We recently connected with Kyi Phyu Khaing and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Kyi Phyu thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you talk to us about how you learned to do what you do?

To be honest, I learned to do through lots of trial and error and simply getting up and DOING it – whether that meant researching TikTok and Meta’s ad center to study which elements of the trending ads worked to then actually practicing and creating these user generated content myself and for my clients. On top of that, just following YouTube tutorials on how to take my videography and editing skills to the next level!

In the beginning, I was definitely more in head, overthinking about all the right ways to start and trying to collect all the knowledge I could! As much as this can be good, I think this was also why it slowed down my learning process – because I was afraid to just START. The other obstacle is kind of similar but I was consuming more that I was creating!

As a UGC creator, I’d say learning how to pitch, to negotiate and genuinely create good content that is actually valuable (aka drives conversions, good ROI, etc.) for a brand is so key.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

So my name is Kyi (pronounced chi) and I definitely entered this industry on accident. In 2019, I randomly decided to create a food Instagram because I had WAY too many food photos on my phone. Over time, it attracted a community of foodies and during the pandemic, I actually took a year off from school and went back home to my country Myanmar! It was only then when I started getting asked to take photos and create videos (animations) for restaurants and this sparked something in me….not only was I able to help all the food brands create engaging, quality content, I was also able to monetize off of this & turn it into a business!

Fast forward, I moved back to the US in 2021, pretty much having to start from scratch again. I now had an entirely new demographic of audience I was trying to reach and no brands really knew me!!! Of course, this didn’t stop me from posting as I balanced my college life. After I graduated in Dec 2022, I decided to take a leap of faith and do content creation full time.

Now I’ve worked with 100+ brands in the US, such as Coca Cola, QDOBA, Food Network Magazine, etc. to create both branded content as a “micro-influencer” and specifically UGC! I help (mostly) CPG brands create organic and paid UGC to generate guaranteed leads & conversions….authentically, whether that means using direct response marketing or studying social media trends religiously. Though this is serious work, I love adding a sprinkle of play whenever I can and it definitely translates into the work that I do!

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

Word of mouth is definitely a big one. No matter where I was in the world, Myanmar or the United States, a lot of my clients found me through word of mouth. Referrals are more powerful than we think but adding to that, having a strong personal brand on social media really helps! I don’t necessarily mean strong as in how many followers we have but more so, if someone sees my content randomly, they just know it’s my content and it sticks out!

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.

This is a really interesting question because I know that there is a creative in everyone even though it may not appear as the typical art/design creative we tend to think of. But one thing I definitely struggle with (which let me know if anyone one of you seeing this can relate) is setting structures as a creative.

Creativity without structure is chaos. I have my fair share of chaos that goes in my mind simply because I just have WAY TOO MANY thoughts and ideas with nowhere to set it in place. As a creative person, I used to think structures were too limiting, too constricting. Overtime, as I grew my business, I really had to put systems in place which I’m still working on and understand that it is through a combination of creativity and structure where creatives like us can truly flourish!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.kyeatdays.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/kyeatdays
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kyiphyukhaing
• Other: Tiktok: www.tiktok.com/@kyeatdays