Joining the Bitrefill Team
A few years ago, I set out on a quest to find a way to use my skills and experiences to help Bitcoin. I scoured pitch decks from small Bitcoin startups, volunteered & consulted for nonprofit Bitcoin efforts, and did my best to be an impactful participant in the online community.
However, I couldn’t really find a good fit because most of the startups seemed to not really “get” Bitcoin, and most of the demand for help was for programmers, which is not within my skillset.
Eventually I invested in a small adult video-streaming project, aiming to use my 15+ years of project management and marketing experience to help it grow and bring improved privacy, control, and monetization options to streamers. I spent 2 years reorganizing the platform, adjusting the product features, learning the industry, making connections, and educating the adult community about Bitcoin. I even moved to Romania, a vital organ in the video chat world. Some mistakes were made, but tons of progress was made as well. I’d say the biggest mistake I made was thinking a small team of two or so people and a small working budget would be enough to organically grow the business. That project is still chugging along, but mainly needs a real budget and bigger team to get it off the ground.
As I worked on an elaborate business plan and pitch deck for my video project, the Bitcoin price began to plummet severely. We reduced spending and shifted all focus to creating fundraising materials. Lawyers have been hired and the documents are all under development.
However, I still found myself left with two strong, unfulfilled desires. First, to be part an of active startup with a full team and budget. Second, a serious urge to be earning as much fiat as possible while the Bitcoin price is hanging so low!
It all started with a passively innocuous tweet:
It was my soft way of putting out some feelers to see if I should be looking for job opportunities. A few minutes later, Sergej and I were privately scheduling a call to talk about their company, Bitrefill (gift cards, top-ups, bill paying). Sergej got into Bitcoin around the same time as me, so we had some old stories to share and he seems to be a fan of my, uh, unorthodox approach to Crypto Twitter :)
We decided that we should work together and I began shortly after. After two weeks of working for Bitrefill, I start each day excited to work and I do my best to effectively help the business grow. I’ve always loved buying gift cards with Bitcoin. As someone that travels a lot it’s also my default gift for far-away friends and family. I see it as a great way to “close the loop” in making Bitcoin useful as a currency as well.
As I learn more about Bitrefill and its respective industries, I see enormous potential for growth and plan to be a part of helping them reach their maximum potential. So, I hope you’ll support me and Bitrefill, and hopefully forgive me if I shill their stuff occasionally. I am always very careful about endorsing businesses, products, and people, but I think Bitrefill’s reputation and platform is strong.
Another great aspect of Bitrefill is that we are hard-core Bitcoiners. Sure, we accept some of the major altcoins, but we stay on the cutting edge of Bitcoin development with things like early Segwit support and heavy involvement in the Lightning Network, with cool features like custom channel connections, Joule support, and Lightning withdrawals all in the pipeline.
I hope to leverage all of my experience into helping make Bitrefill a shining example of what it means to be a Bitcoin business. We’ve got some really cool, maybe crazy, ideas of how to demonstrate this, and I anticipate delivering these plans for all of you.
