Bianca Jade says her parents sometimes struggle to tell people what she does for a living.
“My mom sometimes tells people: ‘My daughter has a blog,'” Jade says, laughing. “I tell her that it might have been true eight years ago, but now it’s not.”
The fashion, fitness, and wellness expert says she’s had to make constant changes to her brand and her business model over the years to keep up with what people expect from her. More personal recommendations for products? Sure. Videos on the latest trends? No problem. And as technology has gotten more sophisticated, she’s changed the way she delivers her message about looking great and living a healthy lifestyle.
“There’s definitely been quite an evolution since the beginning of my career,” says Jade. “As an entrepreneur, I had to realize that where my income generated from is ever changing. I just have to go with it.”
Back in 2009, Jade started out with a blog called Mizzfit that reported the latest fashion and exercise trends. As her readership steadily increased, one thing she kept hearing from fans was that they wanted to hear more from her personally. What workout music got her motivated? Which exercises worked best for her?
“That was something that surprised me a bit,” says Jade, a longtime member at New York’s WeWork Meatpacking. “I’m not a millennial—I’m part of Generation X. I was not expecting that what people wanted was to follow me as a person. So my brand became more about me and what I recommended in terms of fashion and fitness.”
So Mizzfit became more of a lifestyle magazine that goes beyond tips and trends. There are invitations to special events, prize giveaways, and Jade’s personal recommendations for must-have items like workout gloves—some of which she has helped to design.
One of the products is a seasonal subscription box that includes many items she uses herself: beauty products, fitness accessories, dietary supplements, and more. Jade even sends out a personal letter about what each product is and why she uses it.
“When companies come to me and ask me to recommended one of their products, I tell them I have to experience it first, then come back and tell them what I think,” says Jade. “The times I say no far outweigh the times I say yes. I have to have a positive experience with the product.”
Jade says she’s built up a trust with her readers, one that she wouldn’t jeopardize by pushing a product she herself doesn’t use.
“My background is that I was a creative in advertising,” says Jade. “I wrote commercials and billboards and all sorts of advertising campaigns. I know what real advertising is like because did it for years. I speak from the heart because that’s something ad agencies don’t do.”
And although she learned a lot from the experience, Jade says her years in advertising weren’t always a positive experience.
“Every day I went to work, I had to think about it this way: ‘I am not helping humankind. I am creating art.’ I never could think about it as informing people about making good choices in their lives,” says Jade. “For me, it’s the flip side of that now. I don’t think of what I do as art. It’s educating and informing people to live longer, be healthier, lose weight—that kind of thing.”
Jade’s online magazine is now just one of the ways she reaches people. She’s appeared in TV segments on health and wellness, and she has her own YouTube channel dedicated to fitness and fashion.
“It’s funny how the world of creating an online experience has been a constant evolution,” she says. “I never expected to become a TV host or an on-air personality. The fact that I have makes me realize that there’s so much opportunity in what I’m doing.”
She has a whole video crew—many of them people she worked with from her advertising days—that has helped her put together more than 100 different videos ranging from interviews with celebrities to demonstrations of the hottest fitness trends.
But Jade doesn’t just have to watch what’s happening in the health and wellness world. She also pays attention to what’s happening in media. She noticed many of her fans were gravitating toward live streaming videos on platforms like Facebook Live, so she decided to give it a try.
“I had perfected this whole formula for my videos, and I had to forget all that,” says Jade. “When you’re going live on Facebook Live, not everything has to be so polished.”
Keeping on top of trends in fitness and fashion and paying attention to changes in technology makes her job stressful, Jade admits. And it’s especially tough because most of the time she is flying solo.
“That’s why it’s really great being a part of WeWork and having a community of female entrepreneurs all around me,” says Jade. “It feels so good to come to this office and see so many other women doing the same thing.”
Jade says that before she joined WeWork, sometimes issues would pop up and she had nobody to ask for advice.
“My confidence level has definitely gone up being at WeWork surrounded by so many companies founded by other women,” says Jade. “It makes you say, ‘I got this.’ If I have a question, I can walk to the next office and talk to someone who can tell me.”
And that helps her power through any problem.
“I’m living my dream,” she says, “and working my dream job.”