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Today when I was talking to @karinzdailygrind on discord, we somehow ended up talking about this initiative, @paywithsteem that I'm privileged to be a part of. @paywithsteem is a brainchild of @btcvenom, one of my long time friend since I started Steemit. I can remember it started out of a sudden when @btcvenom messaged me on discord while I was driving to work saying that he had a really good idea of how Steemians can 'Spend their STEEM/SBD to purchase goods without having to go through the hassle of transactions'. At that time, he approached me to design a logo and a few banners for him. I got to know @btcvenom through @bambam808 when they started our the @gsgaming community and I designed the logo for them. Look how far we've come!~

Later part, we've decided to work together with @sam.hsuu, a copywriter and brand strategist to actually form a team and execute this brilliant idea of his.

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We had Official Pop Culture Merchandise in our inventory

Coming from an animation background, I had very little business knowledge & design sense. I did pick up some branding and design knowledge when I was working with an advertising agency about 5 years back and that certainly came in handy.

So why are you sharing this now, zord?

Well, let's just say that @karinzdailygrind was asking me why haven't I promoted PayWithSteem at all to my team, #teammalaysia or have never really seen anything about it on my blog.

Well, first of all, a lot of the @paywithsteem announcements and updates are done through the business account which you can find under @paywithsteem. Do give it a follow for the latest updates.

Secondly, @paywithsteem is still under much work after our Official Beta Launching in November where we actually launched @paywithsteem under Shopify. There have been many changes to the PayWithSteem site because we didn't see that it was efficient enough for Steemians to actually shop.

We had many hiccups

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When PayWithSteem Launched it's beta website, we had tons of inventory loaded by dropshipping companies. We had many categories ranging from Gadgets, PC Accessories, Kids section, Apparels and many more. It was to be honest a legit online shop where u can actually PayWithSteem. So what went wrong?

Well, our team didn't like that the shipping period was too long. It took almost 1 month for an item to be shipped to the US and UK where as you can maybe spend a few minutes withdrawing your SBD/STEEM and shop on other online shops like Amazon and get the items shipped to you within 7 days.

It was because of the shipping period that we decided to change our approached towards offering such services to Steemians. We did not want Steemians to be waiting for their gifts especially on important events such as Christmas or Birthdays. That would sucked.

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It was back to the drawing board us. We didn't want to give up and we're definitely trying to figure out what next for PayWithSteem. Until recently, @btcvenom approached me and updated me that we will be having our own site developed and we will be moving out of Shopify. Which was good news. Good in a sense that we are no more limited to the grips of Shopify in using the limited dropshipping companies and bad delivery time but we are going to automate your Amazon wishlist that you can now finally PayWithSteem. Now we just have to find a developer that is willing to work with us!

Automating our E-commerce Site

You can read all about it above and on our @paywithsteem blog. We then decided to start posting fundraising post through our business account because we needed to hire a developer. We are looking to raise $10,000 to fund the development of the new site, PayWithSteem 2.0.

Now if you ask me, I do hope for the best for PayWithSteem as it will definitely benefit the Steemit Community as a whole. Though we had many hiccups along the way, we also have many things to look forward to! Just recently, we have Officially registered ourselves as PAYWITHSTEEM LTD in the UK!!!

We are definitely trying to take it one step at a time into making the vision of PayWithSteem become a reality. I'm so excited for the days ahead because when the automated site is up, there will definitely be no need for orders to be manually processed. Not only that, you are able to buy your things online with minimal fees. And the best of all, we can finally expand our regions beyond US and the UK which we are sooooo looking forward to!

This was the Christmas Logo I designed for Christmas Season

Just yesterday, @btcvenom wrote a proposal for '@jerrybanfield's budget proposal' in hopes that we are able to obtain the remaining amount of money to hire the developer needed to start our new site. We are in talks with a few developers about this project.

So as you can see, after months of working on this project, there is a glint of hope for the team and I. It would definitely be a Dream Come True that we all can PayWithSteem. Fully Hassle-free, fast shipping and with quality assured. These are exciting days ahead~