When I was lucky enough to purchase GoldSilverBitcoin.com in 2012, I knew what I wanted to do with it: Start a precious metals for Bitcoin dealer website. I had had a little bit of experience in this space as my first real job after college was working for a precious metals dealer/coin shop. I had been learning the ins-and-outs of Wordpress and I was excited to move forward and learn more.
I had created a job...for myself. And for those of us who have ever generated our own income (even if just pennies from AdSense), this is an incredible moment. I was excited to own such a dynamic domain name, and felt as though it was clear what I should do with it, especially considering I am not programmer.
Fast forward two years about, and all I can say is that I have learned so much as a young entrepreneur - about myself, about others and most importantly what I want out of this life. I am in no way as monied as some of the other precious metals dealers in the space, so at times it has been a struggle keeping everything running smoothly. At this point, I am very content flying under the radar and growing my business over time as more-and-more customers get their product delivered in good time.
One of the main financial lessons I have learned from running GoldSilverBitcoin, with the help of a family member, is that cheques and wire transfers take a lot of time. All of the personal life lessons aside, this has been a major lesson for me. I simply couldn't/can't wait 3-7 days for cheques to clear and oftentimes wires take 2 days. I simply never have had the bankroll to carry the risk, as I have mostly always held full-time work outside of GldSlvBtc in order to support my riskier ventures. I realized if I stopped accepting wires/cheques, I'd no longer have to worry if USD customers would get around to paying and if I should lock in that gold/silver order before payment has been received.
And so that's why a couple months ago I quietly disabled USD pricing on my website and have moved away from accepting cheques and wires. The bulk of the orders at GldSlvBtc were always Bitcoin, but I had picked up some USD customers along the way. In the scheme of things, losing these few USD customers does not really affect me in any meaningful way. Not accepting wires/cheques is no political statement, just a convenience factor that will allow me to possibly focus on some projects on the side, like a book on Bitcoin (Bitcoinomics: The Decentralization Of All Things), a novel I've had written for a decade (editing takes forever), and music endeavors.
GoldSilverBitcoin will continue to take up the bulk of my thoughts/time for the foreseeable. But by accepting only Bitcoin, via BitPay or Coinbase, I can simplify the overall business operator and free myself up to live a little more.
I thought maybe somebody would be interested in this. Thanks for reading.
Best
Justin O'Connell
GoldSilverBitcoin
Our Very Own Special Show (
http://ourveryownspecialshow.com)
Bitcoinomics.net
