When you look at successful people do not feel intimidated by their Harvard degrees and exhaustive resumes because there are plenty of names who started of small with no professional education to back them. Believe it or not Aashna Shroff, one of the biggest names among India’s fashion and beauty bloggers, was once a pre-school teacher at EuroKids. But her heart was not in it.
Aashna identified her calling in fashion at a time when she was frustrated and stressed out with her work and didn’t want to pursue it any further. Today, she is living a dream life that takes her places and allows her to own all the things she wants. She has Rs 5 to Rs 10 lakh coming in every month through her blog The Snob Journal which has 551,000 followers on Instagram alone.
Here’s a new-age success story that won’t fail to inspire you. So spread the good vibes, share the story after reading it till the very end.
Single mother and burdens of childhood
In an interview with BeerBiceps, Aashna revisited her childhood which ‘made her into what she is today’. Her mother got a divorce when Aashna was not even born. Her mom decided to work and raise her daughter while living with her parents and sister, who has down syndrome. Her mother was always working and sweating it out to feed the family which was totally dependent on her income.There was a time when the family had only Rs 1,500 to survive on with nothing to look forward to. Such hardships instilled a sense of responsibility in Aashna from early on and she knew she had to soon be independent and self-sufficient, just like her mom.
She was studying alongside interning with Eurokids planning to become a pre-school teacher. But we all know how plans often work out. Some time into the job she realized that this profession is not for her so she took a break to figure out what she wants. Her calling has always been fashion. Even when she was teaching the kids she would put a lot of thought into what she would wear.
Making a fresh start
Aashna decided to setup an online store named Snob Shop by creating a Facebook page. She ventured into fashion by importing apparels and fashion accessories from China and then selling it through the page. The growth was slow but it kept her motivated. After a while, she started posting her own outfit pictures and people began noticing her.
Her hobby was now garnering appreciation from netizens. “Oh, you have a unique style. You should start a blog of your own,” someone commented. And then similar comments began encouraging Aashna to start her own blog, something she was interested in, too. That is how The Snob Journal came into being five years ago.
“When I started blogging I did not know anything about blogging, I had no experience, no degree, no mentor. But I desperately wanted to make it happen.”
She says that the key to making your blog work is to understand what you are truly interested in because you will have to creating content under the same umbrella. Keep creating content regularly no matter what and never let go of patience because it will take considerable amount of time before you start making money out of it.
The first paid work came across Aashna’s blog after about a year of starting it. “India Circus offered me Rs 5,000 for a blogpost and three Instagram posts. I was very happy that I had finally started to make some money out of my hobby (read passion).”
She said shut down your blog
Some six months after her first paid blogging gig things got rough. Aashna was putting a lot of her time and efforts into blogging but it wasn’t fetching her enough money to sustain. She wasn’t paying much attention to her online store which was also a strong source of income. It was then that her mom suggested her to close down her blog and focus on the store.
They both got into a big argument because Aashna didn’t want to close operating her blog. She was confident that things will get smoother if only she doesn’t take disappointments to heart and keep putting in more effort. Her dedication and ‘stubbornness’ (as she calls it) worked for and soon her fan following began to swell. This meant she had got all eyeballs of both consumers and brands.
Today, she has 551,000 followers on Instagram alone who absolutely adore her blog and brand promotions. “If I talk about figures I make somewhere around Rs 5 to 10 lakh every month. I freelance, I do not work for anybody else so some months are great while some are just the routine,” she says.
Aashna is a staunch believer of hardwork and manifestation. She says if you stay positive and side with the good then sooner or later things will work for you. You have to hold on to patience and keep learning. Be truthful to yourself and work hard for your goals.
