Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Elle Levy. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Elle, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Did you always know you wanted to pursue a creative or artistic career? When did you first know?

For the last 7 years I had a very successful airbnb buisness, the last 2 years after Covid the city of Los Angeles decided to enforce certain laws and restrictions on airbnb rental units. My last property was on a very quiet block and the Neigbor’s did not want an airbnb on that block. They would make daily complaints to make sure we got our license revoked and that’s just what happened. I was 35 a single mother with a little money to spare but not sure of what to do with my life since I had my airbnb permit taken. I always wanted to entertain. And I’ve been seeing people succeed in the podcast space that I felt I could do a way better job then. So I decided considering my age and circumstances there’s no better time then now, I am not getting any younger and I can’t wait till I’m 45 to decide to want to pursue my dreams , so I went for it, and as I thought , my fourth video I ever posted went viral. Now a year and a half later I’ve accumulated over 100 million views on social media.

Elle, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

So most people have never heard or seen me until my podcast clips and really don’t know my story as I never really told it. At 26 I decided to
Move to La from New York City , I didn’t have a plan and I got on a plane and came here , I spent all my money in a year and couch hopped for a little while it took me about 4-5 years to get on my feet. I started working in the cannabis industry where I was the head of the marketing department. I met many celebrities and people in the entertainment industry during that time. Life was good. I had my airbnbs and I was working in the cannabis industry. Then in 2018 I met a man who I thought was the one. Turns out he wasn’t. I got pregnant and felt I was getting older and decided to keep my son. My son is now 4 years old. Being a mother has completely changed my life in so many ways. As much as I love my son doing this alone is harder than I thought. The experience has put a battery in my back to want to tell women to make smarter decisions, I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life because of lack of guidance as a child and I feel I want to tell women my life experiences to maybe save them from pain and hardships. And also tell people that being a parent is a huge responsibility that some of us if not married to a loving partner should maybe think twice about. I feel like society has gone a little rouge and no one’s speaking to young women. I don’t tell people what to do I just share my experiences in hopes that they get the message. Good bad or ugly.

Have you ever had to pivot?

Yes I had to pivot right now. After 13 years in LA I’ve decided to move back to New York so my family can help me with my son as I focus on my podcast career.
Do I love New York ? Yes . Do I want to live here? No . Am I doing what’s best for me and my son for our future? I think so. I hope so. My podcast is doing pretty good after a year and half I’ve finally gotten some decent sponsors and am getting bigger everyday! I know that my sacrifices will eventually land me a podcast deal and I’ll be able to secure a good future for me and my son. It’s been a difficult time having to come back to New York but as a parent your child comes first and I need to do what’s best for him right now. LA will always be my home. I know I’ll be home soon. LA has my heart and soul. I’ve had all my major successes in LA , I love the culture the weather and even the crazy people! And I can’t wait to be back!

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

Ok so I started my podcast instagram page from zero! I had no clue how I was going to grow it because my personal page only had about 12 thousand followers and it’s been that way for over a decade. I never had crazy views or engagement on my personal page because I never really had any videos of me speaking. I only would post pictures here and there or videos of me riding horses. I was lucky if I had 10 comments on a post. My biggest fear was failure because no one wants to be embarrassed of something they’re pursing not working out but I’ve been a risk taker my entire life. My first episode I shot for Tacos&shawarma I found a clip editor on Instagram, and I paid $100 to make some clips for me because at the time I had no idea how to edit clips. And shockingly my fourth post I made on that page went viral!! I couldn’t believe it! I only had about 100 followers and I’ve never went viral before in my
Life. I remember just seeing so many notifications and I was stunned. That put a battery in my back to keep going. We surpasssed a million views on that clip ! After that about a month later we had another clip go viral that hit 2 million views! And honestly it just kept going after that. It’s been over a year and I have 70 thousand followers on Instagram, 50+ thousand subscribers on YouTube and over 23k followers on tik tok all organic growth . I’ve went viral over 20 times this year with 20 different videos. I can’t tell you the secret because there isn’t one. Either you got it or you don’t. And when I say “it” I mean the star factor. The “it”
Factor everyone wants to be and have and embody. I would say I have it Forsure , that doesn’t mean everyone loves me because going viral
And getting popular also comes with a lot of negative comments and mean remarks and that can really get to peoples self esteem. My advice is try not to look at it. It used to get to me but I’m
Used to it now. Need to have thick skin.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://Www.tacosnshawarma.com
• Instagram: @tacosnshawarma
• Youtube: Tacosnshawarma

Image Credits

@tacosnshawarma