Candystripes (OP)
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***THIS ACCOUNT IS NO LONGER ACTIVE***
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November 19, 2014, 03:39:30 AM
Last edit: February 04, 2015, 11:34:46 PM by Candystripes |
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Hey guys, I wrote this story today for fun. Although it may be little long, I am sure it is well worth your time. Enjoy!
I sit there, with my head rested on the desk, staring at the overhead clock that seems to hover on the white wall in front of me. “Finally” I say as I stand up from my desk and grunt. The bell is gone and I’m on my way out. You see, I go to a s***** private school here in New York. Both my parents work for Coinstocks in downtown, and because of that I was forced into this high school just down the street. Don’t be fooled by thinking it’s a good school because it’s private. Here in New York, everyone is brainwashed.
I walk out the door and swipe my BitBand across the reader. I tap OK and make my way outside. I hop in a cab and I’m on my way home. All across downtown are banners and television ads about technology and technology, it’s all what the world seems to be about. The latest this, the latest that. Only years ago were BitBand’s exclusive to the rich, now almost everyone in American pays for everyday things using it. Around half of my friend’s parents work for a company that is directly or indirectly affiliated with Bitcoin. I don’t see what is so special about it. You walk down streets and see PalmWallet Injecting shops, Bitcoin Banks, Bitcoin coffee shops, hell, in some areas you’ll even see Bitcoin strip clubs. I’m just sick of it all. I spend the whole taxi ride with my earphones in, staring through the window and the world around me, and do nothing but think. I have always been a deep thinker. I’ll always stare out the window and see something as simple as a kite flying, and it will flood my mind and takes it wherever it wishes. I get home and swipe my wrist across the reader to pay, and step out.
Up walks our mailman that’s been doing the job for almost 9 years now. I walk up to the door carefully to not ruin my shoes in the soft shiny snow. I walk in and my mom is already screaming for soaking the wood with my wet shoes. I hate home, there’s just too many reasons to list. My mom and dad always work long hours together, which does nothing except make $20 extra day and make them extra cranky. My little brother Kevin does nothing but browse bitcoin faucets all day, even though I tell him that it makes him close to nothing, but he refuses to accept that fact. I get to my room and think, one day I am going to be someone way better than I am now. Bitcoin this, bitcoin that, how has nobody gotten over it? I don’t feel like school is worth it at all, I don’t do my homework because I see something more in life.
Every day at school is such a breeze. Wake up, school, home, eat, sleep. No homework. Is that all what life is? Why does the government get to control us and force us into school? Until one day my brother and parents left to go to one of his soccer tournaments hundreds of miles away, in Pennsylvania. I’m home alone, and I ask myself, “should I throw a party”. As I hop on my brother’s laptop to go ask some friends, all I see is Bitcoin, Bitcoin, Bitcoin. As I sift through all his garbage to find Google Chrome, a pop-up blocks my way and I accidentally click it. Link to link, the temptation leads me on and on until I reach pictures of the old world. The world that I was in 10 years ago feels like a thousand, everything has changed. All deep thinkers know that nostalgia is much more severe for us. I shut off the computer, I’m tired of this sh**** society and world I live in. Something inside me is motivating myself to make a change, somehow.
I dive on the couch, and on goes to the television. It’s really all I have to do at home, even though the whole idea of television isn’t entertaining for me. I only like it because it motivates me to think and think, just like music would. I don’t even pay attention to the actors, I just think. On comes a show about Robert DeGallei, the world-famous man for creating the very first BitBand, and for starting the Bitcoin vending machine revolution. There’s so many of them, even the poorer parts of Southern Asia have them in local shops. As the show goes on, and I as I think, an idea floating in the air around me decides to enter into my mind. Why can’t I be that guy up there, making what my parents make in 2 years, in 1 hour just for doing a show? Why can’t I be the guy to create thing, why can’t I be the money-making boss that my parents complain and gossip about? Why can’t I create something as simple as a Bitcoin-paying wristband and live a life like his? And that, is how it all started.
All I could think about is living my life and dying, and not doing anything in my life. That was my worse fear. That was my number one motivator, thinking ahead to what I could turn-out to be. I spent all my extra time thinking of ways to get rich. Not famous, but rich. Day and night that’s all what was on my mind. Not that one girl, the new vodka-weed drink mix my friends are trying, or about school. All I was focused on was my goal.
One day on the way back home in December, it was snowing real hard at a freezing temperature outside. Unfortunately for myself, we have one of New York State’s worst principals, whom I refuse to talk about. No snow days, ever. If there was ever a zombie apocalypse she would drive up to all her students’ houses and ring the doorbell until we are in our uniforms ready for school. I say, f*** it and I sneak out the school at lunch time. I was an idiot to forget there aren’t many taxis around at the middle of the day. If there were, it was snowing so badly they wouldn’t be around. I have no choice but to walk a couple miles to my house just outside the city. That one walk took me another step up the stairs I wanted to go up to. I thought, all it takes is a simple product idea. One idea can take me all the way. As I thought that while walking with my face down in my jacket, I took a look up. The first thing I saw, was the sign of an old motel. It read “Bitcoin Hotel” in bright orange text.
BOOM. The idea was loud and clear in my head. Bitcoin chocolate treats, with small QR codes to scan. The codes would have a random amount of Bitcoin inside of them. And possibly a chip so that it’s as easy as scanning your wrist across the chocolate to get the money. Right away I knew this was the start to something amazing.
I got home, and thought I really need to get started on this. I’m tired of school, of this life. I needed money to start up my own business. For once, Bitcoin was the answer to my question. I gathered up some things, and hopped onto Google. I learned all about the way of mining using personal computers. I tried it a little on my own computer to see how well that would turn out. I made a hundredth of a cent after an hour, so I gave up. Then I thought, what if I could use hundreds of computers to mine?
That’s exactly what I did. The next day was planning day. I spent my lunch on a computer, seeing what I could do, and what I couldn’t. Then in the middle of it all, my PC shut down on me. I looked around, and there is the librarian with her hands on her face. She accidentally ran a command that shut down all of the computers in the library. Shocked, she asked me and a couple of other students if they had lost any work. All the work I’ve been doing was in my mind, so I turned on the PC again to continue. I learned that each computer has a code on it to shutdown at 6pm everyday, and turn on itself again at 6am, except for weekends. Then I thought, jackpot.
The next day I learned everything I needed to about being anonymous with these types of computers. After some long hours of research, I feel like my plan was complete. The only thing before success, was execution. I went and found every computer in the school, and installed a simple bitcoin miner on each one in the school, under the code that makes them shut on/off. Then I thought, what if I get caught? Just in case, I scheduled the miners to stop an hour after they would normally shut down, and an hour before they would turn on. Just in case of any teachers finding the computers running. So I had the miners set to run from 7pm up until 5am, every day. In total, I had around 180 computers mining for me.
Time passes, and I check my wallet to check how much I made. $280. Not bad for two night’s worth of research, huh. That’s enough to make a prototype of this product, and possibly a taxi ride there and back for the upcoming Bitcoin conference later this month. But I had no team, no logo, nothing to start me off. But none of that mattered, because I was determined.
The day comes, it’s a Saturday. I tell my parents I’m off to my friend’s house, and there I am in a taxi on my way to another one of these lame conferences. I’ve been to one when I was smaller, and I remember free things. That’s all I cared about as a child. Free t-shirts, key chains, stickers, water bottles, all Bitcoin. Then in the section beside it were long tables set-up for businesses looking to promote themselves. And here I am now, 17 years old, trying to get somewhere with this idea I had of Bitcoin inside the chocolate. Speaker after speaker came up, presenting the latest Bitcoin technology they had in store for the world. One was about an upcoming Bitcoin radio show, Bitcoin news channels, Bitcoin plush-toys, and then came the interesting things. Paying with bitcoin at the pump to prevent credit card fraud, taking road-tolls using Bitcoin, and so on. Although I am tired, just listening to these people talk about money, made me think about money.
The speaking ends, and now it’s fun time. All I had was a picture I drew portraying a chocolate shaped Bitcoin sphere with a QR code inside of it. I walked around, and checked out the booth all set-up to present the new gas station Bitcoin system. It calculates the amount all by itself, and charges the BitBand the correct amount of money. People were sure to use it for quicker gas. In the part of New York where I lived, credit card fraud at the pump was a serious issue. I read the poster boards and projecting videos in front of me.
Then, a man stared at me. A man wearing a site and one of those earpieces in his ears. That is exactly how I imagined one of those hit men you would hear on the news every once and a while. Before I could slip my iPhone out of my pocket, he walked up to me. He said in a deep voice, “Can I please take a look at that piece of paper you have in your hand?” No way was I going to say no to this guy, so I handed it over. Knowing that my art skills are as bad as they were in grade 4, I felt a little embarrassed. He took a look at it for longer than normal. He just seemed to stare at the middle of the page, where the sphere was. He then turned back and asked, “What exactly is this? I see the chocolate, but I don’t understand the rest”. He explained to me how he is the CEO of a huge Bitcoin company called BitcoinBooks, a magazine that I have heard about and read at the airport once. He explained all about his business, how they run some book shops for bitcoin, online shops, etc. It turns out this guy is a huge business man, most probably a millionaire.
I expected him to just walk away, but he asked more and more questions. “How did you come up with this idea? Did you see this anywhere?” We talked for more than 15 minutes, before he finally said, “I’m interested. Come see me Monday after your school is over. I got work to do here. Here’s my office address”. He slipped out his business card and walked away.
Sunday and Monday where the two longest days of my life. I couldn’t stop thinking about this man, what he looked like, and why he is so interested. Even sleeping was hard, I couldn’t stop my mind from going where it wanted to go.
Monday came, and I didn’t bother waiting for a taxi. I knew where this guy lived, I recognized the address. He lives two blocks down, and just a corner turn away. 15 minutes and I’ll be there. I get into his office building, and there he is standing, as if he was waiting all day for me to come. He takes me over to his office on the main floor, and gives me a seat that felt so good it could’ve been priced at a couple hundred thousand itself. He talks a little about my product, and how they could add it into their Bitcoin convenience book stores. All that came out of my mouth was “yes, yes, yes, and yes”. I agreed to everything he was saying. Deal was done. I just got production started for my product, and a couple thousands on my way via Bitcoin. He told me, 10% of lifetime profits from this product go directly to you. I took the opportunity, it’s exactly what I’ve been waiting for.
We met up every other week to talk about it. We started off with just three colours. Each colour represented a different level. There was green, the lowest level. Green was priced at $7 an egg, and was the size the size of a big bouncy ball. Green usually gives QR codes containing $.25 which was very common, up to $10, which was unlikely. The next level was purple, the second one. The egg was bigger, the size of a tennis ball and was priced at $10 a chocolate. This chocolate was white chocolate, and the QR codes contained from $1 up to $25. Long-term, the average pay for 1000 eggs added up to $2.25 an egg. The white chocolate costed $1 to produce, and the wrapper $.15. Total costs added up to only $3.4 per egg. At $10 an egg, that is real profit. The final egg was shiny gold. These ones priced at $15 a chocolate, where the size of a baseball, and was a mix of white and black chocolate. The way the chocolate was mixed makes the sphere look almost like marble. These ones paid out from $2.5 up to $100, which is extremely unlikely, but good for advertising from what the man said.
Production started, and within 2 weeks these things were already on the shelves of the nearby stores. I went ahead, and bought myself a gold chocolate. I took the QR code, scanned it. $2.5 is what I got. I was not to complain, I was making much more than $100 a day from these things.
Soon enough, this simple product was growing faster than I would have ever thought it was. One night I turned on the TV to see one of my purple spheres in the hands of a host for a very popular commercial shop. She unwrapped it and talked all about it. I flipped the channel, and there is my egg, on a commercial. I flipped again, my egg on the news channel, in the hands of a reporter.
The happiness just never stopped. I was making money without even doing a thing. The marketing, sales, literally everything was done for me, and I’m getting paid just for the idea. Two weeks later, my mom quit her job. We sold everything we had and moved across the city, to the nicer part of the city. It was like a different world here, everybody was rich. All the houses near ours were three stories high, as big as a small school, and had sports cars in the front. This was the life. This is what I daydreamed about just months ago on my small little couch and on the snowy streets.
Soon enough, I was well-known in the community. My product had spread all across America, up to the lower parts of Canada, and across the oceans in Europe, where chocolate was more popular. This was the new thing. That same week, I was interviewed on that same exact show I was watching when Robert DeGallei was being interviewed. I couldn’t even believe it, this show was being viewed live by millions across eastern America! I told the host all about my product, how it works, and how the idea started. I felt like a celebrity being up there on the stage.
Today, is two years after that one man I met at the local conference changed my life. After graduating high school, I never bothered to go to more school. This one product taught me more about business that I would ever learn in a classroom, being taught by someone who has never sold something other than their nerdy science tools or telescopes. I’m living how I wanted to. I spent today doing one thing, walking back on that street that took me down this road. I went back to my old school, and forgot I had the miners still running. Since then, I’d earned over $3,000 mining, but that is a cent out of my wallet compared to what I have in my bank account. I shut off the miners, and dropped a couple $100 bills in their mailbox to pay-up for the electricity I owed. I spent some time that night thinking and thinking, about how this one simple product took me a long way from what my life would’ve been. Going to university, working at a McDonald’s, moving onto a cubicle, retirement, and then the end. It’s taught me to live your life how you want to, now how society is urging you to shape it how it wants it to be. But in the end, when all of this over, nothing irrelevant other than one name. God. That’s all what matters.
This was written in my extra time, mainly for motivation and inspiration.
It took me ALOT longer for me to write, than for you to read. If it took you a long time to read, imagine how long it took to write. I wrote this all for free, and is public. Every little donation is big to me: 1CandyPE2zp8TQ55BA9gUP4qgVHzzPdDQ7
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