The woman who makes Instagram stars rich: Entrepreneur, 30, reveals how she founded a BILLION dollar business after starting her career as a blogger (and Meghan was one of her clients)
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The woman who makes Instagram stars rich: Entrepreneur, 30, reveals how she founded a BILLION dollar business after starting her career as a blogger (and Meghan was one of her clients)
She’s already achieved incredible success – founding a billion dollar business after starting off her career as a blogger.
But entrepreneur Amber Venz Box, 30, is not content to rest on her laurels – and is already looking ahead towards the next step in her mission to help make Instagram stars rich.
The mother-of-two set up her business rewardStyle with husband Baxter back in 2011, at a time when blogging was considered just a hobby, and Instagram had only just taken off.
She explained how it began as a way to help her and a few blogger friends ‘start earning a living’, by persuading brands to pay them for any direct sales they drove.
Now, her company works with over 30,000 influencers and 4,500 top brands around the world, driving a billion dollars worth of sales to retailers last year.
Her clients have included Meghan Markle, who used rewardStyle to monetise her blog The Tig – which she closed down following her engagement to Prince Harry.
Amber, who set up the company with her husband Baxter, has now launched the LIKEtoKNOW.it app – which allows fans to directly buy the outfits worn by Instagram stars.
The businesswoman, who is based in Dallas, Texas, explained how the idea for her company came about while she was trying to earn a living as a blogger, back in 2010.
‘I was a girl who wanted to have a career from blogging, and my ultimate goals were to pay rent and wear cute clothes,’ she told FEMAIL.
‘We launched really for myself and a few of my friends to find a way for us to support ourselves, and start earning a living.’
However, it wasn’t easy to get brands on board at first, as blogging was still thought of as a hobby at this point.
‘It was really slow and painstaking,’ Amber said. ‘Brands did not want to associate with bloggers, they wanted to be working with movie stars and magazines.
‘It really was a tough up-hill battle for rewardStyle for many years. Blogging was new, we obviously needed brands to be paying in order to earn an income and support ourselves and support our families.’
But Amber eventually came up with a way to convince brands to sign up, by making it a win-win situation for them.
Her company set up a tool that allowed brands to pay bloggers a commission for any direct sales they drove, but not have to pay any money upfront.
Explaining her business model, she said: ‘We created this very easy tool and said we’re going to create original content for you, and if it converts into a sale, and we can prove that, you pay us a commission on the sales that we drive.
‘If it doesn’t work, you don’t owe us anything. Worst case they had great content written about them. We one by one got brands to agree to the model and sign up.’
Amber added: ‘We’re very unique in that influencers only earn when the brand earns, and rewardStyle only earns when the influencers earn. So it’s this virtuous circle where we all win together.’
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