Vivian Tu, the creator behind Your Rich BFF, came from humble beginnings. As the daughter of immigrant parents, she’s no stranger to working hard for every dollar and budgeting like crazy to make ends meet. Vivian graduated from the University of Chicago and, soon after, began her Wall Street career as a Trader for JP Morgan. She and her mentor were the only women on the team at the time. Vivian credits a huge portion of her understanding of finances to her mentor, who taught her how to manage her 401K and other huge lessons.

Vivian decided it was time to end her Wall Street career and began working for BuzzFeed as a Strategy Sales Partner. At BuzzFeed, all of her co-workers would constantly come to her for financial advice because they knew she had spent time on Wall Street. At the time, Vivian was dating regularly and noticed that all the guys she went out with– who made upwards of $200K a year — had designer belts and name-brand loafers but were in deep credit card debt. That’s when a lightbulb went off in Vivian’s head. She wondered why financial literacy wasn’t being taught in schools if people in finance and not in finance were so financially illiterate.

So, when the pandemic hit, Vivian decided to do something about it. She started uploading bite-sized pieces of practical financial tips to TikTok that took off immediately. The first video she posted went viral, and she gained over 100,000 followers that week. Fast forward to now — the decision to start posting content has changed her life tremendously. Vivian quit her job making $600K a year to create content full-time. The finance guru has 2.4 million followers on TikTok and 1.5 million on Instagram. Here’s how the creator is building an empire one finance tip at a time.

Partnerships

Vivian prides herself on making financial literacy easy to digest. This has really paid off for the ex-Wall Street trader, as she’s been fortunate to land major partnerships with some of the world’s biggest brands. Vivian has partnered with MetLife, Credit Karma, Nasdaq, Google, Meta, and more. The 29-year-old creator says that her goal is to open up the dialogue around money and finance so that people who were not expected to be rich become rich.

Merch

The creator has a line of merch that includes:

  • Hoodies
  • T-shirts
  • Hats
  • Tote bags
  • Phone cases
  • and Stickers

Your Rich BFF’s merch is reasonably priced and inspires her audience to live their best rich lives.

Author

Vivian will add ‘Author’ to her bio come 2024, when her first book will be published — Rich AF. The book hasn’t even been released yet, and it was acquired in a 7-figure deal with Trish Daly at Penguin Random House’s Portfolio imprint. The book was pitched as being a Rich Dad Poor Dad for millennials.

Accolades

Becoming a creator has impacted Vivian’s life in more ways than she ever imagined. The finance expert ranked No. 50 on the Forbes Top Creators List in 2022. She was also recognized on Forbes 30 Under 30 in 2023.

What’s next

Recently, Vivian signed with WME (William Morris Endeavor), a talent agency home to many creators such as Addison Rae, Christina “Tinx” Najjar, and Chase Hudson. The agency will work with Vivian to expand her business in areas including TV, books, and brand deals.

Vivian recently announced the launch of her new podcast — Networth and Chill Pod — which will cover the good, bad, and ugly of how money impacts lives. The first episode is out now and available on all podcast platforms.


Vivian shows you that even if you come from a male-dominated industry, you can use your knowledge and talents to pave a way for yourself. How inspiring!