When the pandemic hit, many people finally decided to act on business ideas that had been percolating for months or years. Some were looking to keep busy while stuck at home during lockdowns; others were laid off and needed to create their own jobs. U.S. business formations increased by nearly 42% in 2020, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Tiffany Williams, founder of Rich Girl Collective—whose story you read about in Forbes in January 2020—saw an opportunity help. She launched her business to teach women how to start online businesses that have the potential to replace their full-time income, so they can leave the nine-to-five. “A lot of people were home. They realized, ‘I need a backup plan,’” says Williams.
With more people starting businesses in the pandemic, Tiffany Williams has been busier than ever … [+]
Given increased demand, her virtual business, which brings in more than $1 million in annual revenue, became more profitable as she cut back on travel in the pandemic, she says.
In response to requests from her community, Williams recently introduced a masterclass on how to write an eBook—a valuable selling tool for online businesses. When the course attracted more than 1,300 women, she saw there was significant demand and soon began building a mailing list of women who wanted to be alerted when she introduced a new product, Easy eBooks, a digital planner to help women map out their eBooks before they write them— “My audience loves planners,” she says. To make sure that they can implement the recommendations, whether they are writers or not, she said she is including a list of transcribers and writers to help them.
One secret to the sustainable growth Williams has seen in her business is on-the-ground market research. She typically develops her products in response to requests from her community. “They keep asking, I keep creating,” she says.
Williams, 40, started her business in 2012 when she heard rumors that layoffs were coming to the daily deals website where she worked as a senior sales consultant. An avid pet lover, she set herself up to sell T-shirts featuring cute Yorkies on the website Teespring, which allows people to sell their own T-shirt designs, hiring graphic designers on Fiveer and Upwork to help. One thing that attracted Williams to this type of business was that it relied on a print-on-demand model, where she didn’t have to invest in inventory. Once she uploaded a T-shirt design to Teespring and selected a selling price and customers ordered and paid for a. T-shirt, Teespring would print and ship it. The site would take a cut in each sale, then pay her the rest. She initially marketed the shirts through a Facebook group she launched for Yorkie enthusiasts.
That helped her bring in income but not enough to replace her corporate salary. By 2013, she started a social media agency called Buzz Social Media, and in 2014, she introduced an online Kindle store on Amazon where she sold eBooks. She also began selling household items she bought at a discount for a markup on Amazon.
Gradually, Williams started hearing from other women who noticed her businesses and wanted to start one for themselves. To address all of their questions, she started a free Facebook group called Rich Girl Collective to support other women who wanted to start businesses, live streaming Q&A sessions. Williams—an ovarian cancer survivor—believes being “rich” is about more than money and material things. Rich is an acronym in which “R” stands for relationships and family, ‘I’ means ‘invest’ in entrepreneurship, ‘C’ stands for community and ‘H’ represents health and wellness.”
When Williams was diagnosed with cancer at age 37, she scaled back her business so she could undergo treatment and get well. During that time, she began introducing digital products, such as online classes in areas where she had the expertise, such as starting a T-shirt business, launching an online boutique and selling products on Amazon. She hosts them on the platform Podia. She also offers a membership program, Rich Girl Academy, which provides access to a private Facebook community, along with business and marketing training and access to expert speakers, for $37 a month.
For the first four years of the business, Williams mostly ran the business with the help of her mother—the community manager—but today she also relies on a regular team of six contractors who help her regularly, including a graphic designer, a personal assistant, someone who handles membership enrollment and email support for customers, an attorney, a publicist, and video producer. That’s important now that she is juggling the business with taking care of her one-year-old daughter.
Williams says she’s hoping it will be safe to resume live events, a part of the business she really enjoyed before the pandemic, and meet more of her students in person in 2021. “I’m hoping and praying,” she says.
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