This influencer quit her Big Four job to create full-time content

• Tanvi Shah has increased her Instagram followers from 5,000 to over 38,000 in about three years.
• The 26-year-old decided to quit her job at Big Four after realizing that she could earn just as much.
• Shah said the corporate world has affected her mental health and her job satisfaction is now higher.

When Tanvi Shah quit her job at an accounting firm at the Big Four, she knew she was taking a huge risk of giving up her monthly salary to become a full-time influencer.

“It was terrifying and I’m still very scared,” she told Insider. At first her parents did not understand the potential of social media. “It has been a huge relief to them knowing that I have an institution to return to and the worst case scenario is that I can get another job.”

Shah said when she started posting regularly on social media, she didn’t consider it her main source of income.

Then when the pandemic started, I started dedicating more time to creating career advice videos for social media platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.

“I started investing more time in increasing the quality of photos and videos, and in the process I worked with a lot of companies,” she said.

“My following grew quickly when I was talking about things that aren’t usually discussed like mental health when working for the company and being from South Asia.”

Shah’s content found an audience and within a year she thought about how to monetize her followers.

Before Shah started creating quality content, she had 5,000 followers on Instagram, then that doubled to 10,000 early in the pandemic. She now has more than 38,000 followers on Instagram and around 70,000 on TikTok.

The social media influencer says her earnings per post depend on how much work she gets per month or the brand she works with.

“The goal was to match my salary of £3,000 ($3,600) a month. Post fees start at £200 ($242) but sometimes a big brand chooses a content package, like an Instagram reel and a TikTok video. The biggest deal was 1,500 pounds. £1,819 for one brand that wanted three pieces of content.”

He started out creating content on social media as a side business for Shah, but within a year, opportunities came up big, from modeling jobs to radio shows. The London-born influencer found that she was struggling to manage her time as a content creator alongside her job at the company.

“I was getting up at 6 am to edit videos and I realized that there was not much job satisfaction in the company and my passion turned to social media, so I had to think about the decision,” Shah said.

“If I didn’t try to do it full time, I would never do it. I wanted to give myself free time so I decided to quit my big four job.”

Shah said that before giving up her job at the company, managing a side hustle felt like living a double life. She realized that previous managers were watching her posts which made her wary. “I felt like Hannah Montana coming home from work and doing something completely opposite but so multifaceted.”

In the financial world there was a clear career path and timeline for Shah’s advancement. However, she felt that it would affect her mental health.

“When I work for myself as a creator, I can manage my mental health by setting limits,” she said. “If I decide for a week that I can’t work I won’t lose my pocket because of last month’s earnings.”

Having a background in accounting and consulting as well as knowing how to manage her money helped Shah when she became self-employed.

“What people don’t see is all the work that goes on behind the scenes,” she said. “I feel very strongly about self-management and have at least five different apps and tools for scheduling and organizing,” she said.

“It helps to know basic tax and accounting rules and a way to keep track of profits, losses and expenses. I’m a financial and experienced girl, so it was only natural to look at how much profit I was making.”