I recently came across this article on MediaBistro.com where they interviewed fashion blogger and entrepreneur Kathyrn Finney of TheBudgetFashionista.com. Finney has made a career out of being fashionably thrifty and then sharing her secrets. Again, this is another example of a woman turning her passion into a profitable business. Her site has everything from downloadable shopping budget forms and coupons to tips on how to find shoes under $40.
In this interview conducted by MediaBistro.com, Finney chats about how she became a full-time Budget Fashionista; how to make money as a blogger; and offers tips to aspiring fashion experts.
How did you create the concept for The Budget Fashionista? At the time, I was living in Philly, and I was broke. All my friends lived in New York, so I would spend time at the King of Prussia Mall and Franklin Mills [Mall] and I would come to the city and go to sample sales. And sometimes I wouldn’t even buy, but I would just write about the stuff that I was seeing or how I was able to do an outfit on $20. I would go into the stores and watch other people shop and talk to the associates and see when they put things on sale and [ask], ‘How can I get this coupon even though I don’t have the credit card?’ I would just use that for content in the blog.
So how did you use a multimedia platform to grow it and get your name out there? How does everything flow together? The way we tie it all together is just being really consistent in the message, which is real fashion for real women with real budgets. So whether I’m on the Today show or writing for the site, the message doesn’t change. I go to the outlets. If you see me on the street, what I’m wearing, I got on sale. I don’t write about $5 jeans from Wal-Mart and wear $5,000 shoes. That’s not who I am. Me being the spokesperson for the site and being The Budget Fashionista also helps connect everything because I don’t look like a lot of my friends who are “fashion experts.” I’m very much a real woman. The fact that I look different definitely helps tie the brand across all the different platforms we operate.
What would you say was the pivotal point in your entrepreneurial journey, when things really started to take off?I worked full-time up until we got the book deal in 2004 because that’s when I realized that this was a serious business. I was like, ‘OK, I’m getting a substantial amount of money to write a book on this. This is real.’ That’s when I started to do The Budget Fashionista full-time. I’m the CEO. I always have to explain that to people because they’re like, ‘Oh, you’re a blogger’ and I’m like, ‘No, not really. I do write for the blog, but there’s a lot of other stuff that we do.’ There are other projects I’m working on like the book and television, and we’re also working on a line for one of the shopping networks. So it’s a company.
Read the full article here.
http://www.mediabistro.com/articles/cache/a11019.asp
