Hi.
I see old members are still active here from 2014/2015 and there’s a bunch of new members. For those who don't know me, I am Freddy J. Diaz, and I created/ran PixelBox & Drash LLC
Over the last few years, I have been on the internet trying different things, and after doing 20 to 25 bad projects and companies, I slowly built up experience on how to craft a good start-up and make a decent profit.
My successes and failures didn't happen overnight. Everything took time to build up and took thought to destroy. So here is the story.
All the projects I've built were started in 2015/2016 in Florida when I lived with my family. Unlike other stories about companies that were created from the ground up and without any money, let me tell you this wasn't me.
When I started PixelBox 2015, I sold my PC at the time to a friend who I overcharged around $800. With that money, I bought a $300.00 cheap computer. Then I used the rest of the $500.00 to advertise the server.
PixelBox grew from a player-base of 10 players to a "only-survival mode" of 100 players. After that, the server accumulated around $900 in donations. Money that I used to develop a Prison mode which took me around two months to build. I made sure I got the right plugins with the right configurations, and I made sure it was the perfect combination of an In-Real-Life prison where I could monetize everything and a survival marketplace. Trust me when I say "It wasn't like any other prison server" and I’ve still not seen anything like it.
To launch Prison on PixelBox, I started promoting products on my old YouTube channel, selling-out the survival mode to donors and borrowed money from a few friends. I managed to get $1,500. On launch day I invested it all in Google ads, YouTube influencers, Twitch influencers, and Minecraft Server lists.
At this point in time, my mother and I moved to Venezuela. The prison server made $25,000 in three months. PixelBox had a player-base of 350 players, and had 5 dedicated servers that I had to manage by myself.
I invested 2 months for each "winner" game mode we made. Slowly we built the player-base up to 1,000 (that was our best time). However, one of the problems I realized from the start is that although Minecraft servers are profitable in the short to mid-term, only 0.1% of Minecraft servers are profitable in the long-term. With the $35,000 I'd earned in the 6 months I started Drash LLC as just an YouTube Advertising Agency.
I spent around $8,000 on customer acquisition and $400 per week on a part-time employee for Drash, and I didn't see any returns for the first year.
Slowly we started earning around $400, $600... $3,500 per month in net earnings for the company. We grew our YouTube channel from 0 to 150,000 subscribers, and across all the channels we managed to get 3,500,000 subscribers across 3,500 channels. Unfortunately, I made some business decisions that were mistakes, and due to Google regulations on partnerships our profits started to decline after the second year, and I was "obliged" to accept a deal to sell the 3,500 channels but I could keep the name Drash.
At this point, I had enough cash to buy an apartment outright. No rent. No loans.
I sold PixelBox & Drash.Tv. I bought my apartment, started Drash.net and started my independence.
After running PixelBox, I knew a little bit about hardware and Linux. I had a small network of "Datacenters, Technicians, Linux experts, top-notch designers, and some full-stack developers." I also had some funds from selling the assets of DrashTv, and I decided to start DrashNet.
We had good pricing for the time. DrashNet was not the cheapest, but I worked hard to provide an excellent quality service and built some fantastic friends with server owners at that time.
In 6 months DrashNet managed to sustain 400 active servers, then something happened...
Life-quality in Venezuela started declining, and I couldn't handle it. I was in my apartment with my friends, and I won’t lie, I drank all day for weeks. Yes, weeks! At one point I could not manage my personal life and my work life. Heck! I always worked in my early-teens years, and I had issues with girlfriends because I was always working all day.
So I decided to sell everything I had left (Drash Hosting and the apartment). I enjoyed my last month in Venezuela, sold my apartment, and bought a ticket back to the USA.
Currently, I am here in North Carolina investing money in my next project and taking my time to make it perfect.
Hopefully, you will hear from me soon!
Thanks for everything.
Freddy.
I see old members are still active here from 2014/2015 and there’s a bunch of new members. For those who don't know me, I am Freddy J. Diaz, and I created/ran PixelBox & Drash LLC
PixelBox | Minecraft server with a playerbase between 800 to 1,000.
DrashTv | YouTube network with 30,000,000 monthly views.
Drash Hosting | A Minecraft hosting service with 400 active clients.
DrashTv | YouTube network with 30,000,000 monthly views.
Drash Hosting | A Minecraft hosting service with 400 active clients.
Over the last few years, I have been on the internet trying different things, and after doing 20 to 25 bad projects and companies, I slowly built up experience on how to craft a good start-up and make a decent profit.
My successes and failures didn't happen overnight. Everything took time to build up and took thought to destroy. So here is the story.
All the projects I've built were started in 2015/2016 in Florida when I lived with my family. Unlike other stories about companies that were created from the ground up and without any money, let me tell you this wasn't me.
When I started PixelBox 2015, I sold my PC at the time to a friend who I overcharged around $800. With that money, I bought a $300.00 cheap computer. Then I used the rest of the $500.00 to advertise the server.
PixelBox grew from a player-base of 10 players to a "only-survival mode" of 100 players. After that, the server accumulated around $900 in donations. Money that I used to develop a Prison mode which took me around two months to build. I made sure I got the right plugins with the right configurations, and I made sure it was the perfect combination of an In-Real-Life prison where I could monetize everything and a survival marketplace. Trust me when I say "It wasn't like any other prison server" and I’ve still not seen anything like it.
To launch Prison on PixelBox, I started promoting products on my old YouTube channel, selling-out the survival mode to donors and borrowed money from a few friends. I managed to get $1,500. On launch day I invested it all in Google ads, YouTube influencers, Twitch influencers, and Minecraft Server lists.
At this point in time, my mother and I moved to Venezuela. The prison server made $25,000 in three months. PixelBox had a player-base of 350 players, and had 5 dedicated servers that I had to manage by myself.
I invested 2 months for each "winner" game mode we made. Slowly we built the player-base up to 1,000 (that was our best time). However, one of the problems I realized from the start is that although Minecraft servers are profitable in the short to mid-term, only 0.1% of Minecraft servers are profitable in the long-term. With the $35,000 I'd earned in the 6 months I started Drash LLC as just an YouTube Advertising Agency.
I spent around $8,000 on customer acquisition and $400 per week on a part-time employee for Drash, and I didn't see any returns for the first year.
Slowly we started earning around $400, $600... $3,500 per month in net earnings for the company. We grew our YouTube channel from 0 to 150,000 subscribers, and across all the channels we managed to get 3,500,000 subscribers across 3,500 channels. Unfortunately, I made some business decisions that were mistakes, and due to Google regulations on partnerships our profits started to decline after the second year, and I was "obliged" to accept a deal to sell the 3,500 channels but I could keep the name Drash.
At this point, I had enough cash to buy an apartment outright. No rent. No loans.
I sold PixelBox & Drash.Tv. I bought my apartment, started Drash.net and started my independence.
After running PixelBox, I knew a little bit about hardware and Linux. I had a small network of "Datacenters, Technicians, Linux experts, top-notch designers, and some full-stack developers." I also had some funds from selling the assets of DrashTv, and I decided to start DrashNet.
We had good pricing for the time. DrashNet was not the cheapest, but I worked hard to provide an excellent quality service and built some fantastic friends with server owners at that time.
In 6 months DrashNet managed to sustain 400 active servers, then something happened...
Life-quality in Venezuela started declining, and I couldn't handle it. I was in my apartment with my friends, and I won’t lie, I drank all day for weeks. Yes, weeks! At one point I could not manage my personal life and my work life. Heck! I always worked in my early-teens years, and I had issues with girlfriends because I was always working all day.
So I decided to sell everything I had left (Drash Hosting and the apartment). I enjoyed my last month in Venezuela, sold my apartment, and bought a ticket back to the USA.
Currently, I am here in North Carolina investing money in my next project and taking my time to make it perfect.
Hopefully, you will hear from me soon!
Thanks for everything.
Freddy.
