Gaining some traction, after years on the grind.

Hello there, IndieHackers!

I spent the last 3 years figuring out what's what on the web, with tech trends, and trying to figure out how to earn an income online. Wish I found the IndieHackers podcast sooner!

All the same, although it didn't always seem my efforts were the most productive, it's all starting to come together and I can't wish I'd done it differently.

I started out doing a little clickwork, and writing content on popular freelance sites. Writers aren't paid well enough to do a given subject justice, but I was more concerned with learning and creating in-depth content, with lots of links. Todays information streams are fast moving, and historical content is not always well curated either. So I've had plenty to keep me busy.

I was very much interested in blockchain and advertised my services writing there. One client hired me to write about Hyperledger Indy a blockchain based decentralized-identity protocol.

After a few gigs with this client, he wanted me to write a book, but wanted it done quickly, rather than in-depth, as had been doing.

Ideologically driven, I shied away from anything flashy or focused on profit. I didn't come to the web to make the same profit driven comprises necessary for a regular job.

After finding Awesome Lists I realized these were the gold of the internet, and shifted my focus from writing to creating curated lists on the subjects I'm interested in.

I made my first Awesome List towards the end of 2018, called Awesome Decentralized ID, but it quickly grew beyond the bounds of the Awesome List format, and became Decentralized-ID.com.

Towards the end of 2019, I got my first contract work collecting links on subjects related to privacy and digital identity, and now coming up on the end of 2020 have started a newsletter on decentralized identity called Identosphere Weekly.

Looking forward to learning from fellow IndieHackers.