Editor’s Note: This post was originally published on Seattle 2.0, and imported to GeekWire as part of our acquisition of Seattle 2.0 and its archival content. For more background, see this post.

By Sasha Pasulka

First of all, hello there! I’m looking forward to joining the team here at Seattle 2.0 as a weekly columnist, and I want to thank Jennifer Cabala and Marcelo Calbucci for the opportunity. So — what’s my story? How do I figure into the Seattle 2.0 mix? I’m going to take this first post to attempt to answer those questions.

Why I Love Software Development(and Why I Quit Software Development)

I started writing code when I was in seventh grade – ifthat’s what you can call creating games for the TI-82 calculator. Writing codeignited a flame for me; I was passionate about it, and it was exciting andintellectually satisfying for me in a way that nothing else in middle schoolwas. I studied computer science in college. I worked for Lockheed Martin and laterNorthrop Grumman, where I developed mission systems software for the JointStrike Fighter.

 
Then a couple things happened. First, I became lessinterested in software development as a lifestyle. I didn’t want to go homefrom my job writing software and write more software. I wanted to go home andwrite short stories (and go to the bar and meet boys, if we’re being honest).My coworkers – certainly not all of them, but the ones who I saw excelling inthe industry – spent their free time working on software side projects.
 

I reached a conclusion that I think many bright, drivenwomen in software (and high finance, and other traditionally male fields)reach: “I am ultimately not going to be competitive here, because I am notinterested in making this a lifestyle.”

Second, I became less impressed with the idea of working anine-to-five job at a massive company, taking 3.5% pay raises annually. Aretiring coworker stood with me at the front of the expansive Northrop Grummanparking lot. “Do you see any cars that you want to be driving when you’re fiftyyears old?” he asked. “Get out of here while you still can.”

So I did.
 

Choosing Paris Hiltonover Wall Street

I got an MBA from UCLA, deciding I’d be an investmentbanker. But the more I learned about life on Wall Street, the less I wanted anypart of it. Wall Street was what I misguidedly wanted to be, not who I was. So,then, who was I?

A friend of my father’s, a successful entrepreneur himself,told me I should consider entrepreneurship.

“That’s not who I am,” I said.

“You never know. You might find out it is.” 

Around this time, blogging was gaining in popularity. I gothooked on gossip blogs, catching up on the latest celebrity dirt and flippingthrough red carpet photos for hours. I was living in Los Angeles, spending afair (okay, possibly inordinate) amount of time on the club scene, and I figuredout where and how these bloggers were getting their information.

“I can do this better,” I thought.

I started a gossip blog. My mom and a couple of my friendsread it. I wanted more readers.

So I learned about SEO. I pored over search terms. Inetworked. I broke a few stories. I reached out to other bloggers, to theweeklies, the networks, the newspapers. I made myself a thorn in their sideuntil they wrote about me.

I focused on differentiating myself by writing interesting,insider-ish, funny, and often intensely personal pieces in a clearly definedvoice: a strong, outspoken and occasionally offensive woman in an industrydominated by gay men and saccharine trite.

Readers came, and they stayed. It was a model that worked.

Eventually, the buy-out offers came – several of them withina month. It was overwhelming; I didn’t want to pass on the opportunity, but Ididn’t want to hand over my child. RealNetworks offered a licensing deal; Iwould retain ownership of the brand and the site, and they’d have exclusiveadvertising rights. I moved to Seattle and began working from their offices,content to dye my hair brown, gain ten pounds, and leave the pressure of LAlife in my past. 
 

Building a Brand That Turned on Me

I’ve run that website for four years now, adding other women-focusedsites to my portfolio in the process. I built a brand around myself, around thepersona I’d created, complete with fans (and a healthy number of full-timehaters) who arrived daily to get their dose of schadenfreude from both thelives of celebrities and my own life, a life I’d become known for documentingon my blog so unabashedly.

I’d become the story as much as I covered the story.

That worked well until it didn’t. It worked until I wastired of being the story, tired of readers demanding I stay true to a personaI’d outgrown years ago, and I suddenly felt a lot of compassion for thecelebrities I’d been tearing to shreds for a living.

“People write about me like I’m not real,” I told my mom,frustrated and upset. “Like they don’t realize there’s an actual human beingbehind the brand.”

“Sweetie,” she said. “You’ve been doing that to people foryears. What did you expect?”

Karma’s a bitch (but, trust me, she’s got nothing on NicoleRichie – ZING!).

I wanted it to be over. I hired writers. I turned down TVappearances and freelance opportunities that were gossip-related. I walkedaway. I let the whole thing run on autopilot. I needed to recharge, to recover.

I slept a lot and I cried a lot and I watched a lot ofSteven Seagal movies. I walked my dog to Pike Place to do my grocery shopping.I had late lunches with my girlfriends. I went to the gym. I changed thestation when the radio DJs began gossip segments.
 

Landing on My Feet (Beforethe Courts Had to Grant My Father a Conservatorship)

That was a Britney Spears joke, you guys.

I spent almost a year trying to figure out what I wanted todo next, and I still don’t exactly know. But I know now that I am an entrepreneur. I can’t see myselfdoing anything else – and I’ve considered everythingat this point.

I love building brands and engaging users. The SEO articlesI read advise me to create useful and content-rich articles that create value,before launching into several pages about search-term analysis. It’s almostlike an afterthought. It’s never clear howto create an engaging article, how to define your brand and your company’svoice, how to stand out in a world full of really smart people composing SEObait. That’s the part I get.

It’s an important part of creating a company with stickingpower. Google, Twitter, Apple, Starbucks – you can hear these companies when you think about them. You know what theysound like. Do you know what your startup sounds like? Does your market?

In the past several months, I’ve teamed up with somebrilliant technologists on startups here in Seattle, and I’m in the process ofredefining and expanding my existing brand. I spend half my day nurturing very,very early stage companies, and the other half of my day revitalizing anancient one (four years is elderly for a company now, right?).

I’ll be here weekly to document this process and to discusslessons learned from all these projects.

I will earnestly try to keep the celebrity references to aminimum, and please, please stop me if I try to talk about my dating life.

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