Interview with RewardStyle & LIKEtoKNOWit Founder: Amber Venz Box

rewardStyle is the first and largest content monetization platform for top-tier digital style creators and brands around the world. The rewardStyle platform democratized the media business and pioneered a new industry: influencer marketing.

Today we have nearly 300 employees across eight international locations, and we’re headquartered in Dallas, TX.

rewardStyle was created 10 years ago by myself and my then-boyfriend, now husband, Baxter Box. At the time, I was just starting out as a blogger/ influencer and Baxter oversaw engineering and operations. The idea was really born out of a problem I was having at the time, which was being cut out earning a commission on the offline sales I was driving for brands via my blog recommendations. At that time, there was no means of monetizing digital content so while my online recommendations were influencing sales, I wasn’t getting credit for them.

Today, we’re now that means of monetization for tens of thousands of global creators and influencers around the world. rewardStyle influencers partner with us for everything from a fun side hustle and supplementary income to a full-time, lucrative career that allows them to independently provide for themselves and their family. There are more than 100 women who have made $1 million or more in total earnings through the rewardStyle platform.

In 2017, we went on to launch LIKEtoKNOW.it (LTK), rewardStyle’s owned and operated standalone shopping discovery app that allows consumers to search and browse instantly shoppable content in the context of real, influential people’s lives. LTK is a differentiated publishing platform for influencers in that it was engineered to serve an audience that comes in with a shopping mindset. The LTK shopping app enables influencers to deliver critically important value to consumers by helping them understand fit, function, styling and all the context they need to confidently make a purchase online.

rewardStyle influencers can make their entire life shoppable in the LTK shopping app — including the content they post to other platforms. We now count more than 5,000 retailers in our network — everyone from Nike and Apple to Selfridges and Asos. It’s a one-stop shop for people who want to shop from influencers for the benefit of seeing items or products in use or in context. Not only can consumers follow and explore their favorite influencers, but they can also search for specific trends, brands or products and get image results returned to them in the context of a real person’s life.
 
 

 

How did you come up with the idea for the company?

 
In April of 2010, I launched a blog called Venzedits.com. It was initially developed as a marketing tool for my offline business of personal shopping — it’s where I curated and recommended my favorite fashion brands and accessories for my readers. I would post three times per day — usually a trend story, a ‘get the look’ story and an outfit of the day, all with the hopes of attracting more offline customers.

I quickly learned that my audience preferred to use my recommendations to shop online at their convenience, instead of booking and paying for time with me. Now that my business had moved online, I wanted – and needed- to be compensated for the sales I drove online the same way I was compensated for in-store sales, and that was the real impetus for rewardStyle. We decided to take that offline model online, providing a performance-based monetization solution. From there, I quickly started shopping the concept around to other bloggers for feedback. It was instantly clear that this was solving for a major opportunity and need that didn’t exist, and had the potential to completely transform e-commerce.

What started as a means for me to personally monetize my recommendations and benefit from the brand sales I was driving has now grown into a business that not only is driving billions of dollars in brand sales annually but also serving as a viable and reliable career path for more than 100,000 creators worldwide. I feel so proud to have pioneered an industry that has revolutionized the retail and creative industries and created a path to economic success and independence for so many people.
 

How has the company evolved during the pandemic?

 
rewardStyle and our shopping app, LIKEtoKNOW.it (LTK) were positioned well for the retail tidalwave from offline to online that was triggered by the pandemic.

During 2020, marketers shifted their budgets to outcome-oriented digital investments, growing their influencer budgets and finding new ways to activate influencers across other disciplines in the marketing organization beyond performance marketing. As an organization, we made large investments in technology and scalable practices to meet that demand, launching a cloud-based influencer marketing portal for brands. Growth in the LTK app was as high as 300% during the height of the pandemic and as a result we broke LTK into its own business unit and opened many new roles, from GM and VP of Product to Head of Marketing and other leadership roles.

Additionally, the great work from the home experiment resulted in a huge shift in our culture. Despite having nearly 300 team members working across offices on several continents, rewardStyle is now a remote-first workplace, hiring team members who will never be expected to work from a rewardStyle office.
 

Tell us more about the new search engine feature on the LIKEtoKNOW.it app

 
The LIKEtoKNOW.it (LTK) shopping app is a platform where creators, tastemakers, celebrities, stylists and social influencers from around the world publish content for their followers who come to the app to shop. As a platform that is 100% dedicated to shopping, it is a differentiated addition to a creator’s other entertainment-led distribution points, like their blog, YouTube, Instagram, Snap, TikTok and others.

The LTK app attracts the intent-driven shopper as every piece of content created and published in the app, whether original photography, video or product curations, is completely shoppable.

To date, LTK influencers have published more than 8 million pieces of original content with tethered shopping metadata and LTK Search empowers the motivated shopper to discover the right product — and see it in the context of real, influential people’s lives. While social platforms surface image results for shopping queries and search engines surface product thumbnails for shopping queries, LTK Search is the only place where consumers can search for a brand, product, trend or category and get 100% shoppable image results.