The Tigar Agency’s Story
I was five years old when I discovered the joy of writing.
I was curious about the world around me, and I often scribbled adventure stories about my pets—Indiana Jones, the cat and Wilma, the dog. After finding the right words, I’d bind these notebook pages together with string and proudly deliver them to my mother. Dutifully, she would read them with glee, ask me for the next chapter—and off I’d go to create my next masterpiece. (Usually, complete with coloring pages, too.)
As I did more laps around the sun and grew into a young adult, my middle school English teacher introduced me to journalism. I scored the highest grade possible on the seventh-grade writing assessment and she pulled me aside after class and said:
“You know, you can be a writer when you grow up.”
I vividly remember sitting by her desk, in awe, as she explained the exciting process of pitching ideas, interviewing interesting people and putting their stories into words they couldn’t find themselves. She showed me newspapers and magazines and explained the roles of reporters and editors—and I didn’t need any more convincing. I already had a growing fascination with New York City, and with this information, my career aspirations were solidified:
I was going to become a journalist in New York.
I held leadership positions in my high school and college newspaper…
… and scored an internship at Cosmopolitan in the beauty department and, later, a blogging gig for Seventeen.com.
Eager to make it to the Big Apple, I graduated a semester early from college at the top of my journalism class and moved to the big city (or really: Brooklyn). After crashing on a friend’s couch for a week, I signed the lease on a Harlem apartment with a shared bathroom situation—and a few days later, I landed my first job at a B2B magazine out of Chelsea.
Like many in the media, I had to find my way on a laughable entry-level salary. My memories of that time are rose-colored: attending events with food just to eat, saying ‘yes’ to every opportunity that came my way.
It was brutal, magical, fantastic, horrific—and so important to build my backbone and resourcefulness.
Six months into my ‘big girl’ job and living on my own, I started a dating blog about learning to love yourself through the process of finding the love of your life. I named it Confessions of a Love Addict, I gave myself the goal of writing one post a day for 365 days. With this consistent posting, my blog quickly gained momentum, and I became one of the first ‘viral’ dating bloggers in 2010.
I landed on the homepage of WordPress, and I credit it as the start of my freelancing career. Though I later stopped writing the blog in 2016, the pages remain live and receive traffic today from all over the world.
I grew my digital writing skill set at NBC, working as an associate editor for iVillage.com and Today.com. These years were fundamental in understanding how media works, how to write killer headlines—and perhaps most importantly, a thorough understanding of how data, ad sales, paid content and affiliate marketing drives the media business.
Once iVillage.com was shut down (#RIP), I knew I wanted to take a break from a traditional media role. Not only did I desire to freelance without a non-compete, but I was also increasingly interested in the marketing power behind content.
The stars aligned when ClassPass—a fitness industry unicorn—posted an opening for an Editorial Director.
One round of interviews later, I was offered the role.
As employee 39, I grew their blog, The Warm Up, well, from the ground-up. I hired a team of writers, developed an editorial calendar and roadmap, conducted SEO research, and eventually, a successful syndication program with various publications, including Self and Well + Good. The culture was conducive to the overly ambitious, and creating a ‘start-up’ within a start-up was thrilling.
By the time I left three years later, the blog was a significant source of inbound traffic and lead generation and had grown by 400 percent.
I often felt like I had two full-time jobs: an SEO and content marketer from 9-5, and then a freelance writer at night (and most weekends).
Eventually, I knew it was time to start my own thing—and an invitation to join Remote Year was the motivation I needed to let go of the training wheels and become an entrepreneur.
I founded my agency in 2017, a week after giving my notice at ClassPass.
For the first 18 months of running my agency, I traveled the world with a group of remote workers. I called 12 cities home across ten countries and three continents. During my nomadic stint, I visited more than 25 countries—submitting content from trains, buses, boats and airplanes… and even deep in the bush of South Africa.
Through this journey, my freelance career took on new heights, and I landed bylines in Travel + Leisure, National Geographic, Vogue, and many other publications. Becoming freelance and, thus, fully self-sufficient grew my award-winning journalism career and now, I have written for pretty much every publication you can think of. (Except for the New York Times, but it’s on my byline bucks list, and I’ll get there one day.)
The experience of living out of a suitcase while also attempting to grow my fledgling business was an exciting, stressful—and paramount learning lesson that shaped me into a flexible and creative leader.
The world continues to be my inspiration.
Following my travels, fate via Tinder led me to Boston, where I met my now husband in 2019. As our relationship grew, so did my business—and I began to lean more toward the content strategy that I grew to love at ClassPass. I contracted an SEO strategist, a web developer and a team of go-to writers, and I started assembling my own agency.
And, as my career seemed to soar... news of a new virus started to spread.
My husband and I moved in together on February 22, 2020, and a few weeks later, the world went on lockdown. Our lives changed from frequent travel, busy work schedules, and dinners out to trying new cocktail recipes, baking bread, painting by numbers and doing puzzles.
While our apartment had space for one office, it wasn’t built for two home offices, and by 2021, we were ready for more room and fresh air. After our honeymoon, we decided we would pack up our apartment and our dog and drive across the East Coast to my hometown, Asheville, NC.
What we didn’t predict is that four hours before boarding our flight to our honeymoon, we would discover we were pregnant.
As the Geico commercial famously says, ‘Life comes at you fast’—we took 11 flights, traveled to four countries, drove thousands of miles, bought a house, moved twice and had our daughter, Josefine… all in nine months.
To say it was a whirlwind is an understatement. (Also, to say it was the best experience of my life is also an understatement. I mean: look at her!)
But the experience fundamentally changed my approach to my agency and career.
Becoming a mom and deciding to continue to work (how lucky am I to get the choice?!) has been a transformative experience: mind, heart, body, business and baby.
It strengthened my priorities and made them incredibly clear. It helped me better understand and articulate my expertise, decade-plus of experience, and my worth. It led me to seek the type of companies I like and that align with my values and current life stage. If I am going to spend time away from my favorite tiny human on planet Earth, it better be with work and clients I love.
Though it took me over a year to transform my agency after having Josefine, I’d say it’s a pretty solid success, considering I also kept a human being alive along the way.
Oh—and gained a dozen new clients.
And continued to produce hundreds of pieces of content.
Grew our writing team with more talented journalists.
And better defined our services and approach.
I've been busy but secretly?
I'd have it no other way.
I’m thrilled to introduce
The Tigar Agency, est. 2023.
I invite you to become part of our client roster. It’s a pretty amazing crew—led by talented digital professionals.
Here are some key changes:
This new website.
Our old website, while functional, didn’t illustrate our elevated brand. Thanks to Hart & Soul Co and Easel Design Co for bringing my vision to life. Our new website better illustrates our unique value and offerings, our approach to content development, our services, case studies from past and current clients, and of course—our blog, The Eye. (Which we think you found since you’re here! Thanks for reading!)
Tigar Types became The Tigar Agency.
Though Tigar Types served us well for nearly six years, now, it doesn’t accurately describe what we can do. To expand our offerings from execution-focused to strategy-minded, our name is now The Tigar Agency, an editorial-first content marketing agency for lifestyle brands. We provide clients impactful content with a strong ROI and hands-on guidance.
We offer fewer services.
As an agency, we used to be more focused on execution. And sure, we continue to execute deliverables—but we needed to narrow our services to provide the data and specialization our clients wanted.
While we can do it all—and will do it all for the right client—we are focused on delivering high-quality SEO content for websites and blogs, media training from journalists and providing executives and leaders the voice they can’t seem to find through ghostwriting, e-books, white papers, and other top tier content services.
We offer expert-level, quality content from journalists.
Our high-quality content, written by professional journalists and marketers, sets us apart. We give our clients more than just intelligent paragraphs and clever, witty words. We also provide them an insider view into the world of gaining the attention of the reporters. We understand media calendars, the award deadlines, and what works and doesn’t in a pitch. Not only can we help you better communicate with the media—but we’ll write it in their language.
We are data-backed.
Over the years, I knew our content needed to illustrate an ROI. But sometimes, creativity is difficult—if not impossible—to put a price tag on. However, SEO tells a story over time, and with our minimum six-month retainer, we can tell it through Google Analytics and Google Search. Our services now include monthly reporting, recommendations and updates.
You can explore the success of our clients in our case studies. Here, you’ll learn how we helped one brand double their organic traffic in six months — and another use a blog post to become their greatest driver of sales.
We specialize lifestyle brands.
After more than a decade of creating content within the lifestyle sector, we are experts on both service and product-led lifestyle brands. We understand the innate and personal way lifestyle customers often make buying decisions: connection. We tell the right story by appealing to your target demographic in language they understand and trust.
What encompasses the lifestyle industry? Wellness, skincare and beauty, home and pets, travel, parenthood, female health, food and beverage, and anything else that enriches your life.
I’m so excited about what’s ahead for The Tigar Agency and to meet the inspiring entrepreneurs and brands we will partner with to create compelling, successful content.
It’s a true gift to wake up each morning, snuggle with my daughter, hug my husband, squeeze in a workout, and then sit at my home office, doing what I love. It never quite feels like work—and that’s something I know I’m lucky to feel about my job.
(Although, I will say I’m thankful to no longer live in that Harlem shared-apartment situation but forever be grateful for the roots that built this empire.)
What’s next? Hopefully, talking to you about your company’s content goals.
And after that? Who knows. I’ve made most of my dreams come true already, so I suppose it’s time to start making some new ones.
