Vivian Tu: Founder and CEO of Your Rich BFF Media

Hi everyone, I'm Hillary Kerr, the co-founder and chief content officer of Who Up Wear, and this is Second Life, a podcast spotlighting women who have truly inspiring careers. We're talking about their work journeys, what they've learned from the process of setting aside their doubts or fears, and what happens when they embark on their Second Life. Today, I'm speaking with the CEO and founder of Your Rich BFF, Vivian 2. Through her social media and her website, Vivian educates over 6 million followers on important topics like how to invest on a budget or negotiate a higher salary. Now, with her new podcast, Network and Chill, along with her upcoming book Rich AF, the winning money mindset that will change your life, she's giving people even more tools to make informed financial decisions. Given her immense knowledge in the field, it's no surprise that Vivian actually started her career as an equities trader at J.P. Morgan where she spent over two years covering industrials, materials, and energy stocks. But when a new manager created a toxic work environment, she decided to leave Wall Street behind and take a job in digital media strategy sales at BuzzFeed. It was there that she began to give her new co-workers personal finance advice. Eventually, in an effort to consolidate that advice, she took to TikTok and Your Rich BFF was born. Vivian is extremely candid about her own financial journey and the steps everyone needs to take to build wealth, and I can't wait for you to hear from her today. Now, on Second Life, it's Vivian too. Are you ready to start? I am. Okay, excellent. So, we like to start this podcast at the beginning. So, what did you study in school and much more importantly? What did you think you're going to be when you grew up? So, I grew up in an immigrant Chinese home, so education was always a really, really big focus for my family. And when you come from an immigrant Chinese home, you kind of have three job options that you are allowed to have being Dr. Lawyer Engineer. And I was like, okay, well, like of those three jobs, lawyer sounds like the most fun. I don't know what would make me think that. But I went to the University of Chicago. I was a very good student, big, big nerd. I loved learning, loved school, everything. And you'd like get into the specific major because it's a liberal arts college. And there's no like pre-law track. So, there's this major called Law Letters and Society. And I applied for this program and did not get in. So, I was like, okay, so I think like the lawyer dream is crushed now. Was that upsetting or freeing? I would say more freeing, frankly, because it was like, oh, well, I can't do this. It's not like I don't want to, right? I didn't want to. But I had an excuse now. I was like, oh, well, I didn't get in. It's like fine. And you Chicago is well known to be an economics university. It's the best in the entire world. Econ is their jam. And so I was like, well, why wouldn't I study Econ at the world's best economics university? I will tell you why. Because I got a C plus in the very first entry-level class. What I didn't realize is that economics theory and actual applied economics in day to day life is very, very different. And it was almost like you were writing math proofs or doing physics equations to solve economic problems, quote, unquote. So I was like, okay, this is also not for me. But I still want to have that piece of how do these principles affect our world every day. So I was like, okay, I'll be a policy major. And because I was like, I'm already here, I might as well get a second. I double majored in environmental studies just because I've always been eco-friendly. Like, it's something that I grew up with mostly because I think my parents were like cheap, but they call it like recycling. So, you know, I double majored. I graduated and junior year when everyone, all of my friends were interviewing. I was like, that seems like the thing to do. So I also started interviewing for Wall Street jobs as well. And fortunately for me, I ended up getting one. So to me, it feels like a Wall Street job in your case, equity's trader at JP Morgan feels very different from public policy and environmental studies. So what made you interested in making that move? And also, am I wrong? Are they actually much closer together than it seems on the surface? Yes, I know. So I laughed because all of my peers in my environmental studies major. It's a small major. They all became leaders at NGOs or park rangers. And I literally sold out to the max. And for me, it was kind of two things in that realm, in that first and foremost, the first sector that I learned to trade on Wall Street was industrial materials and energy. So that actually played pretty well into what I had learned in college. I took an energy and energy policy class. You had learned about renewables and like those were companies that we were trading. So like I had a bit of background which was great. But more so, I ended up quote unquote selling out because I didn't have a trust fund. I did not have money to lean back on and be like, Hey, mom and dad, like take care of me while I do whatever I want. Like the expectation was as soon as I graduated from college the day after my graduation, it was game over. I could never ask for money again. And I knew that. So I was like, I have to get a job. And my number one priority is that it has to pay well. Can I just say I really appreciate you being candid about that because I don't think that folks always are. And it's hugely important because it's like the motivations are different depending on the economics. Like the practicalities are different. And the reasons that these choices are made. So talk to me about your first day on the job. Was it what you expected? Was it quite different? How did you adjust to corporate culture and the company culture? And maybe it's because I've never worked in that world. But it feels like it would be such a learning curve in so many ways. So I'm curious about what your experience was like. Oh, it absolutely is. I guess I can't even tell you about like my first day on the job without going back to the actual internship. Tell me, this is like the craziest process. Basically, these banks will hire two to three times the number of full-time positions they have available in terms of interns. So like if they have 100 seats for full-time positions, they'll hire 200 interns. Then after you get the offer, you then speed date all of the different desks, which all have different cultures, which all have different types of leaders and employees and managers, whatever. And once you're done speed dating them, you essentially rank them like in sorority recruitment. And then if you match, you match to a desk. And so you get to the internship and then you're competing with another person or two other people for your one job. And when I got to the desk my very first day, I looked around and everyone was a white guy. And for me, that was pretty intimidating because there was only one other woman, and there was only one other person of color. And it happened to be the same person because she was an Asian woman. They really went for the two for here. But like she was my North Star. I was like, if she can do it, I can do it. She was the manager of the intern program. She was very senior in her career. I wanted to be just like her. She wore a new designer bag to work every day. I was like, oh my god, this is my life. I want to wear a new Chanel bag to work every day. And it was really intimidating because the two interns that I worked with were both young men. And they had more in common with a lot of the other employees there. They could talk about golf or they could talk about the sports game that I definitely didn't watch that past weekend. And there was just like a natural barrier that I had to overcome in a way that they probably didn't. But I'd like to think that I'm quite charismatic. I am funny. Maybe I would agree. But something that I've worked on over my life is disarming people, surprising them, being someone that they can relate to even if we have nothing in common. And over my 10-week internship, I was able to do that with pretty much everybody on the desk. And I ended up being the one of three interns that got hired. I mean, the hunger games of it all is terrifying. Oh, yeah. It's also like how are you supposed to bond with anyone if you're like, to the death, like only one of us survived. That's so intense on so many levels. And then there's a situation of like, okay, so you, quote-unquote, win your job. And then the reality sinks in of like, oh, this is my actual job. So what was that like? What was your day-to-day like? So my alarm clock would go off at 5 a.m. every single morning. And I would quickly shower, brush my teeth, put on my makeup, whatever. And I would take an exactly seven-minute Uber to the office. You can't expense your Uber's after six. So I would arrive at like 545, 550, whatever. And I would get to the desk. And immediately I would just start reading. You want to know what happened overnight while you were sleeping. I would look at companies on the industrial materials energy list, had news come out about them. We're earnings releasing. What would be important to know? And what could potentially impact how that stock traded that day? So these are all things that I needed to know. And then I would do write-ups for my senior traders so that they could essentially read the crib notes. And so I put that together. I would say around seven. I would run downstairs, grab a quick breakfast. And at 930, the market would open. That's intense to put it mildly. So in that early period of your career, what were the things that you were immediately really good at? What were the things that you're like, oh, dang, this is not making my heart sing. I can do it, but I don't love it. And what skills were you learning that you still use today? Because I have this very strong belief that some of the mundane things that we learn in our first jobs actually end up really helping us along the way. Yeah, I would say one of the things that I was immediately very, very good at is just being able to manage client orders and essentially negotiate. So you sometimes have to work with different hedge funds, investment managers would have you to agree on a price to buy and sell. And if you have a relationship, you can essentially cross orders, meaning you have a buyer and a seller in hand and you get paid commission on both sides, which is ideal situation, talking to clients and being able to do that negotiation work with something that came naturally to me. Something that was really hard is that list that you have of stocks that you need to cover is three, four, five hundred names long. And sometimes you're looking at this list and you're like, okay, I am supposed to know about every single one of these companies, but feasibly that just isn't possible. You can't remember exactly what matters to every single company, what exact numbers they were like, there's just so much information and there's no shortcut to that. It's literally just reading, it's taking it all in and over time you obviously get better and better and better at it, but that takes reps on reps on reps. And then I would say in terms of something that I took away that I will never forget, my boss is boss. He's exactly what you imagine when you think like a Wall Street trader. He is a gruff Italian man born and raised in New York City. He's beloved by everyone. And he told me one day he said, you know, Viv, you always got to buy him the chicken palm. And I was like, what the hell is this man talking about? Like I'm lactose intolerant. I don't eat chicken palm. And he occasionally just on a whim on a random Tuesday on a random Wednesday, Thursday, whatever. He would buy chicken palms for the team. And he would invite the IT guys. He would invite people who didn't necessarily work with us every single day to come and grab a chicken palm. And I always wonder why he did that. And then I realized that like when he was dealing with a tech issue, he would call the IT team, they would run, run to his desk. They would be there within 27 seconds. They always prioritize him because he had treated them with kindness. He had asked them about their families. And I learned to do this. And I bought a coffee for one of the research analysts. And I had said, like, hey, like thank you so much for helping me with my summer project as an intern, blah, blah, blah. Like I brought him a coffee and he was like, oh, well, if you want to like do a practice run through with me, I'd be happy to help you. And I was like, so I get a first swing at bat before I actually have to present it to the team. I crushed it because I had already practiced with someone who knew the space better than I ever would. And I think it's just a reminder that like you don't know who in your life could potentially help you a mile down the road. And even if they can't, you should treat everybody with kindness every single day. Yeah, it's really, really, really true. And it's funny because it's sometimes like these small moments, but folks remember it. Yeah. Okay. So times ticking. Life's moving on. You're working. At some point though, you started to have some doubts or shifts or just want something else. Tell me a little bit about those early moments of uncertainty. Maybe it was burnout too, because I feel like it's such a hugely intense life change. And at what point did you finally think like, okay, this is interesting. I'm doing well, but this is not a life that I want long term. Yeah, I wish I could tell you that it was just a slow fade out of love over time, but it was like a light switch. The head of my desk got let go. And you know, they ended up bringing in a new head of the desk. And he fired half the team. And suddenly overnight, he brought in his own guys. And the team looked very, very different from the one that I had started on. And my woman, Asian mentor, who was my first manager, I loved her. She taught me everything I knew. I worked with her for the first year and a half of my career. I ended up getting moved away from her by the head of the desk to work for somebody else. And this new guy treated me like dog shit. And I could tell he was never going to respect me. He told me I was too girly for the job. He didn't like how my nails clacked on the keyboard. He was annoyed by just my mannerisms like things that I was not going to be able to change about myself. You mean you couldn't change his misogyny. You're right. Correct. Correct. And one day the straw that broke a camel's back, I wore a long cardigan to work. And he looked at me. He touched his hands together and he goes, oh, is that a kimono? First off, that seems like a HR violation if I've ever seen one. Yeah. But it made me realize that this guy was never going to be in the backroom pounding the table, demanding I get paid, saying things like she's so talented. We can't lose her. Like other banks are calling her. We need to make sure she's promoted. He was never going to do that, not to mention the fact that he was like a misogynistic racist, you know, hard to cure for that. Right. You can't cure that. And so I went back to my first manager, my mentor, my friend at this point. I was like, I'm going to quit this job today. I'm out. And she was like, don't be an idiot. You have a good job. Even though this is happening, go through the job while you have this job. Just ship it in. Do whatever you need to do to get by. And then when you have something else lined up, then quit. And I'm like, you know what? That is good advice. And I did that. And that's the beginning of the end. So tell me about the next job because you went to Buzzfeed, which I find so fascinating in digital media strategy sales. Tell me a little bit about how you identified what you wanted your next role to be, how you decided what industry you wanted to be in. Because those are some pretty big questions. So in a finance job, I was like, okay, well, my natural exit would be to go to a hedge fund, to go to an asset manager, whatever. And I was interviewing for those jobs. But my mentor, she was like, hey, I have a friend. She used to work at Goldman Sachs. She was in the industry for a while. And she actually has left to go to media and tech. And she really likes it. She's one of my closest friends. She's good people. Do you want to talk with her? I'm like, yeah, I'll talk with anybody. And that was how I met my first boss at Buzzfeed who was Susie. And Susie and I ended up hitting it off. She was like, I see so much of myself in you. And after the interview process, I ended up getting the job at Buzzfeed and taking it because it was just the first offer I got. I was halfway down the pipe with a few hedge funds. I was like, bye, see, I'm just getting out of here. Like I can't be in this job anymore. And so I rushed out of my seat. And I started my job at Buzzfeed. I didn't know anything. But I'm thinking back like you know, how to interact with people. You understood negotiation process. Like you'd had clients. So some of that would translate skill wise. I mean, like what you're selling is different. But I can see how there's enough overlap. How long did it take for you to feel comfortable in that role at Buzzfeed comfortable? I would say probably six months. I was like, okay, I'm doing good. I know what I'm doing. I don't need someone to hold my hand. But when I really started to feel like my career exponentially rising was when I sold my first massive seven figure partnership. And that was about two years in. And I was like, this is changing the game for me. People at the company look at me differently. They treat me differently. When I make a call, it gets put on a short list because I need something for a big time client. And I felt like I'd made it. I was like, I made this career switch. And now I have earned my way to the top. I'm on the leaderboard. People know who I am. People are willing to help me. And it was just this incredible feeling of I did it. That makes sense. So for folks who don't know, can you talk a little bit about what the day-to-day responsibilities of that role entailed, like what you were selling, how you put together a seven figure partnership? That's a big deal. And those things don't happen overnight. It takes not only understanding of product and brand and what you're selling, but also the ideation part of it, the execution piece of it. There's so many details to it. Yeah. So I would say digital media can span anything from just placing like banner ads on the internet to creating short form videos, to creating assets, to doing experiential IRL pop-ups to launching joint business ventures. And to get a multi-seven figure partnership, you kind of got to do all of it. And so I covered the travel space. I won't share exactly who the partner was, but it was six months in the making. I had gone down to their office multiple, multiple, multiple times. We were negotiating on, if you do this with us, like we're going to launch a website together, we're going to have things at your location. We're going to make sure that you have so much content. Constantly on the site, we're going to add you to our social content. We're going to put ads on the website, like everything. And it takes a lot of stakeholders to get that to happen. So it's not just me offering all of these things and them saying, yes, it's me working with the internal BuzzFeed team to be like, okay, who handles paid social here? And then talking to them. And then like, who's the tech developer who would make the website? You have to talk to every single one of these people. And so I was just hurting cats. You kind of got to get all the stakeholders in one place, one time, one room, and get everyone to sign off on it. And then you bring it to the client. Then they got to go do the same thing on there and hurt all those cats. Yeah, you know, everyone up the chain to sign off on this. And then finally, the deal got pinned. Because the other piece about all this too, it's like, you have to think through margins. So it's not only that it's a great idea. It's not just that you have all of the stakeholders participating and saying like, yes, I have the bandwidth to do something like this. But it's also like, is this actually going to make money? Yes. So it also like the strategy around thinking through what are the hard costs associated with this? What is my margin going to be like, I feel like that piece of it is also like so elaborate and time consuming. But did that feel like a more natural skill set given your background? Or was that something that you really learned on that job? I guess like, I've always been good with numbers. But to actually do CPM math and be backing into like margins and thinking about like, okay, so if we give them this many impressions, it's going to make money. If we give them this many impressions, it's not going to make money. Like, it's really important to your comment about like thinking about that because not only are we thinking about margins, they're on the opposite end thinking, what's the return on investment here? Is this money going to make us money? So they're trying to make money. We're trying to make money. And you have to come to that happy medium where everybody makes a little bit of money. And nobody makes too much money because then it means that the other party is not doing well. And the goal wasn't to have a one-time big partnership. It was to have this be a yearly contract that we renewed forever. Wow. And then on top of all that, you're not responsible for the actual execution of all of it. But yet, you're still on the hook with the client, right? Oh, 100%. You have so many of the people who are actually executing it. But then if there's a mistake, you're the one who gets yelled at. So I'm like, okay, running around to people's desk and you're like, hey, can we make sure that this like goes up at the right time? Like, can you make sure to tag the right account? And like, you have to make sure that the brand is spelled and capitalized correctly and like, XYZ XYZ. And like, it's all of these little details that feel so minute, but make the biggest deal, especially to clients and their ad agencies. So you have to make sure that it's all perfect triple check it. And there's just like so many moving pieces. And I think that was one of the things that I learned best at BuzzFeed is just like juggling 18 balls in the air. They're all on fire. And, and they're all made out of glass. And they're all made out of glass. So it's important to really make sure that you have a good team by you. Without getting into specific numbers, I'm also curious about the compensation piece of it. Because to your point earlier, you were supporting yourself. There's this idea of like Wall Street has one level of compensation, which you know, I think the idea of it is more accurate, the higher up you get, maybe not right out of college. And then obviously like digital media is a very different world where you concerned at all or was it additive? I'm wondering how you were thinking through your own personal finances at that moment. Yeah. So Hillary, let's get real honest. I wouldn't be your rich BFF if I didn't tell you the numbers. My first year on Wall Street, my base salary I believe was 80 or 85,000 dollars. And I got a stub bonus, which was just because I'd only worked that half year after graduation. And it was like $10,000. So I made like a touch shy of six figures. And the following year, $10,000, $15,000 more than that. So I was just making a touch over six figures, putting in 14 hours a day, and then having to do client events after work. And I was like, wow, this absolutely sucks. And from like a per-hour basis is not even like the amazing job I was told that it was going to be. When I left, I truly was at my withs end. And I didn't care. I took a pay cut. My salary when I first got my job at Buzzfeed was less. Always, however, negotiate your first offer. I asked for more money and they gave it to me. So I was able to bump my salary up just a touch. But again, it was commission based, but I felt so, so good about myself because I think the very first year I worked at Buzzfeed, I made $125,000. And it was already more than I had made on Wall Street. And as I really rose through the ranks and like succeeded in my career there the last year I was at the company. I made $625,000. Girl. Yeah. But my salary at that point was still I think like 110,000, 115,000. And everything else was commission. I ate what I killed. And I loved that. And I realized that some people hate the sales job because it's so, so performance based. But for me, it felt like the harder I worked, if I sent one more email, if I could crank out one more meeting that week, it would always lead to better for me. It was like I was doing it for me. And I love that. That is amazing. So I know that also while you were in that job, a lot of your co-workers were asking you for financial wisdom guidance. Tell me how that started where they're just like, you were on Wall Street, you must know X or how would anyone even know to ask you some of those questions. Yeah. You know, I'm lucky at BuzzFeed. I was able to make a lot of friends. People there are amazing. I have nothing bad to say about the people who worked there. And there was a frozen yogurt machine on the main floor, which obviously I would get frozen yogurt every single day. And it would be like fro yo hour. Everybody knew like, you know, we're going to get frozen yogurt. We're going to just take five minutes from our day. It's nice. And you get to learn about people. And I mentioned I was like, oh look, I have a very unorthodox career history. And people find out you're from Wall Street. They instantaneously want you to rebalance their 401k. That's the first question. Second question is around open enrollment. They're like, which health insurance did you pick? I'm like, I am very healthy. I have no children. I am not married. I go to the physician one time a year. I see the OBGYN for perhaps mere once a year. And I go to the dentist twice a year routine cleaning. Like, yeah, you probably don't want the same health insurance that I get. If you have a full family, you want to have a baby, whatever. Yeah. And I explained that to people. And they were like, okay, well, like, can you like explain more? And like more and more people started to get, like, word that I was able to help with this stuff. So they'd come by my desk. And it got to a point where so many people were asking, I was like, I'm just going to put this information on the internet. And y'all can watch it there. That is amazing on so many levels. So tell me about putting it on the internet. As you so calmly put it, like no big deal. I'll just put it on the internet. I'll put it on the internet. I put my first video up at the egging of one of my best friends, my work wife at the time. And she was like, Oh, come on. And I was like, I don't know. I feel like this is a little cringey. She's like, who cares? Come on, just do it. I put the first video up and it goes viral. What was the video? It was during COVID and people were getting stimulus checks. And there's like the height of the game stop, like, stonks era. And yeah, people were like, you should put all of your stimulus track into Tesla calls or Bitcoin or invest in AMC and game stop. And like all of these like horrible, horrible things that like no one should be gambling a stimulus track on. And I made a video about that. I said, I do not have a get rich quick scheme, but I'm seeing a lot of crap go around that no financial advisor, no financial planner in their right mind would ever tell you to do. I cannot tell you how to get rich tomorrow. But if you actually want to learn how to be like better with your money, I can explain it to you. It's not that complicated. And that was the entire video. And that video ended up getting 3 million views. And by the end of the week, I ate 100,000 followers. That is bananas. I know. Were you expecting that kind of reaction? No. Oh my god. So you were super surprised that there was such an appetite for it. I thought my seven co-workers were going to follow this fun little passion project series that I did. They would be like, Oh, yay. They put up a video. And then they would like stop harassing me at work. Well, you got it. And then some. So was that terrifying? Was it exciting? Like, what did you think about a follow up? Were you thinking through strategy? Hillary strategy? There was a thought up here. I was terrified. I texted my girlfriend. And I was like, look what you did. This is your fault. What do I do now? And she's like, well, you can like keep making content. And I was like, how much? And she's like, I would put out a video a day. I'm like, that seems very high. She had worked in the social space for quite a while. So I trusted her advice. It was obviously very good advice. But man, did it feel like a lot of work. On top of my nine to five day job, and what I did for the first year and three months, while I was working full time and building your rich BFF was I would work my day job Monday through Fridays. Saturday, I would spend the whole day ideating seven concepts. And then on Sunday, I would film a video, change my shirt, film a video, change my shirt, and make it look like I'd filmed a new video every single day of the week. And then I would release them one by one over the next week. That is such a work ethic. I mean, talk about a passion project too. I mean, to be that focus and that dedicated, it's just mind blowing. So tell me a little bit about your strategy at that point. Did you think like, okay, I'm all in on this platform or I'm going to put it here here and here. I have early success with this because I can only imagine two that given your background that you were assessing all of this and tweaking as time would go on because you are such a knowledge based person and depend on that research in all of these different areas of your life. So I can't imagine that somehow you would not have that same critical lens applied to this project. You would think Hillary. You would think. Truly, there was nothing but like elevator music going on in my brain. At that time, I just started on TikTok. And I think for the first like six months, I only posted on TikTok because I was like, this is my fun little project on the side. I'm 29. And most of my friends are millennials. And I was like, okay, like all of you are on Instagram. I have my personal Instagram. I don't want people to see this shit. Like I'm just posting on TikTok. You still thought it was too cringe. Yeah, I was like, this is so it. This TikTok was like my fake alter ego. And so I was doing TikTok and I don't know what actually compelled me to be so committed to doing it because this was like way before I was getting brand partnerships or like getting paid to do anything. I don't know. It was just fun. And then I actually started posting on Instagram next when they rolled out Reels because I was like, okay, now like it's still nine by 16. I don't have to do any crazy cropping. I don't have to like change anything. I can just literally like move it over. So back to that Asian immigrant mentality, reduced reuse or cycle, baby. Like I was like, I'm not trying to do anything twice. So I would just repost it on Instagram. And the Instagram started to grow as real started to be more and more prioritized by meta platforms. Got onto YouTube shorts when YouTube shorts allowed you to put a 60 second video on. And then it was like Snapchat and Pinterest. And now I'm like on LinkedIn, which is like you have to like pat yourself on the back. That's like all LinkedIn is. It's amazing. But now it's a full multi platform channel. And I'm really proud of how far it's come. But I never would have guessed that this is the direction it would have gone. Like I thought when I came out of college, I was like, oh, I'll just be like a finance person for the rest of my life. I'll make a good living. Like I'll have my two and a half kids, golden retriever, white picket, fence home. And that's it. Well, to be fair, you still are kind of the finance person, just in this slightly different way. So talk to me about some of those videos that have done really well. Talk to me a little bit about how you would think through new topics, those ideation moments. Like what was the breadth of what you wanted to cover? Yeah, I wanted to cover everything. And fortunately for me, social media is such a awesome, renewable resource. Because if you post one video, you get hundreds, if not thousands of comments, and a good percentage of those comments are questions. And I'm like content calendar, you mean comment section. And so I would just go through the questions and be like, okay, well, somebody wants to know about checking accounts or somebody wants to know about savings accounts. Someone wants to know how to build a budget. Someone wants to learn how to invest. And I would just basically take all of these questions and make them topics. How did you know the answer to everything? You know, it's something that I had to learn the hard way. Frankly, people are like, oh, you know, all these credit card hacks. I'm like, yeah, it's because I cut and canceled my first credit card, my oldest credit card. And it dropped my credit score by 60 points. Like I know that because I made that mistake. And I don't want you to make that mistake. Or people are like, how did you know that you have to invest the money in your 401k? It's like, because my money sat in cash for so long, before I realized I had to invest it. And I take all of the mistakes that I've made that my friends have made that we don't learn about in school. And I just finally am the person to be like, oh, yeah, by the way, this is what you're supposed to be doing. And I think it's a breath of fresh air because no one tells you that. No, my husband and I were talking about this the other day we have two small kids, three and five. And we have talked about sort of like what our internal family curriculum is. And like what we want them to know by the time they leave our house to go to college or do whatever they want to do. And it's certain things around like cooking. It's certain things around like fixing things and financial literacy is one of those things because I made a bunch of mistakes. I'm still making mistakes. And it's the craziest thing where you're like, why don't we talk to our kids about some of this stuff? And there is this vacuum and this desire for knowledgeable information. So I'm glad that we have people like you stepping in especially as a woman because I feel like this is an even more mysterious realm for lots of women not to generalize about my sex. But like that's just kind of what I've noticed. Well, what bothers me the most is that culture loves to paint women as shopaholics, as bad with money, as overspenders. But statistically speaking, nowadays more single women own homes than single men. Women have less credit card debt than men. And again, statistically speaking, women are better investors with higher returns than men. So where does this trope come from? And why is it still around when my girls are running circles around these boys? It just goes back to misogyny. It does. But to your point, I think it's amazing that you want to teach your young ones more about money because no one tells you like you need to actually grow your wealth. You can only physically humanly work so many hours a day. You have to sleep. You have to rest. You have to eat. Your money can work 24 seven. It does not need to take a break. It doesn't need to go on Christmas vacation. Your money works 100% of the time. And it's a much better tool to make money than you are. And the more you get, the better of a tool it is. That's right. Okay. So I would imagine also that having that bus feed time also really had you understand the importance of having lots of different platforms for content understanding the need to diversify your revenue streams. So I want to talk about your podcasts. But before we get into that, can you tell me a little bit about like, was there a moment when you thought, okay, I think I actually want to be an entrepreneur and to make this my main thing. Working a full-time job and doing this as a little side hustle was unsustainable. About a year in, I told my fiance, I was like, I am going to stop doing your HBFF stuff. I'm just so burnt out. I'm so tired. I don't like it anymore. And he was like, do you think it's just because like you're still working? And I was like, I don't like my job either. And he's like, do you think you're just burnt out? And we had a serious conversation. And one thing that I really pride myself on in my relationship on is that we are so, so transparent and communicative when it comes to finances. We've never argued about money. And I told him, I was like, well, what if I quit my job? And I don't make enough money or I don't make as much as I did last year? What are we going to do? Like, we have to pay our rent together. Like, groceries cost money. And he's like, I have a high paying finance job. We won't starve on my salary. You know that, right? And I'm like, right, but okay. And he was like, just try for a year. If it doesn't work out, you'll go back to your job. I'm like, okay, I can live with that. Thank God I did it. It's worked out in ways that I truly could have never even dreamed. But the decision to become a full-time entrepreneur was terrifying. I had always been a good worker. I always had a good relationship with most of my managers. Like, for the first time, I had to be the person to set my own day to tell myself what the benchmarks were. And then to actually pat myself on the back and feel good enough about that versus getting that verbal affirmation from my boss or being told I had done a nice job, I had to do that for myself. So yeah, it was a very, very scary experience. Because I can't help but think you're used to working these insane hours. And now there's no concrete beginning and end. So how did you figure out this is how I'm in a structure my day? How are you thinking through revenue? Walk me through those early days. Yeah. Mentally, I am unwell. To your point, like, I was used to working these long hours. And this is something that I'm really working on. It's like, I have a really hard time, like, closing the laptop. Because I find now that I work for myself, it's even worse in that the first thing I do when I wake up is like, check my email. The last thing I do before I go to bed is like, check my email. And throughout the day, I'm just on that thing all the time. And when it's five or six, and I'm like, okay, like, it's time to like go to the gym. I'm like, oh, but I could like do one more thing. You could always do one more thing. And I have had to really, really be more disciplined about saying, hey, this can wait till tomorrow. Because you want to go far, you don't want to just go fast. It's something I still struggle with really, really badly, frankly. And I think at the end of the day, I think about like, who am I doing this for? I'm doing this because people need this information. I'm building this company because I want to take care of future me. And I want to take care of all the people who need this information. So I do feel really fortunate in that like in my mission statement, helping others is already woven into it. I don't need to think about that piece. But I do have to realize that like taking care of me takes care of everybody else. Got to put your oxygen mask on first before you help others. That's right. It's really, really true. Okay. So let's talk about the pod. On March 21st of this year, you launched another piece of your business, which is the podcast, Network and Show, which I think is so clever on so many levels. And the first episode is called Why We Hate Rich People. So tell me why you wanted to start a podcast. And what the response has been like? Yeah. So Hillary, please don't be mad. I was always the person to be like, oh, yeah, everybody needs a microphone podcast podcast. Like I would make fun of people who like had their own podcasts. And I was like, this is so lame and like so wack. But I put out content that is for the most part about 60 seconds every single day. And longer form, I'm looking at like four, five, six minutes on YouTube once a week. Yeah. I had people in my DMs, in my comments, banging down the door, basically being like, we want a podcast, we want a podcast. And I was like, why? And people were just like, we want to hear you go in depth on more topics. We want to hear about stuff that isn't necessarily a quote unquote piece of advice that we need to do in the next 15 minutes. It's something that like helps us just become more educated on our worldview and like our thoughts. And I'm like, sure, I guess that makes sense. And so I became the butt of my very own joke. I got a microphone and I now have a podcast. And every single week, we cover a topic about money that just helps to make finances more accessible. And I'm not talking like the really, really boring stuff. I want to make it relevant to every single person listening's life, whether that be talking about the finances behind fitness or the finances behind your makeup or how to have good interpersonal relationships as it pertains to money, why you should pick a significant other who is financially stable. I know that's a hot take. But you know, I want these topics to be stuff that actually are insightful and feel like you're just listening to your best friend talk. Because I think the problem in particular for us women is that we've been told our entire lives that talking about money is taboo. Yeah. And then people are surprised when we don't know anything about it. We haven't been talking about it. I hope listening to me so openly share what I make or ask a guest like what do you make or how much money do you have or questions that are like usually off limits. Yeah. I hope it makes the people listening more comfortable to ask their best friend how much do you make. So talk to me about the book because in 2022 your debut book Rich AF was sold in a seven figure publishing deal. That is wild. Plus you're also developing very scripted and unscripted projects. Talk to me about like whatever your MCU is like what is the entire universe like the cinematic universe looks like. Yes, please. So like you mentioned my book was sold at the end of 2022 and man do books take a long time. I was like oh yeah get me that up front get me that money. I was like I did not see that money. Literally I think half of it hit my bank account like a month ago. And that book launches end of December Rich AF the winning money mindset that'll help change your life. And you can preorder it now at rich af.me as in rich af.me because I wanted that you are to be a manifestation. And just for the record for anyone who doesn't know pre sale means a lot to authors for a variety of reasons in part because it signals to booksellers how many copies they should buy. So it's really really really important. And if you like someone and you want them to hit say the New York Times bestseller list the first week of sales usually is what they go against and all of your pre orders count towards that. So if you like someone if you want to support them the best thing you can possibly do is preorder their book preferably from an indie but you can do what you want. Did I get that right? You got it perfect. Okay, but I'll give you the breakdown of like the ecosystem. Yes. So obviously I started my business on social you know I get a revenue stream which is directly from the platforms you know the TikTok creator fund ad breaks on meta platforms YouTube ad sense what have you the platforms pay me a little bit of money. That money is certainly not enough to even like cover a tiny portion of my living expenses. Then I would say the biggest part of my business is branded partnerships. I'm really lucky I get a lot a lot a lot of branded partnership offers. I would say I probably turned down 95% of them dang. I turned down most of those partnerships either because they're not a good fit or they aren't actually aligned with my brand or I don't think my audience is going to find use from them but for the partnerships that I do take on I truly want them to be sponsors and partners not just like a hey can you like make us a video. So I am very proud to stand by all of my branded partnerships and they help to keep all of this content free. So yeah I love being able to have advertisers pay for that and then everyone else can enjoy it free of cost. The podcast I created mostly because of just like BFF demand but frankly it's not a money making source really for me like I make a little bit of money but again it's very very small in pales and comparison to any of my partnerships. The book I was able to get a large upfront for my book. So that is something where the revenue is very chunky and that I get a quarter of it upon contract signing, a quarter of it upon manuscript delivery, a quarter on launch and a quarter a year after launch. So not necessarily like smooth but chunky payments and obviously quite a bit of work has to go into that. I have to write the book. I have to then market the book but very very exciting. And then we are also working on a couple scripted and unscripted TV shows which are less focused on being big money makers but again more of a branding reach wanting to just really really focus on financial literacy, teaching people to talk about money in a healthier way, looking at money through different types of lenses. So that is less of a money play and more of just important for the brand. But overall I would say people get really excited when they're like oh yes this like creator made XYZ amount of money but like I still have to pay my attorney, my manager, my agent. They take 25% off the top for the book it's 30 for the international rights to the book it's 35. So that's a huge percentage of your income just gone that you pay out immediately. Then I have a publicist that I pay a flat fee monthly. Then I have a business manager who is like my accountant, the bookkeeper, they cost money every single month. Then on top of that I pay someone to help write the newsletter. I pay someone to help keep the website up to date. I pay someone to help me sometimes the social media if I'm traveling and I can't post it myself. So everybody gets paid while you are making a good deal of money a lot of money is changing hands very quickly. Top line revenue is great. Oh amazing. Okay so what does success look like to you now at this moment in your life? You know I thought that when I got here I'd be ballin at the Gucci store, new designer bag every day, new designer bag every day. I really thought but nowadays I actually find myself less inclined to spend on things like that and I love to blow money on experiences but also on my parents. Ah frankly they came over as immigrants didn't have much. We grew up very very frugal. I was very privileged in that I never worried about where my next meal was coming from and I knew that I was going to have a roof over my head but there was certainly not much money left over after that. We didn't go on that many vacations or anything like that and now that I am successful quote unquote my biggest joy is being able to share that success with them whether that be something as simple as like mailing my mom some extra PR beauty products or something all the way to last year for their 30th wedding anniversary I sent them on and all expenses paid vacation for a week and you know my mom and dad are like sending me photos from the restaurant of them and their chocolate tort and like the little sparkler that's coming out of it and they just look like they had like the time of their lives and I feel lucky that they are still at an age where I can do that for them and they're still young enough to go and explore and have that adventure and now that they don't have to worry about any of those costs or me that's pretty amazing thank you so what one of the things that we like to talk about on this podcast is mistakes because we all make them in our careers but much like money we don't always talk about it business stories and career stories in general tend to just focus on the successes and great in some ways but also not the whole picture so I'm hoping that you can tell me a little bit about a mistake that you've made at any point in your career and what you've learned from it one of the biggest mistakes that I've made throughout my entire career is letting my job define who I am whether it was me being so proud of being a quote-unquote wall street trader even when I like wanted to hurl myself into the sun at the end of the journey and I was like I hate this job so much I was just so proud to tell people that that's what I was doing because it was such a challenging job to get and it's like one percent of one percent of applicants actually get the seat and I was like well I made it so like why am I leaving yeah my identity was so tied to that job and then when I was at Buzzfeed it was like if I had a great quarter and I had sold a bunch I was a top salesperson I would feel so good about myself and if I didn't I'd be like down I would like feel really really sad I'd be bummed I'd be like a funk that I couldn't get out of and again it was just like tying myself worth to that job and it's even more prominent now that I work for myself like if I pen an amazing deal I'm like yes I am the smartest woman alive and then like if I have a series of videos that do really badly on social media I'm like am I not funny anymore am I not like cool or smart or likable or is my content not educational enough anymore and you start to question not like maybe I should just like change the hook of the video versus like what's wrong with me and my career has always been such an important and big part of my life that when I've had career shortcomings or career down points I always tied that to my self-worth and it's not a healthy thing and I think a lot of us do it because when you meet someone new you ask them their name and then the following question is like oh so what do you do and I think that tying too much of yourself worth to your job especially if you work for someone else and nothing is guaranteed it is a corporation it can be tough because at the end of the day your corporation doesn't care about you your boss might care about you your co-workers might care about you you have to care about yourself and I think it's really important to have an identity outside of work and I'm personally still working on this and I hope that all of the listeners can work on this with me it's a journey I'm still on as well and just like you need multiple revenue streams you need multiple sources of self-esteem and multiple sources of identity if you will and you get that from having a diversified life yes it's an important theory across the board so a lot of the folks who listen to this podcast are maybe in their first lives they're working a job that they feel tied to that they like maybe they feel financially tied to it but they know that they want to do something else and they know they want to take a risk in some form they want to pivot but they haven't done it yet because they're scared for some reason or another what advice would you give someone who's sort of standing there nervous not sure about their next move I would say two major things first think about something that you want and just go in that direction like if you have no idea what you want and what you want out of your life like what's something that you're passionate about what is something that you're interested in could your second life be in that space something that you already know you love and maybe it's not immediately jumping into the top of that chain because that's going to be very hard frankly but maybe it's getting a job that's somewhere in the middle somewhere that has a tie to your current life something that takes your current skills and transfers them into the next phase of your life and so I say go towards something that you are passionate about but to think about your finances I know that's like so boring and so analytical to say but before I quit my full-time job I needed to give myself a parachute a parachute that wasn't my significant other a parachute that could not be cut by anybody else and that for me was saving a hundred thousand dollars because that is what I need for a full year to be really comfortable and to pay my rent to buy groceries whatever and it wasn't until I had that money that I felt comfortable to quit and that's with a fiance who I guess at the time he was my boyfriend but he was like you should just quit like I'll support you if anything bad happens I'm like well what if we break up like sir what would you then like are you still going to support me because we pinky swear like no you're not so as much as I love my then boyfriend now fiance this is the person that I have every intention of marrying you know we've been together over six years I gave myself a parachute and I think if there's something you want to try and you're terrified to try it you should just consider getting a parachute whether that be backup money or whether that be a plan that's like okay if this doesn't work out in six months I know my old boss would hire me back because he loved me or something along those lines just to give yourself an out I hope you don't need it I didn't end up needing my parachute and turns out I really like skydiving amazing okay so my last question is also my favorite question which is if you could go back in time and speak to your younger self at any point in school or your career and give yourself some advice what would you say I would go back to myself in high school and I would tell me that my world view is still incredibly limited and that my town is not the global world because I grew up in a predominantly white middle class upper middle class area it was a great place to grow up but there weren't that many people who looked like me there certainly weren't people who had the types of ambitions that I had had and I felt like I never fit in and I think there was always a sense of like discomfort of why can't I be the cool girl why can't I be the popular girl why can't I be XYZ and it took me a really long time to get comfortable in my own skin because I didn't have a role model who had achieved all of the things that I'd wanted like I did not want to graduate from high school go to the state college end up getting married to somebody from my high school and staying in that town that was like absolutely not it for me and I feel so lucky that I persevered but there are some really dark times where I just felt like I was like is this even worth it like is this all my life is meant to be and it's not and I think it's just a reminder that where you grow up is not the world and once you get a little bit older you can actually start to see everything else that is out there and to not let yourself be limited by just your current surroundings at 16 because it felt like the world was ending and that's all there was and there's a whole big beautiful world out there for you exactly well Vivian thank you so much this was such a pleasure thank you for sharing your story and I can't tell you how inspiring I find your career and you personally and this has just been an absolute delight I'm gonna go pre-order your book right now thank you so much and thank you so much for having me that was the founder and CEO of your rich bff Vivian too for more inspiring interviews with women like Vivian head on over to secondlifepod.com where we have so many more for you to peruse if you like today's show please subscribe on Apple podcasts or Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts and don't forget to rate and review us we love seeing spread the word on social and now you can tag us in your post we are at secondlifepod on instagram twitter and facebook we always want to know who you're interested in hearing from on the show so send in your requests to hello at secondlifepod.com or you can DM us on instagram I'm at Hillary Kerr the show is at secondlifepod our DMs are always open I'm Hillary Kerr and you've been listening to secondlife