The decision I made in 2008 to start what would become goop.com was perhaps a rogue one - and perhaps not that well thought out.I had a perfectly good day job and, though I could not have anticipated what goop would become, I had hopes for what it might be one day, and I formatted it accordingly. I had, for many years, been the friend who was called at all hours for instructions on how to cook a date meal, what restaurant was new and noteworthy in NYC, the must-sees for a first trip to Paris that was only 48 hours in duration. It seemed logical to me that having been an aggregator of what I thought was good information, a curator of sorts for friends and family, that I would open it up to the wider world.The reaction was extraordinary. I suddenly had tens of thousands of subscribers who were super engaged, and seemingly as many members of the press and public completely dumbfounded as to why I would ever do something like this. There was a multiple page article in the New York Times examining my decision, which seemed an unjustifiably disproportionate response to a little homespun blog I hoped would lay the foundation for something real.I believe it was David Bowie who once said, "Never be the first person to do something, be the second" - sound advice, which I hadn't heard at the time. Not that I was the first to dream of creating a lifestyle brand. And I'm not sure it's even empirically true, but I was credited with being the first actress of my stature to, well, become a founder, an entrepreneur.The outcry that was heard still reverberates to this day, and I experience it in different ways - most pointedly in how some of the other women who have followed suit and I are often pitted against each other in a bizarre imaginary triangulation that none of us feel and which the media prays has veracity.There have been many weird obstacles as I've navigated this world as a woman previously very well known for doing something else, and sometimes that fame from my last life gives this start-up founder a set of unique issues.I have never minded what erroneous tidbits are written about me (well, that's not strictly true; I minded a lot in the 1990s, but now I'm too old to care if the tabloids think I don't eat French fries or if I slept with someone I wouldn't touch with a 10-foot pole). But now there are far weightier consequences. There is a difference in your mum calling you to ask if it's true that you were shopping for an engagement ring (nope) and your venture debt bank calling to say, "What the f**k is going on?" when they read terribly reported stories that you are leaving your own business.This puts me at an intersection I sometimes find challenging: what to do with your former work life and the trappings it gave you, as said trappings are irrelevant, sometimes deleterious, and have no place in your new career.When I look back at my professional life, I realise two things: I have never played by the rules and I have always had a fierce loyalty to my instincts, sometimes to terrible outcomes. When I was acting all the time, I sometimes pissed off the wrong people and chose the wrong movies. There were some great choices, too, but they were not made with careful consideration or big picture strategy.I have always slightly been wrestling with this punk rock a**hole kid inside me who wants to buck tradition and do things her own way. Sometimes that has landed me in hot water, but it's got me to where I am today.And where is that?I walked away from a career where people kissed my ass to being grilled by a vice-chairman or my board. I used to worry about myself alone, and now I am responsible for the livelihoods of more than 50 people.I spend every waking hour trying to execute on a strategy I created with my team to make goop the number one global lifestyle brand (a girl can dream), while trying to get us to profitability before my Series B funding runs out. All while being as professionally fulfilled and happy as I have ever been in my life. More so.And my overarching lessons? The punk rock kid in me is essential to my decision-making, but she needs to be tamed and she definitely needs to think before she speaks.Culture is everything. Hiring is everything. Thick skin is essential. Self-belief is paramount. And very importantly - even though the world thought I had left goop for a minute when my sentiment about wanting the brand to not need me was twisted by the press - business was unaffected. Which means that my original vision is possible.Even though I am solidly in the trenches every day, goop is on its way to being much bigger than I am. A solidly un-Hollywood dream. - ©The Daily Telegraph..