Influencer. Businesswoman. Entrepreneur.

Kiersten Rich is all of those things, and now in 2019, the brains behind a million dollar travel empire.

From her early days as an influencer in 2011, Rich was interested in diversification. The award-winning blogger knew the importance of being accessible and building an audience organically. And now, with a reach of 1 million followers across multiple platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest and YouTube, she uses data and analytics from her multiple social platforms to help her make business decisions.

From her female-only tour group, TBA Escapes, to her branded creative digital agency to an online travel shop, the millennial has parlayed a robust travel social media audience into a multi-revenue stream business. And in 2019, the 31-year-old announced that she hit over $1 million in earnings thanks to this diversification strategy.

I caught up with Rich at TravelCon in Boston this June. Throughout the conference Rich was as bubbly and engaged with fans in person as she is online. The millennial entrepreneur flew in for a few days from South Africa, where she is now based. She moved to the country nearly three years ago, a decision that expanded both her audience and her business opportunities. 

A longtime influencer and travel blogger, Rich came into the space with six years of corporate finance under her belt. This professional acumen has helped her over the years, as she’s always seen herself both as a creator and business person, a dual mindset that’s led her to establish her own businesses.

The following is an edited and condensed version of our interview.

Alexandra Talty: I love your guide to Egypt. As someone who is based in the Middle East, I found it very appropriate and accurate. 

Kiersten Rich: A lot of other women who traveled there said there is a lot of heckling and it was uncomfortable at times. In my mind, preparedness was important. So I did go solo, but solo is relative. 

I went by myself but I had a guide and I hired a driver. I had an amazing trip – I didn’t have a single incident where someone bothered me.

I based myself in Cairo and then I did five days in the surrounding areas: Alexandria, the pyramids of Giza. It was a good kind of sampler platter to Egypt. And now I can’t wait to go back and do the whole thing.

ACT: Can you talk a bit about the inspiration behind TBA Escapes, your all-female tours?

KR: I based myself in Capetown [South Africa] about two and a half years ago and it became clear to me that a lot of US-based travelers and women were intimidated by traveling to quote unquote Africa. I was getting a lot of questions like, ‘is it like is it safe?’ or people telling me, ‘it’s my dream to go but I don’t even know where to start.’ 

I’d been living there over a year and I thought this could be a really cool opportunity. There was no one else offering group travel there for women. 

It started with one group tour in South Africa. I posted it once on Instagram and it was fully booked in 24 hours. It was so positively received. And so I decided to do another one. The demand was there. 

I wanted to create something that I felt like was missing in the space, which is very curated travel for women. For example, in South Africa, we do very Pinterest-y things, like a beach picnic. We have a chef, all-female guides. We go that next step with this attention to detail… not only with the experiences that you’re going to have but with the people who are there. It ends up being this life changing experience for everyone involved. 

I also have a lot of data I can analyze based on my blog’s traffic: what people are reading, what places they are interested in. We focus on destinations that are a little less accessible to solo female travelers.

We have a return rate of 30%.  So most of the girls who’d been to South Africa signed up for our Jordan tour. We now have South Africa, Morocco, Jordan and we’re doing the Galapagos this year. Next year we’re doing a lot of new destinations: places that are either a little more difficult to travel solo in terms of  cost and logistics or maybe a little more intimidating for women to go to by themselves. 

ACT: How did you pivot from being an influencer to building a business? I’ve seen a lot of people in this space do that transition and some people haven’t done it well.

KR: I am always thinking of business ideas. That is an intuition for me. I don’t want to say it’s easy but I have thousands of people messaging me daily telling me what they want so it makes it a lot less risky to say, ‘hey we have this many people asking this a day, maybe we should be selling more.’ 

Early on, I knew diversifying was essential. Whether it was on social media or on my business, I had to spread myself out with it. I was never afraid of bringing on people to help me. I have a team and I think that helps to get out of your own headspace.

I have people asking every day, ‘who did your website? Do you do mentorships?’ So I thought, I’ll just create a digital creative agency. We do custom websites, graphic design, and it’s basically an umbrella of my existing team to help other people.

When I started it was this very unknown, uncharted territory with Instagram. I think a lot of people base [their worth] on reach alone. You can’t limit yourself by saying my only worth is with the audience I have. 

It’s actually a disservice to your audience. It’s like treating them as a means to an end.

From day one, I never limited myself or felt insecure about what I could do. I think that’s the mindset of removing the idea of ‘I’m an influencer’ and not even thinking of it that way.