I took the leap to start a company as my first ‘real job’ straight out of college. As a person of color and an international student in the US, navigating the world of startups was exciting, scary and, at times, exhausting.

However, I’m grateful for this experience because it equipped me with the most important tool to succeed in business and in my career: The Founder Mentality.

Traditionally, most career advice has centered around building an impressive resume. Most job hunters spend most of their time on resume reviews and practice interviews. However, in the internet era, a resume is way overrated. The resume is dead. And content killed it.

You should decide for yourself what you should work on, based on following your own curiosity and interest. Do the hard work of experimenting, exploring and thinking for yourself. Don’t outsource your thinking.

What the heck is a developer advocate? I’ve never heard of that before, what do you do? I wrote this post to answer those questions, share how I became a developer advocate and offer advice to those considering becoming one. I also wrote this post for my family in South Africa, who keep asking me how to explain what exactly I’m doing in ‘America’ to my relatives back home. Here you go, Ma!