From Rocket Science to Reinventing LGBTQ+ Media
Updated: 3 days ago
How a curious kid with a knack for technology traded lasers for the internet and helped pioneer a new era of LGBTQ+ media.
By Matt Skallerud
To understand who I am today, I have to go back to the beginning. And, as they say, it's a very good place to start.
I was a high-energy, talkative kid who was curious about everything. My mother would have called me nosy. Growing up in a family of very private introverts, I was something of an anomaly. I asked questions. Lots of them. And I wanted to know how everything worked.
Athletics weren't my thing, but academics were. I struggled through PE while excelling in the classroom, eventually finishing high school with AP Calculus under my belt. After graduating in 1983, I headed to the University of Southern California to study aerospace engineering.
Yes, rocket science.
After four years of fluid mechanics, thermodynamics, and learning what makes planes and rockets fly, I graduated and landed a job in a research and development laboratory working with high-powered lasers.
On paper, I had it made. A solid career in a fascinating field with a future that seemed pretty well mapped out.
There was just one problem.
I remember thinking, "I busted my ass for four years for this?!"
Something was missing.
An Unexpected Change in Direction
While working in the lab, I started paying attention to the salespeople at our company. They were out meeting clients, solving problems, building relationships, and helping people understand what our technology could do.
That looked a lot more interesting than spending my days in the lab.
I began helping with sales efforts and quickly discovered something about myself. I was good at it. Really good at it.
So I traded the laboratory for a career in technical sales, helping high-tech manufacturers across Southern California figure out how laser technology could meet their needs.
And I loved it.
For the first time, I felt like I'd found my calling.
Then an opportunity came along that would change how I thought about business, success, and my own future.
A potential customer believed our laser-cutting technology could be adapted to manufacture driver-side airbags more efficiently. It was an unusual application, far outside our company's traditional business.
Because I'd worked in research and development before moving into sales, I understood both the technology and the customer's needs. My company gave me some latitude to work directly with our engineering team to see if we could make it happen.
We stepped outside the usual corporate process, experimented, and eventually developed a solution that looked promising enough for the customer to order a machine.
It worked.
And suddenly, we had something much bigger than a single sale.
The automotive industry represented an enormous new market. These machines sold for roughly a million dollars apiece, and what began as one unconventional idea quickly became an entirely new line of business.
You might think this would have been a defining moment in my career.
It was. Just not in the way I'd imagined.
As the opportunity grew, company executives stepped in and took control. From a business standpoint, I understood why. But somewhere along the way, I was pushed aside.
Despite helping create an opportunity that generated millions of dollars in sales, I received neither commissions nor recognition for my role in making it happen.
That experience taught me something I have never forgotten.
If I wanted to control my future, I couldn't leave it entirely in someone else's hands.
I needed to create something of my own.
And Then Came the Internet
In 1995, the internet was still a strange new frontier.
AOL was the dominant name in the online world, and most people had little idea what the World Wide Web was, much less what it might become.
I downloaded a web browser called Mosaic, found a dial-up internet service provider, and logged on.
I was hooked.
Here was this remarkable new technology, and unlike aerospace engineering or industrial laser systems, almost anyone could start experimenting with it.
I discovered HTML, the relatively simple language used to build websites, and realized I could actually create something that people anywhere in the world could see.
The possibilities seemed endless.
The question was what to build.
I could create a website devoted to lasers and manufacturing, an industry I already understood. Or I could take a chance on something entirely different.
I'd come out as gay in my early twenties, but I knew almost nothing about the business side of gay and lesbian media, marketing, or advertising.
And yes, back then we called it gay and lesbian media. The language would continue to evolve, just as our understanding of the community would.
Still, something about the idea intrigued me.
So I decided to build a gay website.
I called it GayWired.com.
I assumed everyone else would be doing the same thing. After all, HTML wasn't particularly difficult to learn, and the internet seemed like an obvious opportunity.
But they weren't.
At least not yet.
Before long, GayWired was growing into something much bigger than I'd originally imagined. We added travel, news, and eventually online shopping.
What made us successful wasn't simply knowing how to build a website.
It was knowing how to talk to people.
My years in engineering and sales had taught me how to explain complicated technology in ways that made sense. I could sit across from potential advertisers and clients, introduce them to this unfamiliar thing called the internet, and help them understand why it mattered.
While many of our competitors remained behind their computer screens, we were out meeting people, building relationships, and selling a vision of what online media could become.
It turned out those years selling lasers had prepared me for something I never could have imagined.
Building Something That Hadn't Existed Before
Of course, we weren't alone for long.
PlanetOut.com arrived on the scene, and its team knew how to get out there, shake hands, and build a business. Suddenly, we had serious competition.
A couple of years later, Gay.com entered the picture.
What had started as a handful of websites was becoming an entirely new industry.
LGBTQ+ media was moving online.
For decades, print publications had been essential to connecting our community, sharing news, and giving LGBTQ+ people visibility. Now the internet was creating new ways to reach audiences, build connections, and attract advertisers.
And it was happening fast.
We rode the dot-com boom, survived the bust, brought in investors, lost investors, recovered, and kept going.
There were plenty of ups and downs. Anyone who lived through those early internet years knows it wasn't all excitement and easy money.
But we were building something new, and that made the ride worthwhile.
In 2005, we sold the company.
The company that acquired us eventually brought together several major LGBTQ+ media properties, including PlanetOut.com, Gay.com, The Advocate, and Out magazine.
For a time, an extraordinary collection of LGBTQ+ media existed under one corporate roof.
Sadly, very little of that combined enterprise survives today.
The technology changed. The business models changed. The companies changed.
But the need for LGBTQ+ stories, information, visibility, and connection never went away.
Still Curious After All These Years
After selling the company, I decided to focus on the part of the business I'd always enjoyed most: helping companies understand and connect with LGBTQ+ audiences.
What began with banner advertisements and email campaigns evolved into social media, mobile applications, video, and increasingly sophisticated digital advertising.
Today, we can reach specific audiences in ways that would have seemed unimaginable when I first logged on to the World Wide Web.
Want to reach LGBTQ+ travelers interested in a European river cruise or a trip to Palm Springs? Technology has made that possible.
And while the political climate surrounding our community presents real challenges, I still find this work exciting.
Because beneath all the changes in technology, the work has always been about people.
Understanding them. Reaching them. Connecting them with something that matters.
Looking back, I can see how one experience led to another, even when the connections weren't obvious at the time.
The curious kid who asked too many questions became an engineer. The engineer became a salesman. The salesman became an entrepreneur. And the entrepreneur found himself helping build an industry that barely existed when he started.
None of it happened according to some carefully designed master plan.
Sometimes the most interesting opportunities are the ones you never saw coming.
I'm 60 now, and I'm still learning. TikTok, Substack, podcasting, whatever new media ideas are waiting just over the horizon as we head into 2027.
I have no idea exactly what comes next.
Discover LGBTQ+ Minneapolis Through a Different Lens
From groundbreaking LGBTQ+ history to the people, businesses, and organizations shaping our future, Minneapolis has a remarkable story to tell. The LGBTQ+ Minneapolis Regional Guide, created by Matt Skallerud and Pink Media, explores the history, culture, and influence of our community, and why the Twin Cities continue to make their mark.
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