago. Why the fuck am I even writing this blog post? Steemit is just another cash grab by some people who were smart enough to make their own version of fake internet money.
Honestly, you know what I'm thinking of doing? Just starting my own ICO. Put together a website and talk a few developers into letting me put their picture on there. Tell my homeboys I want to raise, oh I dunno, $20m maybe. Yeah I think that'll do it.
You want to talk about instant fame, if you convince anyone to give you $20m you better believe TechCrunch is going to write an article about you.
But then the problem is that I'll have to actually do the work to try and build the company. I won't be able to do Muay Thai every day, spend 2-3 hours at the beach and chill with slutty European girls.
Decisions decisions.
What do you think of the current state of the crypto markets?
Let me know in a comment!