Everybody was concentrated on Facebook and YouTube so I saw a chance to step up my Instagram game and so I started to figure out what would appeal more people to follow my profile. I bought my first DSLR camera, bought Photoshop and started to focus on high quality content for my IG account.
1. Tell us about your background and journey?
I‘m Jay Vavo born and raised in Wels, Austria. I was born in 1990 so some of your readers will not consider me as a youngster anymore, even if I still try to dress like I‘m still 24 or so and I think I can still keep up with the younger generation.
So… back to my story.
After graduating High School I started to visit the JK University in Linz for 2 years and partly worked here and there. Although I really worked my a** off, I couldn’t afford to continue studying and so I had to reorganize myself.
I started to work full-time at a local production company. To be honest I was really disappointed and thought about what i did wrong in my life to end up there a lot of times, because I knew I could do way better.
As long as I can remember I was always a creative person and I love to sing, paint, design clothes and I was always one step ahead in fashion and trends in my city, that’s why a lot of people know me.
After thinking about my future what it would be, an idea came across my mind: I’ve heard that people in Germany started to blog on Instagram and becoming a YouTuber was a thing in these days (we are talking about the year 2012).
2. When did you first decide that you wanted to create content and how did you start?
To be honest I was a bit sceptical to start a career/business as a blogger (nobody called us influencers back then) but at the end of the day I had nothing to loose and I loved fashion so much and I wanted to bring joy to the people with my outfits and maybe inspire them.
So I started with my first Instagram account in 2012 with them typical selfies and snapshots of random things what I ate, my latest clothing purchases, citytrips and so on.
As I was one of the pioneers in my country I really didn’t had nobody to be inspired by. I tried a lot of things, some worked out some not. Back in the days everybody was using random hashtags, or just a couple of words to describe their pictures and only big companies posted high quality pics on their profiles.
Everybody was concentrated on Facebook and YouTube so I saw a chance to step up my Instagram game and so I started to figure out what would appeal more people to follow my profile.
I bought my first DSLR camera, bought Photoshop and started to focus on high quality content for my IG account. I made a new account and improved my skills in editing raw pictures and videos.
In a short time I had my first 1K followers and I was really happy I that I achieved that, because finally it started to work but I however wasn’t thinking about resting on this success. I worked harder, shot nearly everyday new pictures, put outfits together and tried to keep my followers entertained.
After 8 months or so I had I think 12K followers and had successfully build up some business pages for some smaller local companies and connected with some local photographers and digital creators.Everything was fine until somebody hacked my Instagram account.
That was in 2013 I think. You can imagine how disappointed and sad I was. Everything I’ve achieved was gone and I had to build up everything again from the very beginning.
So I started another account which wasn’t blowing up so fast like I expected and I was facing some private problems with my relationship back then. The lack of time was also a problem because I was still working at the same company so I decided to take a brake from social media.
After a long time passed by I created in 2016 again a new account which I operate til this day by the name „jay.vavo“ and with which I managed to gain over 500K followers.
This time I told myself not to stop working hard until I’ve got 100K followers. And over 1,5 years later I’ve finally achieved my goal! I read a lot of fashion magazines like GQ, Vogue, educated myself in fashion, worked with a lot of companies, met with other influencers, photographers dedicated my time in learning how to build up professionally an Instagram account and so on.
I probably wrote hundreds of mails to various companies if they would like to work with me. The first companies who worked with me only did it in exchange for a product but with no payment but I was really happy to had the chance to collaborate with them because I was starting to build a reputation in my country.
As time passed by I got my first paid post and got invited to influencer events and the rest is history.
3. What do you find the best part of creating content and blogging?
What I really like about blogging/posting content is that you can express yourself whatever you do and if you stay real and really work hard on your skills there is basically no limit.Validation is a big theme in this profession for a lot of people.
I tried to keep up with them big influencers from Germany, UK and USA but decided for me that I don’t need to prove anything to anyone.
I do what I love and if I don’t feel forced to post for a year if I don’t want to. I take my time because I know that the majority of my fans understand me and they know that I’ll always come back whenever I feel to.
The last 2 years I successfully managed to combine my passion for fashion and my charity work with a big company and I’m really proud of it.
4. Who is your favoutite creater and why?
I don’t have THE favorite content creator but I love the browse the work of @erik.forsgreen , @samkolder, @tonimahfud, @gabscanu, @doyoutravel and others.
5. How and where do you find inspiration to churn out content?
I find inspiration in fashion magazines, various blogs, also while I’m traveling in different countries and of course Instagram.
6. What does your typical day look like?
There is no typical day because every day is different.
As you know of course Covid stopped everything for over a year so I was forced to work locally because traveling wasn’t allowed and so I was consulting some austrian companies building up their social profiles and also working on my Instagram.
7. Which is your favourite book and why?
My favorite books are from Karl May‘s travelings to the orient and Eastern Europe in the late 18th and early 19th century because they are dozens of entertaining stories and also report how life was back then and how different cultures evolved and of course because I love to travel myself.
I remember reading them as a young boy and I was fascinated by the stories so much that I sometimes read one of them books until 3 or 4 in the morning with a torch in my hand hiding under my comforter so my parents didn’t notice it.
8. What piece of advice would you like to give to future and aspiring creaters?
An advice what I would like to give everyone who is planing to start a career as a influencer/content creator or is already creating awesome things: Stay Real, Stay Humble, Do What You Love, God Is Great.
- Jay Vavo
- Interviewed By Kusum Jha
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