Entrepreneur: Kara Perez

Biz: Bravely Go

Tilt: Helping women learn how to build wealth and take financial power

Scene: Website, YouTube (4.14K), Instagram (37K), private Facebook Group (2.9K), Patreon (110), TikTok (29.9K), online courses and workbooks, 

Snack Bites: 

  • Kara Perez learned to pay off her student loan debt and minimize her expenses. Then, she created the community she didn’t have but wanted as she went through the experience.
  • She went from working five part-time jobs and living on less than $1K a month to earning over $100K in sales and $27K in passive revenue as the founder of Bravely Go.
  • One of her smartest startup expenses was $900 to hire a lawyer to draw up website terms of service, privacy policy, and a contract she could use for sponsorships.

Why We Stan: Kara is an expert creator who uses what she learned to benefit and inspire others. She’s also an expert at repurposing content, taking the same content topic and packaging it for the blog, Patreon subscribers, a TikTok video, a YouTube Shorts video, and a full-length YouTube video.

The Story of Kara Perez

A quarter-life crisis prompted Kara Perez to work five part-time jobs, live on less than $1K a month, and pay off the final $18K owed in student loans in 10 months.

It also prompted her to start a blog chronicling her journey. Nine years later, she operates a successful finance-related content business – Bravely Go. “I founded Bravely to be the community that I didn’t have: women talking real numbers and making big financial changes,” she explains on her website.

As Kara shares with CNBC, her business brings in over $100K a year in sales and $27K in passive revenue. She shares her origin story in this 15-minute video. 

Shopify chose Bravely Go as one of 15 blogs to inspire other blog creators. Her expertise and business have been featured in Fast Company and The New York Times. She’s been hired to speak at Google, Johnson & Johnson, Atlassian, and others.

Kara sells content products – online courses and workbooks, undertakes speaking engagements, and provides coaching. She also sells memberships on Patreon, offering three levels, ranging from $3 to $12 monthly. Among the benefits at the top level:

  • Quarterly AMA hangout session with her
  • 20% off all Bravely events
  • Help to pick the monthly topic poll for Instagram Stories
  • Exclusive monthly YouTube video

Kara says she takes 1% of her Patreon revenue for the Bravely Mutual Aid Fund, which goes back into the Bravely community or causes chosen by the community.

Bravely Go offers a lesson on how to repackage content across multiple channels. For example, Kara recently wrote a blog article about how to negotiate medical bills. She also provided scripts to handle those negotiations through her Patreon offering. Plus, she did a video for TikTok and YouTube Shorts on the topic that pushed viewers to watch the full-length video on her YouTube channel. 

Kara sees her audience and clients as a community, and they appreciate her work. As one client shares in this Instagram post.

“My goal is always to provide approachable, straightforward, and easy-to-follow educational content,” she writes on CNBC. 

Advice for content entrepreneurs

Kara says the smart thing she did when starting Bravely Go was to separate her business and personal bank accounts. She didn’t want to be tempted to use her startup money on personal expenses.

She also created Bravely Go on a relative shoestring – $12 for the domain, $50 on web hosting for a year, and $308 to establish an LLC in Texas. Her biggest cost? Services from a lawyer to draw up terms of service, a contract for sponsors, and a privacy policy for $900.

And she doesn’t regret any of it.

About the author

Ann regularly combines words and strategy for B2B, B2C, and nonprofits, continuing to live up to her high school nickname, Editor Ann. An IABC Communicator of the Year and founder of G Force Communication, Ann coaches and trains professionals in all things content. Connect with her on LinkedIn and Twitter.