Today we’d like to introduce you to Natalie Dragt
Hi Natalie, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
Growing up on a farm in west texas taught me a lot of things, one of which is that there is ALWAYS work to be done espeically when there are 3 horses, 2 sheep, 3 donkeys, 22 chickens, 2 ducks and a few dogs involved. I thought this was a lesson every kid grew up knowing, but I was quickly proven wrong when I was exposed to the “real world” through pageantry. When my mother entered me into my first beauty pageant I realized then and there that there actually were very few people who grew up on farms- especially in the pageant world. What people dont realize about pageants is that every contestant must have a platforms- whether its a business that they start or an organization that they work with, they have to have something that they truly care about. For me, that was building my own platform that allowed me to travel around TX and speak to teens between 11- 18 about being confident in who they are, how to gain confidence but most importantly how to love themselves. After speaking to over 1,000 students I was fortunate enough to win the Miss Texas Teen International Junior Miss title right here in Austin in 2020. This platform was the very first time I got the taste of what it was like to run and manage my own organization all at the age of 16 years old. At this time I began creating content about what it was like to compete in pageants and speak to kids.
All while covid was happening I was blessed to have gotten signed to a modeling agency in NYC, TX, FL & LA- though covid seemed to make the world stop, it seemed to be making mine spin faster. By the time my senior year of high school came around I was working more than ever. To be able to maintain my speaking platform, work around the U.S. and also do a decent job in school, I realized that public school no longer was an option for me. So, I joined the University of Texas Home School program and it was the best decision I ever made.
So as an 18 year old that was working full time and schooling herself I moved to Dallas, TX- four hours away from my home town of Wall, Texas. Most of my parents friends thought that my mom and dad were certifiably insane for letting their freshly 18 year old daughter move away to the city but their decision completely changed my life for the better and I will forever be grateful for that!
My first evening in Dallas an Australian SMU football player asked if he could take me to get dinner (I promise this part of the story is important). This Aussie at the time was running his own company and was marketing it through the use of content creation. Being a content creator myself I was intrigued as I had never seen a company market though this type of content creation. By this point in 2021 we had all seen the absolute BOOM of influencer marketing and UGC (user generated content) was just beginning (UGC is where regular people like you and me happen to be talented at creating content and companies pay them to create said content for that brand to be able to post is and usually run paid ads over the top of that content. The brand is not trying to leverage that creators platform. They are typically one off type deals or very inconsistent). But what this guy was doing was he had hired an American content creator to make content everyday for his company to be posted onto the company’s social media channels. This content creator was getting a consistent check every month, he knew exactly what type of content he was going to be making, and he had a reliable income from creating content… my mind was racing.
Up until this point in my content creation experience I had only briefly done a few low paying “influencer” deals. I had no idea this whole world of content creation even exsisted- and neither did most content creators. Of course my natural thought was “well what if I could do that but for a dozen brands?”
6 months later I began my studies at Southern Methodist University where I wanted to major in Advertising with a specialization in digital media. Unfortunately through my time there I realized that digital media is moving far too fast for a professor with a 15 module syllabus that was put together 6 months prior to class starting to even remotely keep up with the explosion that is digital marketing. So I took learning into my own hands. The little bit of money I had made from influencer deals I invested back into my education through joining every master mind, community and online curriculum I could. By this point the aussie and I began thinking of what it would look like to actually start a make shift “content creation agency” where I was the face of multiple brands. 2 weeks after we got our LLC name approved we had our first client- 60 videos a month for me to create. 4 weeks later- our second client, 30 videos per month. At this point I was creating 90 pieces of content for brands, creating 2-3 pieces of content on my own personal channels a day, I was enrolled in 19 hours of curriculm at SMU, and I was studying on my own through the curriculum I bought outside of SMU… I was going insane. I would leave class as a 19 year old sophomore to take business calls, I was sleeping an average of 5 hours a night and consuming far too much caffeine.
By this point I was seriously considering leaving college to focus on the business but there was still a level of hesitancy. I began consulting 4 professors to get a few opinions. The results varied- 1 professor told me I was crazy, another asked to invest into the business, the next one told me he thought I should stay in school and the last one told me he has only ever told one other student to leave college and that student went on to be pretty successful. I was the 2nd student he ever told to leave school. That was all I needed. I needed one professor to tell me they believed in me. So I left. 2nd semester of my sophomore year- I was no longer attending SMU.
Making this whole content thing work was a necessity now. There was no plan B. By February I was create 120 pieces of content a month for different brands in different niches. Later that February the aussie proposed and I obviously said yes. By march I was creating closer to 200 pieces of content and when May rolled around we decided to start traveling while continuing the “business.” Every month for 6 months we lived in a different state in a different airbnb- it was incredible. The only bad thing was by mid July I was creating over 500 pieces of content a month and I didn’t even have time to explore the beautiful places we were in. For the first time in my life I felt the effects of complete and total burnout. I was making over $75k a month from creating content- and I was miserable. But then something interesting happened.
Companies began coming to us asking for male creators, bartenders, hair dressers, health experts and more. It was at this point that our little business exploded from just the aussie, me and a virtual assitant. We began recruiting content creators to fit these different roles so that they could have a sustainable income too. For obvious reasons I dont fit for all business demographics to be the face of their company- but other creators do!
Through the fall and winter our business exploded. The only problem? We were living in Australia and going to sleep at 4pm and waking up at 1:00am to work- it’s almost as though we intentionally made it difficult for ourselves.
By this point we were creating 750+ pieces of content and the best part is that I wasn’t the one having to make it all. We had about 6 creators working with us, an editor that doubled as a virtual assistant and the copywriting, posting, client communication and strategy sessions were up to me, while the aussie worked on the sales side. It was exhausting. By December 15th we sat across from each other at 2am, the start of our work shift in Australia, as we were two Red Bulls in- it was time to go back to america. As I was house searching I found a home for rent on Lake Travis that was move in ready and was available for a year. We immediately took it. By January 15th we were moving into our new home in Austin.
Because of Christmas and the holiday season we pushed 10 new contracts to start on January 1- by this point it was getting to be a bit too much for just me, my fiance and our VA. And with the very real deadline of our wedding on May 29th we knew we needed a team. From January to May we built a team of 12 people that consisted of editors, copywriters, account managers, talent recruiters and sales reps. Our goal was to be able to spend 3 days without responding to work emails, messages and calls- especially on our wedding day.
And we were able to do exactly that. After our beautiful wedding in italy this last May we got back to america mid June and hit the ground running. We are now a team of 15, we actively are creating about 1,000+ minutes of content a month with dozens of clients. All of these clients utilize their content creator for a plethora of things- short form content, paid ads, public events, email marketing and more. Traditional UGC content has gotten too expensive for brands due to creators charging a fee to create the content + a fee to use the content for x amount of time. The reason these creators do this is because they dont know when their next opportunity is going to come in the door- so we switched the situation. All of the creators that work with us know that they are going to be working with us for a long period of time. They know that they are going to be getting their payment each month and to date we have never had a creator leave our company because they didn’t like the experience.
Just this last august we launched our creator club that now has over 100 active creators inside. This club is 100% free & is meant to act as a resource for creators everywhere. Creating content can be isolating and daunting- we are working to change that and provide more sustainable opportunities to creators everywhere.
Which brings us to today- as of today we have officially hit a goal of mine to become a 7 figure a year company. As a 21 year old college drop out I’m proof that if you want something bad enough you have to work extremely hard to get there. Maybe that was a lesson I learned growing up on a farm, maybe it was a lesson I picked up from watching my mom and dad run a company together, maybe it was a lesson I learned from watching an Australian work hard to come to america to live the American dream, or maybe i just really didnt like college- wherever I picked up the inspiration from has gotten me to where I am today and for that I am eternally thankful for these experiences & more so I am so excited for the future of this company!
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
The biggest challenge we have faced has come from the industry that we are in. The Creator Economy and Digital Marketing Space is still a fairly new one. So as we shape it with our company we learn more and more. Sure there are always others to learn from in different areas in different capacities but we are consistently learning more and shifting with this industry.
We are a bootstrapped company that required a heavy investment of time. Scaling a team as you can imagine can be quite difficult in this case but we made it happen!
Another challenge we faced was really understanding where we belonged in this space- once we figured out the recruiting piece of the puzzle we had finally figured out our niche of this creator space.
And the obvious one- working with your spouse can be a major challenge but the rewards are incredible. Learning to communicate as both a spouse and a co worker was a major learning curve for us both. Each day we work to communicate better and work harder. Theres no better person to work with than the person you share your goals and life with.
Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
We are a content creation agency that will find brands their “Jake from State Farm.” Companies will give us specific criteria that they want in their “jake” and we will present 5-10 creators that fit the description. From there we continue the content creation process by going through strategy, copywriting, editing and posting of all content onto all channels. All of the brands that work with us are creating a minimum of 30 videos per month with their creators.
On the creator side we teach creators how to make a real sustainable living through content creation which we offer for FREE in our creator club community. For those that are serious about scaling a content creation business around themselves as the creator we offer a private cohort every 2 months that has 25 spots. Each person in the cohort learns how to create content at scale and run a content agency on their own.
Are there any important lessons you’ve learned that you can share with us?
The best advice I have ever been given came from my husband.
“It is all your fault.”
My success is my fault, my failure is my fault, all of it is my fault.
As soon as you realize that YOU are in control of your life and its outcomes, the world becomes yours for the taking.
We talk about this so much in our private cohorts that most of the creators in the cohort have “it is your fault” written on their desks for motivation- myself included.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.wsscreatorclub.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nataliedragt?igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@nataliedragt?_t=8pbsOYwa9qZ&_r=1
Image Credits
Wedding photos- Laura Shepard
