My first job at seventeen: the beginning of LOGIN, nezinau.lt, commissioned articles

After creating my first blog, I quickly gained attention online. From 2007 to 2009, leading up to the first financial crisis I remember, blogging was such a massive movement and community that it later grew into the largest conference in the Baltics, LOGIN, now marking its 18th year.

Back then, it was called BLOG’in, and I attended the second one accompanied by my mom (yes, yes, I was a good kid, well taken care of) and now well-known book author and blogger Andrius Kleiva, as well as Karolis Pocius, who remains an active social media user to this day.

You can still find photos from that trip on my same blog. Here’s a little teaser of how things went for us back then.

Because our community was active and relatively small, I quickly became recognized as an active participant. I was simply an engaged teenager, curious and eager to learn, to participate, and to contribute. Money was the last thing on my mind—there wasn’t even a thought that one day I might earn from this. I did everything for the pure enjoyment and as a newfound hobby. Engaging with people outside of mIRC and actually writing publicly gave me immense satisfaction, as I was always a bit of a show-off and that Leo craving attention.

It wasn’t long before I was noticed by Džiugas Paršonis, a professional journalist who ran the largest blog in Lithuania at the time, nezinau.lt.

On this blog, Džiugas and I would prepare 10 news articles daily—Lithuanian, edited, translated, and original content—all for free, without any compensation. It felt like working at DELFI, like things couldn’t get any better. Again, neither Džiugas nor I thought about money. We were driven by a sense of community and shared motivation. Everyone appreciated, praised, and valued what we did. We received plenty of views and comments. Bloggers shared our news on social media, on their blogs, and elsewhere.

Unfortunately, the 2008 crisis probably killed the blog boom, as everyone began working, and blogs became more of a time-consuming hobby than a creative outlet. After all, it was no secret that people mostly wrote their blogs during lunch breaks at work.

The second step, which contributed to my success but brought a lot of fear, was registering a domain with my last name. I dared to register my domain smaizys.lt (along with the diacritic version, šmaižys.lt). Today, registering a domain is so easy and insignificant that it seems odd to think how long I debated whether I needed it.

I was just a teenager, and here I was putting my last name out there. It felt like baring myself. But at the same time, it was exciting to think that people would know me. Still, it was also terrifying. Owning a website felt like a big and significant thing. And it cost money, too! I don’t remember the exact amount, but if I’m not mistaken, a domain cost around 100 LTL back then—a big deal for me as a teenager. But after weighing the pros and cons and, of course, discussing it with my mom, one day, I dared to register it. Two domains, in fact: Smaizys.lt and Šmaižys.lt.

The third turning point came in 2007–2008, when I was invited to work at UAB Pačiolis, one of the largest accounting training and course providers in Lithuania. This company had about 3–5 periodicals for managers, accountants, and office staff. And what do you know? One day, a manager from this company contacted me and, at just 16–17 years old, offered me a position as an author, with my first official salary in the field of computers and IT.

Notice the dates! Look at how fast everything happened! I created my blog on June 12, 2007, joined nezinau.lt by June 19, 2007, and had a job by June 15, 2007. Even now, as I read and double-check the dates, I can hardly believe it all happened as it did. But all this, from being a neighborhood kid to becoming an author for the biggest blog in seven days, shows my enthusiasm and strong desire—maybe even the courage that I sometimes lack today when making decisions.

I remember bringing my article to school to show it off to my classmates. We were sitting in the cafeteria at Ąžuolynas Gymnasium during lunch. I carefully pulled the folded Buhalteris newspaper from my backpack and showed it to my classmates.

The reaction was different than I expected. Instead of support and encouragement, I was met with ridicule for being an IT specialist at 11th or 12th grade. This was written next to my name.

That was the first time I learned that not everyone would share in the joy of things that made me happy.