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We’re thrilled to launch our newest monthly series, Talk Shop, with a woman who is the definition of #girlboss. Amber Venz Box, the Co-Founder of rewardStyle and LIKEtoKNOW.it, has created two platforms that have not only shifted our behavior as consumers but have also disrupted an entire industry. Her idea that brewed in a coffee shop and grew in a tiny apartment has exploded into a multi-national business with 240 employees across eight offices around the world.  

In 2011 Amber, who had just started her blog VENZEDITS.com, and her boyfriend at the time (now husband) Baxter Box, co-founded RewardStyle to provide a way for bloggers to monetize their shopping referrals, similar to personal stylists. Fast forward to today, and rewardStyle has 20,000 content creators monetizing their influence and 4,000 global retailers marketing directly to this generation’s social media shopper. Just last month, new data was released that rewardStyle is the dominant source of mobile referral traffic for some of the most successful retail brands in the world. Not to mention, LIKEtoKNOW.it, the platform she co-founded in 2014 that this year alone will be responsible for $300 million in purchases by consumers from LIKEtoKNOW.it influencers.

We were, of course, super excited to speak with Amber about her inspiring success story and to get her thoughts on the future of influencer marketing. Read ahead for the full scoop and prepare to be blown away.


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Amber and son Boyce AmberBirdieBox

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Amber and her husband Baxter Box (Co-Founder of rewardStyle)

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rewardStyle Executive Office

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rewardStyle HQ entryway

You launched the revolutionary platform RewardStyle in 2011 shortly after starting your own blog. Tell us about your initial vision for rewardStyle and the steps you took to turn your idea into a business.

I started my personal blog, VENZEDITS.com, in April of 2010. It was initially developed as a marketing tool and portfolio for my offline businesses: my jewelry company and personal shopping / styling services. I launched the blog with a thoughtful plan: I invested significant resources into the custom development and production of the site, hired a photographer, and committed to posting three times per day.  

When the Dallas Morning News ran a full-page article about my new venture titled Meet the Blogger, I realized that the site was more than a marketing tool for my other businesses, it was a business of its own (the only problem was that it did not have a clear, sustainable revenue plan of its own). After several months of trialing various solutions, my business partner (now husband) and I began to brainstorm about the perfect monetization solution for my site. I wanted to be able to earn money online in the same manner that I had earned offline with my personal shopping business: if I drive a sale for a retailer, I get paid a commission on the sale. We decided to take that offline model online by providing a performance-based monetization solution for me and my peers, other premier style bloggers.

Baxter and I walked to our local coffee shop to talk about this new business and we came up with the very literal name, “rewardStyle,” and purchased the domain.

rewardStyle has grown enormously in the past six years, including the extremely successful launch of LIKEtoKNOW.it in 2014. When you initially launched rewardStyle did you ever imagine that influencer referrals could be this powerful for brands? Was there a moment when you realized the significant impact that rewardStyle was having on the fashion industry?

Baxter and I have worked around the clock for more than six years building the business and what started as a project in our tiny apartment, is now a large, multi-national business with more than 240 team members across eight offices around the world: London, New York, Dallas, San Francisco, Sao Paulo, Shanghai, Los Angeles and Berlin. We could not have told you then that today rewardStyle would have 20,000 content creators utilizing it to monetize the entirety of their influence and 4,000 global retailers using the rewardStyle channel to market directly to the socially-inspired shopper.

Just last month, new data was released that rewardStyle is the dominant source of mobile referral traffic for some of the most successful retail brands in the world. This was a big moment for our team. We knew we were impacting retail, but this was surprising even for us.

How has influencer marketing evolved since you started rewardStyle? What do you think is next in terms of how brands will partner with influencers and which social platforms will be the most valuable?

The last several years have been transformational for retail and for our society as a whole. The world has changed.

After 6 years of leading, I am confident that we know the market better than anyone else and we have identified 4 major trends that have brought us into this new age:

1. AGE OF INFLUENCER

First, you have to look at where consumers are forming their brand preferences and purchase behaviors. It is no longer the magazine or TV network, and it is also not the sales clerk. It is someone you know, trust, admire, have a digital interaction with multiple times per week – and ultimately someone you trust. It is an influencer.

2. MOBILE SOCIAL CONSUMER

Consumers are spending 5 hours per day on their mobile device and 92% of that time is spent inside of social channels. Communicating with buyers is not as easy as going to a publishing or media house. The influencer has the consumer ear now. That is challenging when there are 3 billion active social users and their time is distributed.

3. ON DEMAND

What is even harder, is consumer expectations have changed in the last 5 years. We now use an app to seamlessly order a car, order food, order a massage and so it is no surprise that we also want to order fashion at time of inspiration. Consumers are socially inspired and they want everything now.

4. ROI

For brands, their goals have not changed- they want a lot of people to buy a lot of stuff. The way they are meeting those goals has changed dramatically, even in the last 6 months. Marketers tell us they are being pressed for positive ROI and only rewardStyle has the historical performance data to help these brands get that positive ROI, which is why brands are spending 300% more with us, year over year.

In summary, now, to reach consumers, brands have to wade through a highly distributed and fragmented media landscape, on increasingly closed mobile social platforms, where people want to buy the things they discover right now and also turn a positive ROI. A lot has changed in a very short period of time.

Can you tell us about a challenge you’ve had to overcome while running your own company and how you’ve handled any moments of doubt along the way?

Successfully managing, educating, developing and inspiring people. I am fiercely independent and that trait is often one of my best strengths but as a very young business owner, managing people became a ‘growth area’. I did two things to overcome it: hire experienced, emotionally intelligent managers and read, read, read.

Tell us a little about what it was like to start a business with your then-boyfriend now husband. Do you have any tips for balancing your work relationship with your personal one?

Baxter and I are yin and yang when it comes to our skills. He oversees the technical side of the business while I oversee the marketing side. We sit next to each other in meetings and really balance each other’s ideas.

Once we got married, we decided to make our relationship, family and faith a priority. We have set work hours, guidelines for talking about business at home (it is off limits!) and we have designated family time on our calendars during the week. This has helped to create a healthy “balance” between work and home.

How has becoming a mother changed your routine and impacted your outlook on life and work?

Motherhood has forced me to tighten the organization of the departments that I deal with the most and to relinquish more control to the leadership that we have put in place. With less availability to come into work early or stay extra late, I am forced to prioritize, delegate and let go, and I am confident that I am a better owner, manager and worker now that I have had children.

There is the pre-children Amber and the post-children Amber, and while I am confident that the latter is a better person, she is also a little more undone. 🙂 My house may be a bit more messy and my hair may not be fixed, but my priorities have changed and the things that I used to care about are no longer important. Children are a gift.

What does your day to day look like between running a company and motherhood starting with your morning routine?

Each morning I write out my top three priorities for that day and I only focus on those. If you spend your day emptying your inbox, you will never have the chance to spend time on the big ideas and future planning. When I am more efficient at work, this creates more time for me to spend at home with the kids.

Baxter and I drive to and from work together, and we cherish that extra hour together each day. We prioritize our faith and our family above all else, so once we get home, all work talk is off limits and we focus our energy and attention on the kids. They say you only really have the first 8 years of a child’s life to shape the person they are going to be, and that time is moving fast! Time matters, so we are intentional with our children and each other.

What is next for rewardStyle and how do you see the company evolving over time?

Our goal is to continue to empower the world’s premium lifestyle influencers to achieve maximum economic success. This is the most rewarding part about what we are doing at rewardStyle — empowering thousands of content creators around the world to capitalize on their creative gifts by providing them with the technology, relationships and education to make money doing what they love. We measure our success by looking at the individual and this year, we have 83% more influencers earnings more than $100K annually. That is exciting for us!

For brands, we are continuing to help them scale globally and cast intelligently. Yahoo quotes that there are more than 26 million content creators in the world that are looking to professionalize or monetize – which demonstrates how complex it is becoming for brands to know which influencers to work with and how to appropriately compensate those influencers. rewardStyle is the only company with six years of historical retail performance data of the top influencers in the world, cross-channel (in Instagram, Snapchat, Pinterest, etc.) and on a global scale, so we are uniquely positioned to help brands rationalize their influencer spend through intelligent (data-based) campaign casting. Year over year, brands have tripled their campaign spend with rewardStyle, and we only see the further rationalization of the influencer marketing space.

For consumers, LIKEtoKNOW.it connects content and commerce cross-channel. By allowing consumers to shop their screenshots, they can curate content wherever it lives and shop it when they are ready. LIKEtoKNOW.it solves the problem of allowing consumers to shop inspiration in closed mobile social and the numbers tell us it is working and is the future. This year, consumers will purchase more than $300 million in goods from LIKEtoKNOW.it influencers. To date, we have been able to provide ready-to-shop details for more than 8M consumer screenshots (and we just launched a few months ago!). LIKEtoKNOW.it is growing at twice the rate of the blog, when you look at retail sales drive, and by the end of next year, LIKEtoKNOW.it will provide the majority of retail sales through the rewardStyle channel. LIKEtoKNOW.it is the future.

Three most cherished pieces in your closet:

I would live in Delpozo if I had the chance, so those pieces are my most cherished. I specifically wear my ice-blue long sleeved Delpozo mini quite a bit.

Everyone needs a great pair of jeans, and if I could only wear one pair again, it would be my R21 grey/black skinny jeans

I invest in handbags, but it is hard to pick just one.

Finally, I have a specific set of jewelry that I wear every day and each piece means something to me:

Wedding band, 21st birthday eternity band, 6 yr dating anniversary eternity band, “Boyce” ring (push present), Mother’s day earring, diamond bar earring (a gift from a client while working for months in Europe), two new earrings (and ear piercings) that I got with our team at NYFW, and a Cartier love bracelet (a gift from Baxter). 

Three words to describe your working style:

– Monochromatic

– Comfortable

– Layered (our office, and airplanes, are always freezing!)

Favorite part of living and working in Dallas:

Baxter and I were both born and raised in Dallas, and our families are still here. Being close to them is important to us, especially now that we have two children, Birdie (2) and Boyce (5 months). Texas is a very business-friendly state and the economy is one of the healthiest in the nation, which is important for being able to invest in your business and also attract talent to the region. The cost of living in Dallas allows you to lead a very comfortable lifestyle. And finally, we want to help our city grow as a fashion and technology destination- a city that attracts world-class talent, and we think we are on our way. 🙂 Oh, and did I mention Tex Mex? The food might be ranked #1 or #2 reason to live in Dallas. 🙂

What tips do you have for budding entrepreneurs looking to start their own business? 

– Solve a real problem that a lot of people share

– Find a co-founder whose skill sets foil your own

– Move fast. If you have the idea, someone else probably does too, and a lot of times it is about who gets to the customer first

– Be a friend (to have a friend)