Creators are the heart and soul of Tealfeed. As they continuously work towards feeding us more information every day, it's only fitting to bring out their journey for the world to know.

In this series “Creators Spotlight”, we are asking our creators about their journey. Watch out for them sharing their journey and getting candid with us.

Today we have with us, Michael Larocca, a self-taught developer, who documents and shares his progress as he works through his self-taught coding journey.

Why did you start creating content?

Like many people, I am a self-taught developer primarily using online resources to learn how to code. My goal for starting my blog is to document and share the progress of my self-taught coding journey.

Who has been the biggest influence in your life? What lessons did that person or those people teach you?

When it comes to wanting to transition into tech, my biggest influence is Dylan Israel. In just under five years, as a self-taught developer, Dylan worked his way up to a six-figure income as a Front End Engineer at Amazon.

I discovered Dylan Israel when I reached a crossroads; I was contemplating if I should commit to learning how to code professionally. While researching if earning programming certifications were worthwhile, I found [Dylan Israel's freeCodeCamp testimonial YouTube video]. After watching that video, I started my pursuit of a career change into tech.

In addition to learning how to code with his tutorials, Dylan has guided and inspired me to learn TypeScript, Unit Testing, and following "best coding practices." 

What drives you to create content regularly?

What drives me to create content regularly is genuine excitement about what is going on in the web dev community. There are a lot of talented people creating content that teaches us almost everything needed to transition into tech, and most of them are reachable and friendly!

I've been expanding my network by connecting with the people I'm writing articles about on LinkedIn and Twitter.

What's the most challenging part of being a content creator?

For me, the most challenging part of being a content creator is finding a good work-life balance. I want to start creating short YouTube videos to complement my articles at some point. But for now, just writing weekly articles is a time commitment I can keep up with. 

How do you make sure that you aren't affected by nasty comments, and negative things said about you?

Dealing with negative comments is never going to be easy. However, I have received wise advice from my peers while writing articles covering their works.

When it comes to being criticized, James Quick said it best,

“Either there is a learning opportunity for you or not. If there is not a learning opportunity for you, completely ignore it.”

While creating content and learning in public, Mike Chen explains, you're going to be wrong and that it is ok to be wrong. If you can take a correction gracefully, in public, that will prove that you can learn from your mistakes and that you are coachable, which is an essential trait for junior developers.

Why did you start creating content on Tealfeed?

I am very grateful I started creating content on Tealfeed! Tealfeed has promoted several of my articles, and on their platform, I now have the most followers.

To every individual who's planning to start out as a content creator, what would you like to advise them?

Everyone is different, with different interests and different situations. When starting as a content creator, pick a platform that is a good fit for you. It could be a YouTube channel, a blog, Twitter, or some other means of content creation.

Know that every piece of content you create does not need to be large in length. What is essential is committing to a content release schedule you can realistically keep. For example, I've written 3-minute articles that have outperformed 18-minute read articles in views and engagement. Again, what is important is keeping to your committed content release schedule.

What's success for you, and when would you consider yourself to be successful?

Success for me would be transitioning into the tech field. It would also be the best thing that could happen for my "Self-Taught the X Generation" blog articles, as I would have a complete journey documented from beginning to end.