It's who you know

There's tremendous opportunity here on Steemit. Opportunity to make money and opportunity to learn. But Steemit is a social network, so connecting with people is one of the best opportunities on Steemit.

I've learned a lot by reading good posts and then following the authors.

Big Fish

You can learn a lot from people who have had a lot of experience on Steemit. There are a few influential people who have been here a while that I have gained good perspective from:

@teamsteem

He recently quit his job and is now working with crypto-currencies and Steemit full time. He writes longer posts with the desire to help new people understand the philosophical awesomeness of Steemit and crypto-currencies. Here are two of his recent posts that I recommend:

• Life's Greatest Mysteries!'
• On The Path To A Fairer Future!

@firepower

A writer from India who suffered a physical accident. Down and out financially, he got a used laptop and started writing on Steemit more than a year ago. He's made a name for himself as a leader in the Steemit community. He has been successful in getting many people in India to sign up for Steemit and stay active. Here's some recent posts of his that I recommend:

• Let's Talk—How Can We Improve Engagement on Steemit?
• My 1st Steemit Anniversary — Looking Back at an Amazing Year Of My Life!

Programmers

One of the reasons I'm here on Steemit is to improve my programming abilities and to connect with other programmers. Here are two programmers who are active in the #javascript community that I recommend you follow:

@pilcrow

He's a programmer from the Netherlands who is working on Steemit apps. The one that he's currently working on is called @spectacles and it's in beta, soon to be released. @pilcrow doesn't post often, but he's active in commenting on and upvoting other posts in the #programming and #javascript tags.

@jfuenmayor96

He's a full-stack developer from Venezuela and write posts about programming in both Spanish and English. He has recently posted an overview and tutorials on how to use Github.

• Learning how to use Git and Github - Part 1
• Learning how to use Git and Github - Part 2

@harps116

Adam has been my "programming buddy" and I've learned a lot from him. We've also had a good natured competition when it comes to studying programming and improving our skills. He hasn't posted a lot on Steemit, but I recommend you follow him. Here is his introduceyourself post

Family

@ch4nel

My wife is on Steemit. If you'd like to get to know me and my family, I recommend following Chanel. I think she's an excellent writer and photographer (of course I'm biased). Here's a recent post of hers that I recommend you read:

• Moving at the Speed of... Me

Also, my son Noah is @kid-coder here. He's excited about Steemit and he's trying hard to get better at writing to share his thoughts here on Steemit. My other children may also join Steemit soon.

Newbie to Steemit? Here's a series to help you:

I'd like to end this post by referring newbies on Steemit to an excellent series, "IF I WAS A MINNOW ON STEEMIT I WOULD..." by @cryptoctopus (an early adopter of Steemit):

• IF I WAS A MINNOW ON STEEMIT I WOULD... - PART 1
• IF I WAS A MINNOW ON STEEMIT I WOULD... - PART 2
• IF I WAS A MINNOW ON STEEMIT I WOULD... - PART 3
• IF I WAS A MINNOW ON STEEMIT I WOULD... - RECAP
• IF I WAS A MINNOW ON STEEMIT I WOULD... - PART 4
• IF I WAS A MINNOW ON STEEMIT I WOULD... PART 5

I learned a lot from this series and also had some of my own thoughts about Steemit validated by his experience. Highly recommend reading these if you have been on Steemit only a few months.

Share your recommendations

There are more posts and people I'd like to share with you... but I'll write about them another time.

If you have any posts you recommend, or people who you think are worth following, please share in the comments!

Thanks for reading!

--- @matthewdavid