I have been running my witness server for around 1 month already, though I have not yet found any block, the good news is I have also not missed any! LOL
Jokes aside, the good news is that I have found amazing people that have supported me and, mainly, I have had the pleasure to teach people and bring people into Steem.

A witness server is heavy and requires a bit of resources that usually are expensive (RAM memory), but I have a hosting business, I won't promote it in this post because it is a brazilian business and I still don't have means to accept international payment, but the point is, for having a hosting business I can handle a server like a Steem witness with relatively ease, though the costs still are high, I believe that hosting business supporting Steem are a way to go, we can raise the bar, I sincerely worry about the scalability and while the software scalability is on research, we can do hardware scalability by voting in witnesses that have powerful servers and prove they can scale and increase the resources available as the blockchain grows (just thinking about the future excites me).

As a matter of curiosity, here are the resources my witness server currently eat

I have set extra 13GB for growth to this VPS, the blockchain is currently taking 46.5GB, but I will keep expanding the ram as needed, 10 cores I believe is more than enough, the disks are nvme SSDs so performance is and won't be an issue for at least a couple of months, but upgrades are easy and fast.

Working before asking

I wanted to show work before asking for votes and before applying to the Minnow Support Project, I will compile here what I am doing and why I am a capable witness.

• I am developer (in process), though I have not YET contributed with code since my finances are tight and as time is money, my time is short, I am contributing with classes and sharing knowledge meanwhile, but as soon as I have time (and money) I will start contribute on the researches and coding issues on platforms such as utopian
• My servers can handle the blockchain growth and expand, scalability is my main concern both in software and hardware
• I work for a small cryptocurrency exchange, I have started working with crypto at age 15 (am 21 now) and have been in a few companies, ICOs and small to medium projects, though I have studied software engineering all my work experience is in community management/investor relations (thanks to the many languages I speak)
• In every company I go, I promote Steem, so they can see the potential of using this platform to find customers and built a reputation (Steem is also about reputation!)
• I am doing a series of classes teaching beginners how to develop Steem apps and how to use Steem Connect and Steem APIs, the more people have knowledge more we can raise the bar, build more and better apps and attract new users, we can only win by sharing knowledge
• Delegated 0.1MVESTS to @minnowsupport I honestly wish I could delegate more but I am low on Steem Power, will keep updating my delegations and supported projects as I grow, a big part of my daily and business budget are destinated to Steem
• I speak English, Portuguese and Spanish fluently, I plan to interact, join and be active in all 3 communities, with time, for now my tutorial series for beginners to develop Steem apps are in English and Portuguese only, but I will add Spanish translations soon (I am also learning French for the past 3 months and Chinese for the past 4 years, I love languages!)

Also, I am currently building a Steem app, I am studying a lot, so I expect to have something to show from a few weeks to maybe a couple of months, I am putting all my free time on this, aside of my hosting business, Steem (development and witness server) are my main priorities at the moment.

How did I know about the Minnow Support Project

The brazilians have told me about it since day 1 running my witness server, but only now, that I have work to show such as the tutorial series, delegation os Steem power made to the project, around 1 month running the server and soon the Steem app I am putting a lot of effort to build, I feel confident to apply.
Thank you @casagrande for showing the following link, in the case new witnesses want to know more, the read is below
https://steemit.com/minnowsupportproject/@minnowsupport/minnow-support-project-updated-witness-voting-a-public-service-announcement

My plans to get further into support Steem as a whole

In short

• Power up and delegate to projects I support
• Make beginner friendly tutorials on many subjects, starting yesterday on Steem Connect and Steem JS APIs
• Release the Steem app I am working on and lure into Steem new users (and make the old ones more comfortable)
• Raise the bar on Steem witness server (I want to make my hosting business international and offer good, cheap and realiable VPS and dedicated servers, with discounts, guides and support for witnesses hehe)

Steem is a beautiful system, I have tried dtube, dsound and steemit and I love how this blockchained social network is flexible.
I expect to further my knowledges in the API, at the same time I will evolve the app I am building and translate the knowledge I am applying into easy and simple tutorials for the tutorial series I have started already.

After I have seen how it works, I can't help myself on feeling so excited for the future, as more people get in, more and better apps are created and the existing ones evolve, I already use this social network more than Facebook, for example, and I used Facebook a lot. I hope that my app, tutorials and knowledge can help us to find new golden talents to make this platform evolve, at the same time I will keep my eyes and ears open to learn and share knowledge so we can find them!

Also, honorable mention, thanks @casberp for the Telegram/Discord bridge, it is very useful for the brazilian community.

Finally

As I have shown, I am young, but 6 years in the crypto world (since I bought my first Bitcoin until this very post) is not something that I can not be proud of, I have studied crypto, I have worked with crypto, I have built crypto and I live off of crypto (my salary is paid in Bitcoin, which then I convert to the altcoins I like, such as Steem).
Fun fact: Here in Brazil there are services that pay your bank card bill for you and you pay them in crypto, so literally, I have been living off of crypto for 3 years already, I have no money in my bank, literally, and I only need to move my crypto funds once a month to pay the bills, I am not joking when I say I live with cryptocurrencies.

I am not sure how will the Minnow Support view my application, but I hope they see from my eyes the career I have built since a teenager and they value the tutorial series I am doing, I am very proud of it, it is giving me quite a lot of work since I need to study and read a lot to digest the knowledge to make, what I expect to be, beginner friendly classes so we can have new Steem developers.
Knowledge is power.

One more thing...

For my campaign as a witness I am using the following signature in all my posts, hope people don't find it spammy, cliche or annoying, but I know some readers can come from Google, not only Steem, and maybe this signature can give a little push for them to sign up and support me (and us)

Hey, I am Witness, did you know?

To vote for me, go to https://steemit.com/~witnesses

(note, it is /~witnesses, not /witness)
Scroll all the way down to "If you would like to vote for a witness outside of the top 100, enter the account name below to cast a vote."

type igormuba and click vote