We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Alyssa Rodriguez a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alyssa, appreciate you joining us today. Let’s start with a story that highlights an important way in which your brand diverges from the industry standard.

I show the real side of motherhood both the good and the bad on my YouTube channel. And for my business, everything I do is budget friendly, my accent walls and room makeovers all of it. I understand times are tough so just like I did my home little by little on a budget, I wanted to provide that to all my clients as well. Budget friendly room makeovers but without sacrificing the quality.

Alyssa, 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?

At the end of 2020 i was laid off from my job like many others but in my case I was 6 weeks pregnant with my third child. I knew that we were not going to be able to afford to have child care for both of my living children, (my first born daughter Ariya passed away 5 years ago, 3 days after she was born from contracting Group B Strep, her name means Lion Of God so we call her story Ariyas Roar). So I decided to stay home to be with my kids until they are in school while my husband took care of us and all the bills. Knowing I was going to be out of work for the first time in 9 years I knew I was going to need to figure out something else to do that was something I was passionate about. I am someone who is unable to stay still and I always need to be doing something and I also did not want my identity to be lost in just motherhood. So in June 2021, 2 months after I gave birth to my 3rd child, I began my YouTube channel. I started by just doing daily vlogs and a few diy projects. I got monetized on YouTube May 1st 2022 and have turned that passion into a small income stream for my family. Then my passion slowly grew to getting more and more creative with my DIYs and turned them into home renovation projects and it became a part of my daily life. I started realizing that not only was I passionate about creating videos for my YouTube channel but I also wanted to start a business helping others create the home they want while being on a budget. What makes me stand out from other Interior Decorators and DIYers is that I do everything on a tight budget. I am always looking for the most inexpensive way to accomplish a project without sacrificing quality. I started my business She Did That, LLC May 2022. I have been in business almost a year now and I am faithfully booked every 6 weeks with a new set of 4-6 clients. My main focus is wall paneling accent walls and budget friendly room makeovers. I now have a successful business and multiple new income streams that I bring in for my family. I’m happy, my family is happy and my clients are happy so I couldn’t ask for more. Another main goal of mine is to tell the world about my daughter’s story Ariya Lee Rodriguez July 3, 2018-July 6,2018. Group B strep infection during birth is 100% preventable and I want to use whatever platform I have to continue to spread awareness to help prevent it from happening to other babies and parents.

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

When I started my YouTube channel, I fully expected to only have my family and close friends watch it. I never would have thought that it was actually going to grow to where it’s at now, almost 2500 subscribes. Which is not much to some but to me, it is huge! I love each and every one of them and their support means the absolute world to me. I grew this audience by posting faithfully 2x every week and I was able to monetized in 10 months. Even though I wasn’t getting any payment in the beginning I looked at it like it was a job and I made it a priority. My advice to anyone looking to grow their social media audience is to stay consistent and to not be able to show the real you. People know when what they’re seeing is fake or scripted. People want to see real people and real struggles and life stuff. I was as open and as honest as I could be on all my socials from the beginning and I feel like that helped me connect with my audience and actually create real connections and friendships.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

When my daughter passed away I could have just given up on everything and called it a day. However, I knew that Gods plan is always greater than my plan and that their is a reason for everything. My faith helped me get through the darkest time in my life. Since then I have been blessed far greater than I could have ever asked for. I share my daughters story to whoever will listen and the video my husband and I made sharing her story titled “This is Ariyas Roar” is still getting viewed daily and more and more moms are becoming aware of the infection that took my daughters life and they are speaking up. My daughters death was meant to be the end of me but I now live around the grief and live day by day. I see her in my other two children and all I want my kids to know is that their mother never gave up.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://instagram.com/a_rod3696?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AlyssaMRodriguezG?mibextid=LQQJ4d
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@AlyssaRodriguez
• Other: Business IG: https://instagram.com/shedidthat.llc?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=