In 1994, after reading Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh, I decided I wanted to get into spy work, and started following my sisters around with a reporter’s notebook writing down notes in all capital letters like “ANNA IS TALKING ON THE PHONE AGAIN. SUSPISHUS.” But being a rational 8-year-old, I eventually realized the job market for spies was pretty hard to predict and therefore a less-than-ideal path of study. Reporter seemed like a good second option. They still got to uncover mysteries, bust bad guys and write in notebooks, and the world always needed more of them because there was always more to report on.

“YOU CAN’T BE TOO OLD TO SPY EXCEPT IF YOU WERE FIFTY YOU MIGHT FALL OFF A FIRE ESCAPE, BUT YOU COULD SPY AROUND ON THE GROUND A LOT.” -HTS

From there on out, I considered myself a future journalist and shaped my entire academic career around that reality. I was a founding reporter of my middle school’s newspaper (The Colt Chronicle, I’m sure you’ve heard of it), became editor of my high school’s newspaper, and received a stipend to work at Colorado State University’s Collegian, in whose newsroom I spent the majority of my college career.

When I graduated in 2010, it became clear that my 8-year-old self had gotten something wrong. The world didn’t need another reporter. In fact, the world had too many already, and was actually trying to get rid of a few. And when I say ‘the world’ what I mean is a respectable paper that would allow me to stay in the small city where I had gone to college and where my new husband was in the process of opening a woodworking business. I checked everyday for The New York Times or This American Life to add a “Fort Collins correspondent, no real-life experience necessary” position but came up dry every time.

So I did what everyone else who graduated with me did and got a job as a barista and pretended to be really into coffee. But no matter how dialed in my espresso became or how nearly perfect my pour, I was always much more passionate about what was happening on the other side of the counter. I eventually left coffee for a job that is best described as public relations for a debt settlement company run by a benevolent, if eccentric, man that refers to himself in the third person as Red Bear and took the whole company to Sea World for the annual Christmas party.

Despite its perks (and entertainment value), sitting at a desk writing about finances for the destitute was a far cry from what I pictured back in my yellow raincoat days. But I was writing for a living and learning a lot about the world and its currency, and still attribute the fact that I didn’t end up a client of this company or one like it to my being steeped in listicles about saving, budgeting, investment and bankruptcy for forty hours a week. It was there that I realized how little I knew about money and the way it worked. I also realized that not being driven by money is no excuse not to know anything about how it works or where it comes from or how to get more of it to allow you to pursue other things that do drive you. My mind began to shift from avoiding the topic of money altogether to being fascinated by it, so much so that I considered going back to school for economics (thank God I eventually learned what economics actually is and didn’t do that).

A year was about all I could handle at Superior Debt and I started thinking about reporting again. I applied for an internship at my new favorite NPR podcast, Planet Money, but was rejected after an interview (I know you are supposed to be glad when you get an interview, but it made the whole thing feel even worse. They thought they might want me until they spoke with me and then they didn’t want me anymore). I considered going back to school for my masters in journalism but the business journalism professor at CSU told me not to bother unless I wanted to teach. Instead, he handed me a card for the editor of the local business paper, and told me to get a job. About a week later I had convinced the editor, who I’ll call Jack, to hire me as a copy editor.

“SOMETHING TERRIBLE IS GOING TO HAPPEN. I KNOW IT. EVERY TIME I HAD A BAD DREAM I FEEL LIKE LEAVING TOWN. THEN I FEEL THAT SOMETHING TERRIBLE IS GOING TO HAPPEN. AND THIS IS THE WORST DREAM I’VE EVER HAD IN MY WHOLE LIFE.” -HTS

Armed with my AP Stylebook and prepared to work my way towards the reporting position I knew I could handle, I started at the paper in April of 2012. It only took about a month to realize this was not a ladder I wanted to climb but rather set fire to.

My editor was an unpredictable newsroom despot. Part of the old guard, he’d been let go from a larger paper in a city where things actually happen, and reluctantly came to Fort Collins under the condition that he would run the newsdesk no differently than that of the larger paper he’d come from. But not without making damn sure everyone knew that the four-person Fort Collins reporting staff was beneath him. He hired me to replace a man who had been there 25 years but, as I found out from one of the reporters who decided to stick around, left because he couldn’t work with Jack.

Jack would go through the paper and circle, star or underline any errors that made it to print, bring it into the newsroom and announce to everyone what I had missed. He would change his mind about AP and Chicago style without telling me and then berate me for using the wrong one. I was not the only one that suffered from his editorship, but I worked closer with him than anyone else on staff, and therefore got the brunt of his tirades.

The publishers (Jack’s bosses) were hardly in the newsroom, and so they rarely witnessed his rampages, heard his sexist comments or dealt with his capricious editing. It was impossible to predict what he would love and what would set him off and more afternoons than I care to remember I ended up crying in the bathroom.

Which brings me back to April of 2013. I sat at my desk in the newsroom and tried to think of something, anything else I could potentially make money doing. I no longer considered the possibility of finding a job I loved but still held onto a glimmer of hope that I could find a job that I preferred over torture.

Harriet: I want to remember everything. And I want to know everything.

Ole Golly: Well, you must realize, Harriet, knowing everything won’t do you a bit of good unless you use it to put beauty in this world. True or false?

Harriet: True.

Ole Golly: Of course it is.

My mind wandered to a software company two brothers and friends of mine started. They’d hired me as a freelancer to write copy for the software, essentially the first draft of the voice of bulb, which I had been doing with varying degrees of success for the previous few months and really come to love. I’d ran into one of them at a dinner party the week prior and really enjoyed talking with him about bulb and his plans for the company. I don’t remember exactly what was said, but I’d mentioned not being “fully satisfied” at the newspaper and warned him not to be surprised if I came looking for more freelance work, joke joke, but seriously. To my surprise, he seemed to be more than okay with that, and mentioned liking the work I’d done for them so far. Maybe it was this conversation, or maybe it was the juxtaposition of the brothers’ friendly tone via email next to my editor’s diatribes, or how genuinely they seemed to believe that bulb could help make the internet a better place, that finally convinced me to risk making things awkward and ask for a job.

From my newsroom desk, I found myself writing an email to David:

I am considering leaving and/or greatly reducing my hours at the newspaper. If, as bulb continues to grow and become wildly successful, a need should arise that you think I would be a good fit for, I would love to be considered. As I enter (cross my fingers) into graduate school*, I would like to have the experience of working in a greater capacity with a startup, and believe it would be the ideal environment to expand my business skill set. I’m also just plain excited about what bulb is doing and think I have a few strengths I could offer the company.There is absolutely zero pressure. I just thought I’d let you know that I would love to be on the list of people you consider contacting when things get too busy for the current bulb team.

I then proceeded to pyscho check my email for the next 24 hours. Writing the email had shifted the idea of working for them from something that sounded good to something I depended on. David wrote back the next day (in retrospect, that’s fairly prompt, considering the number of emails he has to ignore each day).

This is very interesting and exciting. I have something in mind. Let’s talk. I am forwarding this email to John (I hop you don’t mind) so we can set something up soon.

We set up a meeting at the bulb office for the next week. I updated and printed off my resume and some writing samples, put them in a manilla envelope and prayed I had at least a few of the skills they were looking for.

When I arrived at the office, I felt two distinct things: 1. That I had not done enough to earn a place here. and 2. That I desperately wanted one.

“LIFE IS A GREAT MYSTERY. IS EVERYBODY A DIFFERENT PERSON WHEN THEY ARE WITH SOMEBODY ELSE?” -HTS

I never had to open my envelope. They hadn’t invited me for an interview but to offer me a job in marketing. I rode my bike home on clouds and started researching what marketing means.

It’s been about 15 months since I started at bulb and it’s not been easy. Not to pull the tired startup card, but some of it’s true. Things get busy, I often take work home and most times I’m in over my head and constantly learning something new. There is no room for complacency when you haven’t made it yet.

But bulb has also been one of the best things that has happened to me. I traded newsroom cynicism for the belief — and maybe this is the Kool-Aid talking — that this company really can be a part of changing the internet for the better. I believe in the power of a story well-shared and in giving everyone a method and a means to share theirs. Which means, I suppose, that 8-year-old Maggie had it right after all. The world does need another reporter. And I think it’s you.

*I had forgotten until I read this that I had decided to apply for the MBA program at Colorado State. I didn’t end up going, but that’s another story.