I run a small business. In my industry, the pay isn't always great. Some projects you get a hit and other times it's a hard miss. You'd think with all the work we do, the amount of hours, days and weeks committed to servicing a project, the pay would be better. Our industry is a race to the bottom, so it doesn't improve with time, it only gets worse, especially now with inflation starting to pick up. We're not some multimillion dollar business, but we work incredibly hard to bring quality work to our clients and we just wanted to earn something that would equally represent a fair value trade for our services. The product we produce is going to last a very long time and earning in a dying currency which doesn't even keep its value for a year doesn't seem like an even trade off on the time and effort we put towards the work. So something had to change.
Earlier in the year I experimented on two fronts (1) putting Bitcoin on the balance sheet and (2) accepting Bitcoin as payment for projects. It's been a game changer for us.
Everyone, from my accountants, employees and clients were skeptical at first. I had to coax our clientele by offering serious discounts if they paid in Bitcoin, but it paid off. It paid off because we've seen a bit more capital growth/appreciation which has allowed us to expand the team and acquire new equipment during rallies.
In the middle of the year, I took on the experiment of learning how to live on Bitcoin. Part of the reason was to see if it was feasible as a means of payment, how to use it in the day-to-day with all its plusses and minuses, and to be able to help onboarding anyone who decided to accept Bitcoin as their means of payment. It's been a real education, but what I've learned has been incredibly valuable that my admin and accountant team have a much better appreciation for what Bitcoin is doing to our economy as a whole. We're still early, but I was in one of the MicroStrategy workshops and as they put it, "we're still early. How we use Bitcoin today will create the policies of tomorrow."
We haven't worked out all the kinks yet, but we're in a good position to start issuing payments in Bitcoin, whether they want a portion of their pay or all of it, come Dec 1.
Been working with the local small business chamber and government bodies too to help other small businesses learn to accept Bitcoin (both on-chain and on Lightning).
Not really sure where else to share the excitement considering that in my field, what we're doing is kind of a first and I still get the occasional eye-roll from my peers.
Heard you Sat Stackers were a good place to share this kind of news with.
Cheers!
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