Founder Diary #3: Why I Built Asele

On paper, AI and my marketing career were already plenty to focus on. But I chose to build Asele too, and lately I keep coming back to one question: why did I start it in the first place?

The honest version

I'd love to say I started Asele purely because I wanted to help other women. That's true. But the honest version is that I also wanted to help myself.

I had just moved out. I was living alone for the first time and changing in a lot of ways at once, mentally, emotionally, physically.

I wanted something that would remind me everything would be okay. Asele became that thing.

Watching an idea turn into partnerships with amazing organisations, into conversations about women's health with people all over the world, has meant something. It's helped me understand things I didn't have language for.

Building Asele is, in a way, me helping myself and trying to figure out how to help other people, all while learning and being on my own journey.

Building for other people is harder

So it's hard. Especially now, because I'm no longer building just for myself. I'm building for other people too, trying to make sure I put out something genuinely good.

And the first time you do anything, it's rarely the best thing you'll ever make. But you iterate, and it gets better.

I've been so scared to post about Asele and the progress I've been making. I fear it's not good enough.

I'm anxious about a lot of things: about being a good steward of another woman's data, about everything else happening in the world, about whether I'm building something that's actually useful for other women and for myself.

A question I kept asking my guests

While recording the Blush & Bloom podcast, I asked a few of the guests one question: what would you tell your younger self?

I asked because I was doing my own looking back. Ten years ago I was fifteen, and I've been reflecting a lot on who I was then and who I am now. So much has changed. And yet, in some ways, I'm still the same person.

I decided to publish some of the things people shared when I asked that question. Reading through them made me smile, because I was asking people well into their forties and fifties to look back at their teenage selves.

One of my favorites is my episode with Uma. Every time I think about it I almost tear up.

Toward the end she talks about losing her mom, and how hard it is as a young girl to lose your mother, to have been her caretaker and then have her pass away. It's heartbreaking.

I'm so grateful she shared what she'd tell her younger self, because I think it sums everything up:

Things will work out, and you will be fine.

And I think that's it. Things will work out. And you will be fine.

Love, Gigi