Bitcoin Forum

Dear BitCoin Community,

   Effective immediatly, I'm pulling everything related to me. It's been pretty obvious for the last few months that either no one trusts me or are hoarding too many coins to care. The '94 explorer I had my eye on sold yesterday so I'm once again out of a vehicle stuck relying on my fience's mother to take me to and from work while their car's on it's last leg. BitCard will be offline permantly when the time has run out from btcwebhost, as that project has ended in disaster. I might as well also pull the idea for the market/bazarr/mall/whatever since I'm pretty sure that'll end in disaster as well. It's been painstakingly made clear that bitcoins are not for me. I'll never be able to have the GPU capacity to mine the darn things, with cards costing $500+ and I make jack squat as it is off cpu mining and that's not enough to live on. I still owe the IBB 1.5btc and I'll get that back to them on the 20th as per our contract. I also owe the owner of btcmarket.us .1btc and i'll get that back to them as well.

   Ya know I had this good deal here finding bitcoins and mining them and all.. but reality has finally set in. Since I'm part of the low middle class, I'll never be able to afford anything nice. No car, no house, no business... nothing. It's true that I finally found myself a job but it's a part time job of 20hrs a week on minimum wage(just enough to pay bills). That coupled with the little bit I'm getting from Public Assistance and i'm still no better off then I was. I could go on and on and tell everyone my problems but no one cares. I'll be deleting this account on the first so I won't have to pester anyone or attempt to bring up ideas to further bitcoin ever again.


Sincearly,
Matthew Vacanti
Liverpool, NY

It's always sad for the community to lose a member.   :'(

Good luck to you. 

damn.

good luck to you..

sucks your leaving us this way

Bit coin should be treated as a very speculative investment class.  It saddens me to hear that you have thrown most of what you got.  Take care, my friend.  May you have a good break and rejuvenate your soul.  Life is wonderful because you still got family and that you are still ALIVE.  Set small goals and live your life one moment at a time.

Much love,
J

Yeah,

Don't over-commit unless you have lots of resources to back your effort. Sorry man.

Sorry to hear about all the bad stuff happening.  Good luck to you!

It's not that, I have the resourses and the stock.. it's the community who thinks that bitcoins are here to be mined and then cashed out for profit. 6 months ago when I started BitCard the idea was fresh and good. Anything card related to be sold in bitcoins instead of dollars. I went through the hassle of creating the site, moving it over to GoDaddy so it was a dot com, made it all professional, and ya know what? No one bought a d**n card. I thought I'd juice things up a bit, so I added gift cards and card only games and games that had card in them.. something to bring in business but then select few decided to undercut my prices and sell those gift cards for less then what they cost. You can't sell a $20 card for $6 and expect to make anything off that. So because of all of that, I have made my decision. It wasn't the rate that bothered me or the money.. I could toss money at the site all day but it was all of you. You made me fail. This community as a whole who overlooked me becuase I was selling at spot price made me fail. You who decided to undercut me so everyone would leave me alone and let me die out, made me fail. Is it alot of anger? You betcha, but it's justifiable. I was even going to go off and add some more games that just came out in the mall for this month but then the fiance reminded me of how I've never sold a single item on the site, leading to this.

Never heard of it.  Was this it?  http://www.bitcard.us/    'Coming soon' and last updated in July?

I don't have a clue about the backstory here.. but sorry to hear what sounds like an entrepreneurial spirit crumble.

I believe it was http://www.thebitcardstore.com/

I've never heard of it before this thread either.

Although, I don't see BTC Prices anywhere on the site.

No, I had it posted on fei.x10.mx/store for a while and someone commented that it didn't look legit or professional because it wasn't a dot com, so I went through the hassle of setting up a dot com with GoDaddy which lead me to btcwebhost. The current site is indeed thebitcardstore.com and I think I spam'd the crap out of it once a day in the marketplace section of the site. After a while, some that visited the site said good job while others said that my prices were high and why couldn't I sell like <insert name here>, their prices are lower then yours. I also had a problem with BTC prices in Zen Cart since I'm not a PHP writer, and the module for open cart is non existant but the prices are currently listed in Zen Cart as USD with the option to pay for them in bitcoins if that makes sense.

This started out as a very heartfelt project that I was sure I could get up off the ground, however a business doesn't stay around very long if there aren't any customers.

sorry bro... welcome to capitalism.  Some fail, some succeed.  Instead of bemoaning people for not buying your products, why don't you use that energy to research products that people actually are buying.  

sounds like you aren't cut out to be a businessman.   You have to be prepared to fail in order to succeed.

As I said "bro" when I first proposed BitCard everyone was game. Everyone knew what I was selling and what my prices were, and since this is really as far as the community goes for BitCoins, I will bash it if it says one thing and does another. I'm also not about to turn BitCard around into some "all products" store and drop more money into another potential site/store no one's going to buy into. There's already 3 or 4 of them around. BitCard is the only one of its kind. It's that way for a reason. The problem isn't BitCard or my way of running it or my way of marketing it, it's these folks on here that think their BTC is going to go up so they'l hoard it and not do anything with it. It's bad for business'.

I don't see how your site relates to Bitcoin though

Man, I hate to say it... but the problem was with BitCard. People are undercutting you, because it doesn't look like you're buying your cards wholesale. People are undercutting you, because they are bulls and have the financial backing to take relatively small losses. People are doing better than you, because they are proactively marketing their products and their sites.

It has nothing to do with the community, it has everything to do with you. I hate to say it and I hate to see you give up. But that's life.

My favorite quote of all time:
I try to live by that. Basically, what he's trying to say is that you should learn from your mistakes and use what you have learned to do better in your next endeavor. As well as not to lose hope, keep your head in the game and eye on the prize. I probably wouldn't have made it through college without this mentality.

Well I'm not surprised you didn't get customers..
off the bat
1) 'sales message goes here'?
2) incomplete contact details.
3) no indication of payment methods.. and specifically.. nothing regarding bitcoin?

Those are just basics.. and there's much more that could be done.
It needs time and thought.  I would have thought you could ask for suggestions and get feedback from a forum like this.

Anyway - honestly, it looks like you just haven't put all that much time into it.
I'd put the gift cards on the front page and make it obvious you can pay in bitcoins.

*shrug* Sounds like you're just down.  Find something you can get your teeth into and work on bit by bit (no pun intended!) in the meantime - and give it another shot when you've got your confidence up.

Utter poppycock!
Accept people's criticisms and advice. The site doesn't inspire confidence. So *fix* it.

Then there's that.

1hr of learning GIMP never hurt anyone.

http://www.gimp.org/
http://www.gimp.org/tutorials/

Yeah..  how hard would it be to throw up a banner made up of a bunch of overlapping card images for example?
Who wants to deal with a merchant who doesn't appear to have put some time and effort in?
The message to the customer is that you don't have the time or don't care - which naturally makes them wonder just how much time and care you'd put in if for example there was a problem with their order!

I feel bad that your business did not work out as you had expected, but when you say "I went through the hassle of creating the site, moving it over to GoDaddy so it was a dot com, made it all professional" and "I could toss money at the site all day but it was all of you."...

Well, I don't mean to be rude, but it's easy as pie to set up a zencart store, not to mention that it's free. And it doesn't look like you have done much to the out-of-the box configuration. Your main banner is a generic message for goodness sake. Registering a domain name is no big deal whatsoever, that is a moot point, I've bought 2 this week already. And how much money have you tossed at it exactly? Have you advertised it? How much do you pay for hosting? Not much I'd imagine, by the slow speeds of your server. I mean, what significant overheads could you possibly have?

I think you are mainly just angry that nobody was interested in buying your cards. It is a very niche market, and bitcoin does not do well in niches right now. I fully agree with what you are saying about miners cashing out their bitcoin instead of spending them on goods and services, but this is not the right way to react.

You need to compose yourself, let go of the anger, and try and think of another way of earning those darned elusive coins. I agree fully with you, as a fellow bit businessman. It's hard to convince miners and speculators to part with bitcoin for anything other than fiat currency. The bitcoin economy is in terrible shape right now because of this, and in a way, it goes against everything that the bitcoin project was set up to achieve. I hope all you miners and speculators out there are proud of yourselves. This thread is evidence that the bitcoin economy requires people to SPEND their bloody coins, not hoard them or cash them out.

Anyway, rant over. I empathize with you logansryche. But there's not much us service providers can do, other than try and get it though to people that spending bitcoin is the only way to make this project work long term.

I just took a quick look at the site.  I saw a $5 Amazon gift card for $7.  Why would anyone spend $7 on a $5 gift card?  You could trade the bitcoins through an exchange, transfer via dwolla and have cash in hand for less than that.  There is a definite need for someone offering the services you are trying to offer, but you need to offer a good deal.  You were not.  40% markup on products and then blaming people for not buying them is bad business.  Sorry you failed, but YOU failed.  Don't blame the community.

Everyone who has worked on a web-service has had their share of failures. I have had my share.... currentkey.com, bumperize.com .... I am keeping my fingers crossed with Search Bitcoin (http://www.searchbitcoin.com/) :-)

My point is that most web-services fail. Sorry about your run.

Sorry dude, always sad to see a member go.

Running a bitcoin business isn't a walk in the park. Hell, starting and running any business isn't easy.
I'll tell you, my first business did not see a profit for 2 and a half years. You just gotta keep pumping your heart out and give it your best.

I hope you can use this negative experience one day to drive positive energy into your new venture and I wish you the best of luck on your future endeavors.

From one New Yorker to another, cheers

-Charlie

I can see a practical generator of demand for gift card at a small loss... it isn't quite an above board one... but someone who wants to launder money or evade taxes via Bitcoin would probably be happy to buy a high-value gift card to places that sell high-value items (e.g. Best Buy) if it meant their income stayed under the radar...  I don't think that's happening much at this point...

This is ridiculous. If people like your product better than coins they'll give you coins for it. Is your theory that every bitcoin business has failed and every one in the future will?  

I like you Logan, but take a few deep breaths, its not easy out here by any means!

Get back to us tomorrow, stick around even.. :)

OP - most successful entrepreneurs fail many times before "getting it right." Every business you start, you should expect it to fail, and so will everyone else. Do it any way. Learn, try again. People put millions of dollars and decades into businesses that fail and leave them in bankruptcy and eternal poverty. That's the risk an entrepreneur takes.

And with the world of Bitcoin, difficulty is amplified... not only does a Bitcoin entrepreneur need Bitcoin to succeed as a protocol, but his business must win out as well. Thus, starting a Bitcoin business is doubly risky.

Your business did not fail because "everyone hoards coins." It did not fail because "the community didn't give you a chance." It failed because your product was not well-received by the marketplace. A million factors go into it, but if you have this idea in your head that you created something wonderful and nobody was smart or wise enough to notice, then it'll leave you in a foul mood and you'll be unlikely the learn the important lessons of business.

I've been involved with this community for months now, and I've never even heard of your site until now. And selling $5 cards for $7? Not going to work. And nowhere on your homepage is Bitcoin mentioned. No Bitcoin logo. No pricing in Bitcoin.  And for god's sake, your website had "Sales Message Goes Here"... I mean, come on.

I would like to praise you very highly, however, for assuring your creditors that they'll be paid back. That is very honorable, and a good sign that you'll have a good future ahead of you in business. Drop what you need to, regroup, and try again. Capitalism is hard.

Failure is the only option in a monetary system. It is a self destructive, abusive, wasteful and deadly game that will continue to evaporate until such time that enough people have decided that it is no longer relevant. Start thinking about what is relevant in your life and reorient your values towards those people and ideas that are meaningful.

Would YOU buy a gift card for 40% over list price? If not, why would you expect someone else to? I mean, I can go down to my local 7-11 and buy gift cards for all kinds of stores at the retail price. Why would you think you could offer far higher prices and far less convenience than a convenience store and still be successfull? Did you even spend two lousy seconds thinking about your business model?

For fuck's sake I'm practically a Marxist, and even I can see that you're doing capitalism wrong.

(i wonder if he considers his hair a success or failure)

You're talking about bitcoin???

I'll buy your sites from you. Get in touch.

-Jonathan

The saving grace of Bitcoin. As bad as you can possibly be at business, there's always someone who's a little bit worse.

 ;D

I hope you were talking to me. lol. I feel bad for him, actually. I think his heart is in the right place, and perhaps he just needs to see someone else take his idea(s) and adjust them to market temperament. There were many good suggestions in this thread, but not too much action.

Let's help Matthew, and put the good ideas in this thread into practice, so that he can have some interactions with customers as ambassador of the brands that he has so far had no success in branding.

Anyways, that was my thinking.

-Jon

Yeah, that was directed at you. Just messing around, though. :)

It's nice of you to try and help.

Take the following off the home page:

I'm sorry but you're angry at people not wanting what you offered. Shouldn't you have done market research prior to investing everything then?

B2C in the USA is difficult at best. I would not engage in that type of enterprise again. Even if you did come up with a successful B2C scheme, a big box company would simply copy and undermine your business.

This is the type of forum contribution I focus on. Yes, there are plenty of trolls and malcontents happy to bash any and every idea with no sign of empathy or civility, but the few like Jonathan more than make up for them.

logansryche, it's hard admitting defeat in a business venture that you've invested in financially and emotionally, but it is a very common occurrence and can't be blamed on bitcoin or this forum. I ran a retail dry cleaning store for ten years and almost went bankrupt because I didn't want to admit that I couldn't pull it out of the black hole of debt it started to slowly sink into after 9/11. Heck, BitBrew has been successful beyond my expectations but I still haven't earned back the money I've spent on advertising, yet!

Take Jonathan up on his offer and focus on something that's a better fit for you. Personally, I think your virtual marketplace idea has some potential.

So you are pissed because people were unwilling to pay more for a product on your site than they could get on another site?

Did you have a disclaimer on your website telling people that it was a charity and that you are down on your luck and could use the traffic?

As others have said, you need to buy things wholesale.

Buy a pack of 1000 cards for 80 cents each, paying $800. Sell them each for $1 and you make $1000. Leaving you with $200 in profit.

Of course, this involves risk because you may buy 1000 cards and nobody buys them. That is part of investing. To get a bigger profit you have to take a higher risk.

My wife buys products for her store wholesale all the time. Some sell, some just sit there taking up space. She does not go out in the streets complaining to people walking by that they have failed her. The fact that they did not buy her leopard pattern glasses covers shows that they have failed her.

Go find a wholesaler. Buy from them in bulk. Then sell with a markup.

For the record I marked cards up 10% -.- a $5 card marked up is $7. Do some math yeesh.
The site is marked for deletion so the standard template has been reverted back as well.

Maybe your business failed because you have the math skills of a fourth grader who was left back a couple of times.

10% of $5 is $0.50. A 10% markup would make the card $5.50.

40% of $5 is $2. A 40% markup makes it $7.

Jesus Christ.

Bitcoin doesn't sound like its based on sound math, maybe that's why its so sensitive to hacks and trolls!

Well fuck me backwards, I only have a Gray Davis Californian education.
So that leaves $1.50 chalked up to shipping/handling charges but wait... if I tossed it into a bubble envelope instead of a crappy one that would get damaged, it woulda costed MORE then $1.50 shipping. I guess my education's to blame for that too huh...
The trading cards were priced at face value in case anyone was wondering, especially those Derek Jeter cards.

EDIT: and besides, even if I did drop prices now, I betcha no one would still buy em.

Just because we hate you? Or because you're selling something nearly no one wants?
Its not because you slap bitcoin prices on something that its gonna work.

It did in the begining.. amazing how many people will stand here and oust me now, but backed me up 6 months ago. One more reason why I'm done with bitcoin.

... you still thought people were going to buy items for more than they were worth.

Why would I buy from your site, when I can just go to Walmart and buy those cards and have them instantly in my hand for the same price you bought them for? People keep saying these things and other helpful things, but you're still pissed and you're still not listening. I mean hell, it's not even like you were trying to do a BitCoin laundering type deal, as I've said and others have said, there is nothing on your site that says anything about BitCoins. The entire site is in USD.

Everyone makes mistakes in life. But, if you can't learn from your mistakes, take advice on how to do it better, then use that to help prevail in your next adventures, then your life is really nothing more than one mistake after another.


For every troll, there have been 3 people who feel sorry for you and have offered advice. Good luck finding that in many places in life.

You're a few years late to the Pokemon and Yu-gi-oh party, who cares about those cards?

Most everyone that has commented on this thread, has done so in a helpful manner related to your current situation. Even the snide posts offer up a nugget of valuable information.

That said, I'm offering you this link (and there's many more like it), for I feel that your problem may lie here: http://www.healthguidance.org/entry/5501/1/Learn-How-You-Can-Beat-The-quotDefeatismquot-Attitude.html

I, too, have failed in the past--many times. Each time I did, I blame no one but myself. Why? Because a wise man once told me... Hell! Allow me to express it with an image. If you don't get it, then I feel your problem is much deeper.

http://www.shelleytherepublican.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/pointing.gif

Today, I'm making a 10K gamble/decision that may not pay off. I'm not 100% certain that it will pan out, but I do know 100% that I will learn from it if it doesn't. I'm excited to see the results either way--success or failure. The worse part of this endeavor is that if it does fail, I'll have to cancel my beloved fishing trip. But I'm prepared for that also. The resort will keep the deposit, if I cancel. No bitterness on my part what-so-ever.

I hope this post helps you in some way.

Your friend, Bruno.

Look, I dont know you, or your history here, I dont even understand this gift card business (thats a US thing I assume), but its pretty clear you got it wrong when you thought any business would fly just because you take bitcoins. Asking people on a bitcoin forum if some sort of bitcoin business is a good idea, is by itself a bad idea. Of course most people will say "yes", they want bitcoins to take off. Thats no substitute for market research or common sense.

A business concept thats gonna fail in dollar is gonna fail in bitcoin. Exceptions might be specific bitcoin related services (exchange, bitcoin banking etc), but any real world trade in bitcoin is going to have to compete with the very same real world trade done in dollars. You might get small bonus from people here who are sympathetic to the idea and want to support bitcoin, if they are going to buy something they would buy anyway, they might prefer buying it with bitcoins so you might get away with tiny higher margins, but do you really think your store could possibly have worked if you sold in dollars? If not, you could have predicted the outcome.

See! A somewhat snide remark. The nugget: Pokemon and Yu-gi-oh cards are no longer in vogue. Question: What cards are a fad now? Jump on that bandwagon. Be the first to offer new cards when they come out before others do. http://www.tradecardsonline.com/

There's even a business model of selling every day stuff for Bitcoin, provided the model is sound. A sound model only needs a tad marketing, whereas a poor business model can not be helped with any  marketing.

Brain fart alert: Used Alpaca Socks ~ With a tad bit of marketing coupled with a decent price point (or versa visa), this idea can has legs.

You should do like every other successful American company and buy Chinese goods and sell them at a mark-up.

I have done a small amount of selling of chinese gadgets dipping my toes in the water through drop shipping. Drop shipping allows you to offer products at a marked up price without even buying the product or needing to store them.

Here is one item I used to sell:
http://www.chinavasion.com/product_info.php/pName/spy-pen-pinhole-video-camera-motion-detection-micro-sd/

A Spy Pen with a video camera. The thing costs $28 wholesale, plus probably around $12 shipping from China. You charge $45 for it and get a $5 profit. The work you put into it is putting it on your page and then when the purchase comes through you fill out the form and address of where it is shipped.

Here is someone selling this thing on ebay for $46:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Spy-Pen-Pinhole-Video-Camera-Motion-Detection-Micro-Sd-/180534553293?pt=Camcorders_Professional_Video_Cameras&hash=item2a08b2aacd#ht_5167wt_1396

The downside to it is that the products are Chinese made which makes them fairly susceptible to being dead on arrival or of low quality. Plus the shipping can take up to a month, you need to let people know that the product will take 3-4 weeks to arrive. Also, you are in competition with many other people who have access to the same product (if they are more successful, buying a lot of product the wholesaler gives them a lower price and they can offer the product cheaper).

The upside is you make money with little overhead and no upfront cost.

No offence to you but its called business. This type of thing happens all the time so you cant be mad at the consumer for going for the cheaper product.
Plus your site wasn't professional looking despite what you say. You left default Zen cart messages in and never create a nice design. I realise you said you are not a PHP coder but you could have atleast put that you also accepted bitcoins on the homepage. From what you have described it seems the ONLY way to know that that site accepted bitcoins was to actually get to the checkout which is just simply awful design. I expect if you had asked someone here they could have set it all up for you for free.

Secondly it sounds like you put everything you had into making bitcoins your main source of income... for starters that was kind of a stupid idea... Bitcoins are a rather big gamble in the business side at the moment so you should never put in more than you can afford when gambling.

Also you don't sound like a stupid person... why don't you go to college and get some good qualifications to get a good job instead of your minimum wage one. You can't whine your way through life, you have to improve yourself... you can't expect everything to be spoon fed to you. I feel like this is the problem with society these days; everyone thinks they deserve a huge house and loads of money just because they exist. So go to college and do a good course with actual job prospects at the end of it... not some stupid mickey mouse one. It looks like you have to take a good look in the mirror and stop blaming other people for your misfortunes.

Don't get me wrong I do feel bad for you, but it looks like you have just had a crash course in business and failed miserably lol. As someone else said, people were probably under cutting you because they bought in bulk... thats how business is done. Cards are also a very niche market... and I doubt most of the bitcoin users would want to buy them. And no one in their right mind is going to buy a voucher for more than than its worth... or atleast at the price you were selling them for.


*EDIT*



Thats why you buy in bulk. Selling stuff on the internet generally has fine profit margins, especially for cheap products, because the postage is so expensive. Your business model was totally screwed from the outset I'm afraid because it wasn't sustainable.


Just because people say they like the idea of your site it doesn't mean they'll actually BUY anything off it.

Brain Fart II: http://www.ehow.com/how_5566363_engrave-rock.html  How hard could it be to engrave the Bitcoin symbol on a rock? I can sit here all day (but not today, for I'm putting myself in position to fail) and come up a 1,000 ideas like this one. That is not an exaggeration!

Sorry man but I don't want to get involved in the trading Magic and Pokemon cards business because it's not now or ever going to generate a good cashflow. It's fun as a side business or a hobby, but don't expect you'll be able to live off of selling cards. Very few people are lucky enough to pull that off. How are you planning to make a profit? Website hosting costs money, buy new stock, you must sell your merchandise, you must ship it (postage fees), shipping materials... I don't see the big breadwinner hog in all this. Sorry!

Ha thats an awesome idea :D

Yea, it is!

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_0FfM5nZ--ms/S41O9mpPuOI/AAAAAAAAAFk/RMhPMYCjF98/s200/cobblesoptx4.jpg

Proof-of-work: No two stones alike or weigh exactly the same. They never lose their value.

Hedge your Bitcoin! Wait! That's what I'll call it: StoneHedge

Thats mostly because its funny I think. It has potential to become a short lived hype, which is great if they pull it off, but it has no long term future IMO.  Or not more than alpaca socks sold in dollar; perhaps Im underestimating that market I got no clue lol.

It was just an off the cuff example after I wrote the beginning of that post. I'm now onto rocks. Try to stay up with me.  ;)

Sorry to hear it didn't work out.

If one thing, this thread has given me some hope. Not because of your failure but because of how much positive response there was to it. How many serious threads have you seen lately where the replies outweighs the trolling? Even more, understand and empathetic replies with valid feedback.

And with regards to your site, there's so many things to take into consideration. The hoarding might not help things but cards are a small market, bitcoin is a small market, repeat buyers who will keep you afloat by themselves is probably even smaller. The more precise you get within an already relatively small market, the smaller your share of it will be. I don't see how it would have even been possible for that store to be a success based on how specific it it is, unless you had access to some really rare stuff, had competitive prices within that limited market, were able to advertise to a broad enough audience and stay open long enough for the word to get around...

Every failure is a lesson which will get you closer to success. You don't just "succeed". You learn to succeed. Every failure is just a sign that you're getting closer, as long as you're willing to learn from it and accept some criticism.

I hope for you that you're able to take a step back, look at the big picture and extract what you needed to learn from this. Leave the bitterness behind and translate that to enthusiasm thinking that next time around, you'll do X and Y differently and can't wait to see what the results will be, hopefully better than the first and lead to an even more successful third attempt.

I'm currently working on a site to help promote bitcoin and merchants that accept coins. Hopefully it wont be a total failure but regardless of how much it cost me and how much dev time I spend on it, I'm learning while doing it and knowledge is priceless.

I really hope the OP cools down abit and reads the REALLY useful advice offered in the majority of replies.

loganrysche, to be 100% honest here, you deserve to fail. You cannot take criticism or advice, lack basic common sense, and then blame the community for your failures.

People complain about your prices being higher and you bitch at them. They complain about your site not keeping up with exchange rate fluctuations and you get all defensive, saying that you don't know how to code  a script and can't pay someone to do it, and can't be expected to do it manually. Well, yes, if you can't write a script or hire someone to do it, you SHOULD be doing it manually, or not operating the site in the first place. It's not the community's fault they don't want to overpay for a gift card when they already have the inconvenience of waiting a week for it to be mailed. You even complained about the *hassle* of setting up a .com domain for your online store after someone complained fei.x10.mx didn't look professional. You bitch that you can't afford a .com domain name. What the hell are you doing running a store in the first place?

You blame the community "hoarding bitcoins" as the reason your site was not successful. Hell, people complain about your inability to see that 10% of ($5, $10, $15) is not a flat $2 and you blame the school system.

I mean, look at this:


Now you're just delusional. When you launched your sorry excuse for a 'site' you were given plenty of criticism (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=27534.msg346537#msg346537). And you then had the audacity to sell your services (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=32260.0;all), saying "I can build such sites. Not everyone knows how to build these sites and/or set them up to run correctly. My rates are reasonable and my work is professional.", demonstrate exactly how unprofessional and incompetent you are, and you expect people to flock to your site?

Take some fucking responsibility, get your life in order, and stop trying to turn Bitcoin into a business when you have zero business sense and no startup capital and blaming everyone but yourself for your failures. If you need a car, work and save up for a car. Instead of bitching that the community 'doesn't trust you or is hoarding coins' and caused you not to get that '94 Explorer you wanted, how about recognizing that you shouldn't have sunk hundreds/thousands of dollars buying inventory for a site you don't know how to run or operate that isn't even initially hosted on a proper domain, and take on a shift or two at Quiznos.

LMAO that made me laugh.

But yes I'm not going to repeat the advice I gave you, OP, in another post of mine but I'd like to say this:
You need to stop blaming others and stop feeling sorry for yourself. Todays world is incredibly competitive and you get NOTHING for free in this life. You complain about only having a part-time job.... well get yourself back into school and learn some practical skills that will get you a well paying job.
I see many people in the UK whining about having no jobs or money... and generally thats because they haven't bothered trying to get one or failed all their GCSEs (of course some are just unlucky). I HATE this attitude that other people or the state should babysit people throughout their lives. Some people actually need help but others just can't be arsed. So as I said: get off your ass, get into school/college, get some GOOD qualifications with job prospects. Sitting and moaning about how shitty your life is isn't going to get you anywhere. Grabbing your life by the horns and doing something about it, on the other hand, will get you far in this world.

Frankly I blame consumerism for this attitude.... I want this car, I want these shoes, I want this laptop.

Sorry for my harsh response but I'm fed up of this type of attitude and I've never seen a lazy whiner who earns himself a good living.

Heh, furries... Drama, blame others first, and total lack of drive/fighting spirit. You're being an embarasement to sleazy business finance foxes everywhere (weird, but true, almost all finance/business types in the furry random I've met were foxes). When shit hits the fan, don't say "fuck you, I'm leaving," say "fuck you, I'm busting through and will keep going despite you." Also, sorry to see you go. Guess we'll see you in a month or two.

Nah, it's ,sadly, just common within the furry community for some reason. Don't know why it attracts those types, but there are a lot of somewhat lazy nerds without degrees, shit jobs, and no drive in there, who blame their life outcomes and awkard personalities on everyone else. It's not the majority, by far, but "furries" with actual degrees and professional level jobs (tech support is not a professional level job) are rather rare.

So your marking up giftcards....i dont get it who wants a gift card for less money than your giving...you can find these for below cost sometimes significantly

Looking at what he's writing on his blog, I would really suggest he start looking for professional help in the form of a psychotherapist. Not saying he's crazy, but he needs some real help from people who know what they're doing so he can actually get a handle on coping with life in general.

Sorry but I just CANT resist:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TGfSL1FTmQ

Yeah, dude is crying out for help and it appears he certainly needs it. Open up the phonebook bro and look for a psychiatric center near you and you go.

I can't remember who said it... But the quote below comes immediately to mind.

"A man may fail many times, but he is not a failure until he begins to blame someone else"

Wow, it looks like this guy has a history of getting angry and ignoring good advice and honest criticism.
http://voiceactingalliance.com/board/showthread.php?33743-Talespin (http://voiceactingalliance.com/board/showthread.php?33743-Talespin)

Starting an online store when you can't code or even afford a domain name is one thing. Asking Disney to give you the rights to Talespin and getting angry when people tell you its not going to happen is something else  entirely.  :D

Seek help Matthew.

From his blog ^

GO TO COLLEGE, GET QUALIFICATIONS, DONT WORK AT WAL-MART
Heck it looks like you have a fine hand for animation and drawing... why don't you pursue that further?


wtf

I think this one sentence says it all.

*EDIT*

Ok, I now feel rather mean after my last two posts.
But honestly, the evidence is mounting up of you (OP) being a habitual whiner who blames all his short-comings on other people. Here is my advice: Get a mirror, look into it, ask yourself: "is this how I want everyone to remember me". Assuming the answer is NO, get yourself back into education learning practicle skills (NOT DRAWING FURRY FRICKING ANIMALS) and get a good job. It doesn't look like you are a dumb guy, just perhaps one who has been unfortunate in ones ventures. Don't lose confidence in yourself - if you do then you will always fail.

I though he had a "fience"?


Should I not even ask why the guy who sexualizes cartoon animals is trying to petition Disney to bring back a show about cute woodland critters from the early '90s? How far gone do you have to be to think Disney is going to give you the green light to make a show featuring their characters in an orgy?

He's married. On Second Life.  :-[

Have you called Obama to help you?

wow, wow this guy is getting ripped a new one ... make note never to bring your problems to this board lol

Oh man. Online married and closing in on 30? At first this parade of pathos was kind of funny, but now I'm starting to feel like I'm picking on a special needs kid. :(

To be fair, if you want an example of people sexualizing cartoons, look at the entire country of Japan. Also, just being a fan of a specific show doesn't mean you're wanting to make porn out of it (people already do that without needing to ask for permission).
But, calling for him to get help won't likely do anything. Remember, all his personal and life problems are "our" fault?

He contracted it out.

https://i.imgur.com/UuCuh.png

Seriously. The guy starts an "animation studio" when he can't draw. A service offering tech expertise when he has none. An online store with $0 capital and not even a domain name.

And its *our* fault they weren't successful.

This really doesn't help his case.

If you look back, people have actually been very sympathetic to him and offered plenty of constructive criticism. Instead of going "Yeah, you know what? You're right", he keeps going off on tangents and blaming everyone but himself.

This is when people started ripping him a new asshole, doing their research and digging up dirt on him.

I didn't say it before, because I didn't want to hurt his feelings any more than they already have... but I've seen trolls put more effort into their trolling attempts than he has spent on his legit "bitcoin" e-commerce site.

Plus, how do you get fired from Walmart twice? I worked there while I was in school and I actually tried to get fired (I had my reasons) and I couldn't.

Poor pets.

This is sad to see, but I think others can learn from this. Work hard and make sure you know what you're getting into before starting a Bitcoin website. Research the market for your goods and be able to provide something your competitors don't.

In other words, don't overestimate your knowledge and insight.

I applied the theme of your post to your post.

You're welcome.

I... I'm not even gonna say it.

The only thing I know is the fact of my ignorance. To consider me genuinely arrogant and narcissistic is a misjudgment that has no real ground. I may speak formally and I may be assertive but do I look at myself in an irrational manner and put others below me? I do not.

Please tell me you're the greatest troll ever, Atlas. It would make me feel so much better about the world.

Although in a way I want you to be real, because it's like having a window into the mind of that kid who shows up for every college class in a tasteless overpriced suit and bright red bow-tie.

Do you own a bow-tie, Atlas? Be honest.

I don't.

Hey now, there's no need to rag on furries like that.  How much drama have we heard about people losing everything because of their bad investments in coins, mining rigs, MyBitcoin, and what not?  Furries as a whole are doing better than the average bitcoiner.

Yes, but Rassah is both a furry and Bitcoiner. The avatar probably should have tipped you off.

I know he's a fur.  So what?  Bitcoiners are still way bigger drama whores.  :)

Write up your experience on http://btclog.com and you'll probably win the 1BTC daily raffle.  I'll also chip in the extra .6BTC

Stay strong,

Your friends at btc::log

P.S.

Don't forget to set your profile pic and bitcoin address.

Fuck yo' bitcoins.  I'm out
\
https://i.imgur.com/frzKD.jpg
Yeeeeah, bitches.  Got my dragon shirt and large land mammal.  Who needs yo fuckin bitcoins?
\
https://i.imgur.com/ENfSE.jpg
 :'(

What's the hassle with registering a dot com? That's like less than 5 minutes effort?


I don't want to sound like a dick here, but the Bitcoin community doesn't owe you a living. Loads of my projects have failed, wasting a lot of effort even with good ideas. You just regroup and try again, not cry on the internet about it. I was dead broke for years before I made my first million selling internet pogs.

Pretty much the biggest lesson you learn as an entrepeneur is that people don't give a shit about you if you're poor and they love you if you're rich.

This was too funny.  The truth hurts.

Wow lol. People actually cared enough to dig up my past and attempt to shove it into my face. Very fail.
I would like to ask that my personal life(if there's any of it left) be kept private and off the forums. I don't go around digging up personal info on you and attempt to use it against you. I am known to shoot my mouth off and for that I apologise. I've always been that way and I doubt it'll change. What I say on blogger however is indeed private and needs to stay that way(it's the only way I can vent without anyone getting hurt).

In regards to the site. It took the better part of an hour to attempt to get a dot com registered with GoDaddy as most names were taken(that and GoDaddy changed some things around). Oh well, thats on me. The site did at one time have a wood type theme to go along with the cards, playing off a card/sports store but I can see I failed. Tried to go with a blue theme that was claimed to be popular and it messed up the site, so I ended up reverting it back to the standard one. I can see why there's no other card store that takes bitcoins. It's a hard market to be in when you have all of this stock and don't know what to do with it. It's obvious the baseball cards'll go back into my collection and the pokemon cards'll go back to my mate. The magic cards will probly either go back to my mate's brother or into the shredder as their in fair to poor condition and took them on consignment.

I actually did have a slight thought of going back to it last night as it dealt with bitcoins and bitcoins as a currency has tremendous potential. Then reality set in again and realized that no matter if I recreated the site or took away the trading cards or reset values or any of that, the end result would be the same and I'll end up making another dear jon forum post so I think I'll just give it all up now and save myself the headaches.

I don't think you 'get' the internet

Ohhh. I get it now. You're trolling right? Your work ethic can't really be that pathetic, because that's pretty freaking sad. The better part of an hour on a project such as a site, or well pretty much anything I've ever worked on in my entire life, isn't even a blip on my radar.

You know how long it took me to come up with the name to my site?
Pretty much every waking moment I had, where my attention wasn't completely dedicated to something else, for the better part of a week.

I've spent the last 6hrs today working on my project, and yet I don't even have 1/10th of it done yet. I have another guy working on most of the server side stuff, and still we are not even close to being finished. Maybe in about a month, maybe 2, we will get it up and going with our service. And that's just 6hrs today, I've probably spent a good 50 or more on it already, not including what the other guy has been working on. 1/10th on the other hand is a generous collective figure.

I don't even include setting up the domain, the DNS routing, emails, subdomains, or the basic web server on my project as even part of the project. It's just what had to be done, so I did it. Probably took a couple hours, who knows, I wasn't keeping track.

If it fails it fails. I will not complain about the time spent on it or the money I have thrown at it.


Good, you're learning. Your idea sucked, everyone has sucky ideas they think will be good. It's normal. Learn from it, find out what you did wrong, find out what you did right, apply those things to something else.


The problem with this is, you didn't actually learn from your other paragraph I commented on. Now I can see you fixing up the site and just hanging on to it while you work on another project, but not completely going headfirst into a project that you already realize has failed and has pretty bad business behind it.


But you know, that's going to take more than an hour. Everyone knows that anything that takes more than an hour isn't worth it.
I sure hope you don't wonder or blame anyone else for you being "lower middle class", because this is why.
My boss probably makes a couple hundred grand a year. I honestly don't think he ever goes home. The only time I've ever seen him leave his office is to go to lunch. He calls that his "free time". (this is in the south btw, not CA or NY where a couple hundred grand is minimum wage  ;D)

Enjoy adding insult to injury dontcha. I am below middle class. Any job that's part time and pulls only 20 hours a pay period is below middle class. Anyone that's been homeless or unemployed or a long list of other things are below middle class. If you were the one that commented on my blog, I'm still digging deeper. It's what I'm known to do. Well it's late and I'm tired so I'm going to bed. Tis true though.. I had an idea and fucked up majorly with it. Oh well. Back to wishful mining.

I don't know you, not do I wish to add salt to your wounds but it seems from your posts that it's your attitude that is your biggest obstacle.  There's a difference between being poor and being broke.  Poor is a state of mind, broke can be a temporary situation.  Donald Trump went broke, but he was never poor.

It's up to you to decide which of those two you are.  So you failed.  Learn from it and move on.  Best of luck to you.

Yes, good idea.  Switch from an obviously poor idea to one that is already proven to be unprofitable with current rates.  I guess you could heat your hobo shack in the winter by mining at this point, but you'd probably be better off just starting a trash fire.

Well, I guess when your parents pay the electricity bill then it's all profit.

Sorry guy, I don't live with my parents and I don't pay the bills around here.
The state of New York does. Nice try though.

I'm trying to see the positive critisizm in all of this but there just isn't any.

Harsh Reality =/= Insult

You have poor work ethic, as was stated in the majority of my last post.

And no, I didn't comment on your blog nor have I read it. Other than doing a forum search for "BitCard" and finding your original post and reading/commenting on this thread.... I honestly don't care that much.

Btw... I used to live in Project Housing in Miami-Dade County. I was not born with a silver spoon in my mouth. I have worked my ass off to get to where I'm at and I plan on working my ass off exponentially more to get above where I'm at. I know what it's like to be broke, I use that to motivate me to not be broke.

That makes two of us then lol.
Usualy whenever I run things the way I run them, things go smooth and churn a profit.
True maybe cards aren't the answer, but I can't see myself stocking up on goods and start up another bitcoin grocery store. I supose I could do bitgames and sell games like monopoly, uno, and the like... still trying to find that key.

Yes, selling items that anybody can get immediately at a local store over the internet with additional markup and shipping time/costs is certainly the answer here.  Keep living the dream.

Just take whatever stock you have and sell it on e-bay.

If nobody on e-bay will buy it then you have something that nobody wants.

Love the enthusiasm, you must've been dropped as a child.
Actually most games aren't readily available.
I know there's a place here in the mall near me that sells alot of hard to find stuff.
Comics galore too. It's mostly for D&D fans.
They sell those figurines and the base plates and the sets and the list could go on.
They sell comics and magic cards mostly though.

So your market is the narrow overlap between people who like obscure games, people who prefer utilizing an obscure internet currency, and people who don't mind a significant markup on items they probably already know how to obtain if they're into that market.

Take a business course at a local community college or something.  Jesus Christ, man.

Boy I'm more manager material then you'll ever be. I've logged the hours and gotten the certificates.
It's idiots like you that get a spark out of me, but I guess you were hoping for that huh.

Guy, just step away from the keyboard.

This could be my favorite post on the entire internet.

I don't appreciate having my education looked down on, or my business practices or me for that matter.
It'd be no different then walking up to the biggest muscle-bound man I could find and talk about his mother and hope I don't get pounded in the face for it.

Well, buying items at a local store generally isn't a good idea unless you live in an area far away from where anything like that is sold and you sell to locals. Such as convenience stores who go shopping at Sams Club or Costco for the majority of their merchandise.

You're selling on the internet. Where it doesn't take me an hour or more driving around town to find what I'm looking for and the best deal that I'm looking for, it only takes me a couple clicks to find the absolute cheapest price I can find almost anywhere in the world. Add to the fact that you live in NY, where the cost of living is quite a bit greater than the majority of the country and there is pretty much no chance in you doing anything like that that's going to make money, unless you find a local manufacturer of X item that doesn't have a tiny niche market.

You can't just go to the store, buy something, then resell it on the internet... unless it's a local item. That's just not how E-Commerce works.

I have a place nearby that sells imported Japanese and Korean sweets (cookies, cakes, candies). There is also another place that sells rare imported candy. That kind of stuff is hard to find unless you know what to look for. A usefull service can be to organize and present it in an easy to find, pick through, and buy manner. You could even do some research on the products and describe what it is for those who can't read other languages. Ideas like that and stuff...

That's technically not true or Ebay wouldn't exist.


That's an interesting idea..

This is very good advice.

*toasts glass* here's to insanity...

Soooo tempted to make a comment about foxes and being pounded in the face...

I wasn't aware you lived in China. That's a different story.

I thought you lived in one of the most expensive places in the world.

Find me a successful Ebayer (over 50k 100% rep), who doesn't sell something that's made local, or have a very good direct connection with a manufacturer or importer. I bet you won't find a single one.

You missed the boat to sell stuff you buy at the store on eBay by about 15yrs.

I do. I live in New York lol.
It seriously wouldn't be hard to find a product, find the wholesaler, then sell it.
In fact, I know of a place off the top of my head that sells sport cards wholesale in huge lots for cheap.
Could I go that route? sure. Have I? Yeah, I have. Where do you think I got all the gift cards from.
Some of them were released to me to feel the market. Mainly the Hotel cards.

ok

I'm really curious what 'certificates' you have in business.   I wasn't aware that there were certificates to obtain.  Here I am going about it the wrong way, going to a good business college and lining up internships in Europe over the summer.  If I knew I could just get a certificate then I could be managing people right now.

Oh yeah man.. when you complete business management they give you a course certificate that certifies you took the course to proove you're on the road to being management material to potential companies. Currently I have 4, plus the ones Wal-Mart certfied me on for TLE.

In the meantime, I think it's about time to lock it up and call it a night.
I have new hope and that's where it starts.