In 2008 and 2009, after I had designed the MyCity logo and begun building the business, I claimed three handles on X. They were never about followers. They were markers: quiet, time-stamped signs of what I was working on, left for the few people who would one day understand. This is the story behind them.
SkylordJoined March 2008The lesson
MyCityJoined December 2008The name
EMC BusinessJoined June 2009The replyMarch 2008 · @skylord
Skylord: the lesson
When you begin with a vision, you naturally turn first to the people around you. What I learned early is that the people closest to you do not always share your drive, or your sense of how far an idea can go.
I was in my early twenties. I had spent most of my time in front of a computer, with little exposure to the wider world, and like many people in that position I was introverted and stayed close to whoever was nearby. I did not yet have the maturity to understand who I was dealing with. I took people at face value and measured them by my own mind: if I could see the highest version of myself, surely they could see theirs, and we were all moving toward it.
Then the clashes began, and I understood why people say never to start a business with family or friends. I had read it again and again on Yahoo, in the stories of founders and what became of them, and I had wanted to experience it in my own way. Now I had.
We started the business as 2008 began. Exactly three months later, in March 2008, it fell apart over ownership. Immediately afterwards I went on X as Skylord and posted a link to a web page that described what I wanted to build with them. They had not been able to see how big I was thinking. So I left a marker for the few who one day would.
December 2008 · @MyCity
MyCity: the name takes over
The second handle, @MyCity, followed in December 2008. I wanted to set the Skylord tag aside and give the vision a name of its own. The domain details displayed beside the profile show mycity.lk registered to EMC Business, the name of the third handle, in the Economy category.
June 2009 · @EMCBusiness
EMC Business: Easy Money Concept
The third handle was @EMCBusiness, short for Easy Money Concept. I registered it in June 2009, and mycity.lk was registered under the business name EMC Business, in the Economy category. Its first post read:
“wonder who really has time to follow all these twitters and myspace, facebook updates?”
@EMCBusiness · June 2009
Around that time a friend visited my home. While I was talking about MyCity, he told me to research Bitcoin. I said nothing. I did not want to answer him directly.
Instead, I went to X and wrote:
“im in eikon service.”
@EMCBusiness · 2 July 2009
It was my reply to him. Indirect, but a reply all the same: I already knew about Bitcoin, and perhaps more than he assumed.
For the people from my past
I am setting all of this out, step by step, for the people from my past. One day they will understand who I have been and what I was working on. They will see that it did not begin yesterday. It began a long time ago, and I had already invited them in.
Why I never look down on anyone
By nature, I do not look down on other people. When people look down on me, it bothers me. As a child I watched kids bully other kids, and I learned how easily people can make someone with a big dream feel small.
For years I shrank in the company of others, because of how they reacted to what I shared and, at times, because of behavior that was less than honest.
What I took from it
- Share the vision freely, but be deliberate about who you build it with.
- Settle ownership and expectations early, before the work begins.
- You do not need everyone’s approval. A timestamp does not argue. It waits.
If you are building something big and the people beside you cannot see it yet, that is not a failure. Leave a marker, and keep building.
