Greetings to all BULBer and soon-to-be BULBers,

It's been a while since the last time I wrote something on BULB. I think the last time was November 2022. Perhaps you might be wondering, how can one of the creators of BULB not consistently write on BULB?! Blasphemy!

The truth is, it has been an extremely exhausting and restless two years for me, juggling between my full time job, personal relationships and building BULB.

Before today, users realistically could only write and read, but not earn, as the BULB Tokens earned was not actually listed and tradable officially for liquid cryptos or fiat. But today is a very special day, where the BULB Token is finally listed after many months of hard work, dating back all the way to September 2021 when this project first got started by Johnson, Alex and I, to BULB becoming a genuinely compelling Write-to-Earn and Read-to-Earn platform where anyone from anywhere can write, read and earn.

Finally, I can take a small breather and reflect on my journey as a Co-Founder of BULB, and I could not imagine a better day or a better place to share with you on BULB's humble beginnings, my most memorable moments with BULB, and my key learnings from building BULB, which I trust will be interesting, insightful and thought-provoking, to you.

Humble Beginnings

The Original BULB (November 2021)

The above screenshot is what BULB looked like in November 2021. You will find many similarities with today's BULB, but it could not be more different. At the time, we only had less than 1,000 users and growth was difficult as crypto overall just wasn't in favour, and there was a lot less features. However, we kept our head down and just kept building BULB into our vision of what a Web3 blogging platform should be.

BULB Today (April 2024)

Fast forward to today, 13 April 2024, the official token listing date of BULB, we have over 50,000 registered users, over 120 Million $BULB earned, over 23,000 blogs written, and well over 1,000,000 comments and interactions on BULB. We have also successfully delivered a range of landmark features such as BULBmoji NFTs, Article NFTs, BULB Staking, BULB Swap and more.

One of the luckiest things that I have come to realise is that, somehow, the BULB Team were able to attract a group of truly passionate and genuine users on BULB, who deeply understood exactly what BULB is trying to achieve in the grand scheme of things. All of this happened on the internet, between real people from all around the world. You know who you are, and I thank you for sticking by all these years.

My Three Most Memorable Moments

Building BULB was enjoyable, although a rather painful process. This is because no one has attempted what we are trying to do at BULB, and at all stages we just had to figure out things ourselves. Thus, I want to take this opportunity to share some behind the scenes feelings and thoughts on the three most memorable moments of building BULB.

#1 BULB Beta 2.0 Launch

The first thing that comes to my mind has to be BULB's Beta 2.0 Launch around May 2022. In essence, we just opened our platform to the public to test the reaction, and to our surprise, we got over 2,000 users! However, the smiles quickly turned into frowns because when my team and I looked at the numbers a little deeper, almost 100% of these users were bots and spammers, commenting "Hi" relentlessly and posting things like "Hi Hi Hi Hi Hi" as a blog. The platform was young and we barely had any genuine users, so this was actually a "do-or-die" event for us, as if we don't immediately stop these bad actors, BULB would be over.

Over a 72 hour period, pretty much the entire core team did not sleep, especially Alex, Johnson and myself, and we worked around the clock to control the damage and implement various bad actor mitigation systems such as preventing the creation of multiple accounts from same device, spam score, dynamic points system and more. Many of the foundation of the governance system that everyone sees today is actually build from this single 72 hour event.

Looking back, although it was a very painful experience, I strongly believe that this was one of the best experiences I have had because it truly taught me how to perform and think under extreme pressure. Since Beta 2.0 launch, the platform has not really seen another crisis event to that magnitude, perhaps to some extent, it is because I know that my team and I can power through anything if there is another crisis.

#2 First Marketplace NFT Transaction

Another major event that really made me smile was actually when the first transaction was made on BULB's NFT marketplace around January 2023. The reason on why this was so special was because BULB up to that point has been a closed ecosystem, where you can earn BULB Tokens, but never exit from it. However, the NFT transaction completed changed this, as any user can get their hands onto a BULBmoji NFT, and sell it for cold hard SOL. That was amazing to me at the time.

Currently, there's over 24 SOL in trading volume on BULB, which is a very modest number, but I deeply believe that this will rise significantly as people start to understand what exactly are BULBmoji NFTs and Article NFTs on BULB. I am super proud of the team in terms being bold and taking steps to innovate in the space, instead of just building "Me Too" products. Mark my words, more development will be coming on the NFT and marketplace end.

#3 BULB Token Listing

Of course, how can I talk about memorable BULB events without talking BULB's official listing today. How amazing is this!

To be honest, BULB genuinely started as a garage project, where we just thought it's cool to Write-to-Earn and Read-to-Earn. It is only when we build more and more of BULB that people around us started to take notice and wanted to take part to build BULB into the Number 1 Web3 Blogging Platform. As of right now, it is clear that BULB as a platform has tremendous value, and will definitely continue to grow. Nevertheless, the power of teamwork, imagination and a little bit of luck just never ceases to amaze me.

My Key Learnings

Reflecting on the past 2 years of building BULB and the many experiences I have had along the way, there's three key learnings that I would like to share with you all, which I feel are foundational to who I am and what I do today...

#1 Always Remember Your Mission

Building anything from zero to one is difficult, really difficult, and it is so easy to get hung up in the moment and forget about the bigger picture. Thus, to get through the difficult times...

I always ask myself, why I am doing this.

This simple question will always set my mind straight and prevent myself from swaying off the road that I intend to take. With so much noise, distractions and opinions in today's world, it is more important than ever to stay independent.

#2 Always Believe In Yourself

Furthering the point of staying independent, in startup land and particularly in areas where it has not really been explored before, there's just always going to be people to tell you why your idea doesn't work, why you should not do a particular thing and a million other "why you should nots". But when building something as new and as revolutionary as BULB, I have learnt to just ignore pointless opinions, and take in only the constructive ones.

Don't let anyone put you down, just believe in yourself.

For builders and entrepreneurs out there, I am sure you will resonate with the statement of "believe in yourself", despite how cliche it is! We are doing something new, something different, and we have to have confidence in ourselves. We don't walk the roads that's already been set before us, we carve our own.

#3 Always Think Long Term

Last but not least, the combination of crypto and what BULB stands for has completely rewired my thinking to long-term only. BULB aside, crypto by itself is a controversial enough topic, where during the 2022-2023 bear market, everyone was saying "crypto is dead". Personally, I just thought, decentralisation is what the future holds, and so I firmly believed in crypto. This is easier said then done, but uncertainty makes everyone feel very uncomfortable, however, I believe that one can find comfort in the midst of uncertainty by simply asking yourself...

Imagine what the world would be, if it works.

Leveraging this type of long term and optimistic thinking, it becomes much easier to go through the difficult times, especially with building BULB. For dedicated BULBers out there, I am sure this is what got you through the times when BULB seems like it isn't going anywhere or that your effort seems wasted. You did not leave because you can imagine that if BULB works, blogging and social media would be completely redefined.

Closing Thoughts

While I have not been writing much for the past two years (although actually I have been writing once a month with BULB's Month-In-Reviews!), I made sure to consistently jump on the platform to engage with the many amazing writers and readers on BULB. To get me through the difficult times, going onto BULB to see real users driving real engagement, sharing new ideas and expressing their gratitude on BULB, has genuinely been my source of motivation, and empowers me to remember: why I am doing this.

Cheers to all BULBers and soon-to-be BULBers out there. My team and I will continue to dedicate ourselves to building BULB into the place that we all love, admire and belong.

Sincerely,
Ronson, Co-Founder of BULB