We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Jennifer Tripucka. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Jennifer below.
Jennifer, appreciate you joining us today. Do you take vacations? Why or why not?
I do take vacations, but I believe that you should design your life as best you can to feel happy in the day-to-day. It’s taken a lot of assessment, planning and introspection, but I really have worked hard to make my life enjoyable with hobbies, adventures, activities, and relaxation so I don’t “need” a vacation to unwind or relax. Because if that’s the case, you’re only going to enjoy a few weeks out of your year. And yes, I do take one or two weeklong vacations per year myself, but a vacation doesn’t have to be to some exotic place. Sometimes a vacation to me is sitting on the couch, watching my favorite show, and cuddling with my dogs. Real life should be equally enjoyable.
I used to work in education, and so many teacher friends to this day talk about the countdown to summer break (or even worse — retirement). Life is what happens now, in this very moment, and it should be enjoyed as much as possible. That aspect scared me, and really did encourage me to search for a bigger purpose of loving what I do day in and day out, and not just when I was ‘off for summer’ or on a break.
Things like “little glimmers” — recognizing the beautiful, small moments of life are key. Sure, there are going to be days, weeks, and even months where work or life isn’t exactly where you hoped it’d be, but in general, if you’re doing something you love, and finding the good parts, you’re going to thrive.
I recommend therapy or coaching for all entrepreneurs; in my own, I’ve really worked on some of my ‘workaholic’ tendencies. Being an entrepreneur, it’s so easy to virtually never shut down. The more you don’t want to shut down and stop work for the day or week, the more you truly need to. I was always the one to just push a little further till inbox zero, say ‘one more email,’ etc. But that truly is detrimental at the end of the day.
Now, how I manage that, is I prioritize a few “musts” for my day, before 3PM. By 5-6PM, I’m starting to close down shop daily.
Additionally, I used to schedule appointments, do laundry, take breaks in the middle of the day “because I could,” but I realized, the more I treated entrepreneurship like corporate America with its timing daily and weekly, the more on a schedule and mentally clear I feel.
Of course there are days that shutting off at 6PM or 7PM just isn’t possible — and that’s entrepreneurship. But in general, setting very clear time work boundaries helps, a lot.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
My name is Jen Tripucka, and I’m the founder and Editor-in-Chief of <i>The Hoboken Girl, The Montclair Girl, The Jersey Shore Girl, </i>and<i> The Bergen County Girl </i>— some of Northern New Jersey’s top lifestyle websites — for locals by locals.
These brands are all under The Local Girl umbrella, a brand that I created myself over the last decade.
I’m also the founder of The Local Girl Media Group, a hyperlocal news and media network teaching entrepreneurs the ins and outs of media creation and growing a brand.
Before I worked as a media entrepreneur, I was an editor and social media director at Condé Nast, and a school counselor in the Bloomfield Public Schools prior to that — my Master’s and undergrad degrees are in Counseling Psychology and Communications.
I’m also a consultant for small business owners and media professionals, having created several courses on how to grow your social media account into a full-scale business, as well as how to grow your Instagram exponentially using tried-and-true methods from her team’s media work.
When I’m not working or exploring local gems with my team of local editors + writers, I work with several animal rescues as a foster and am an advocate for adults and children living with congenital heart defects such as my own, <i>Transposition of the Great Arteries</i>, through the<i> Adult Congenital Heart Association</i>.
We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?
I started The Hoboken Girl in 2012 while I was working in education. I really only had my communications and psych degree, plus a love for social media.
But as I grew in the field, left education, and began my corporate media career at Conde Nast, I learned a lot about growing an audience.
Authenticity, consistency, and creativity are key.
A few pieces of advice:
– Decide which social platforms are for you and your demographic / target audience
– Pick 5-10 pillars of content you focus on for your business’ online presence
– Create a good brand kit – a logo and brand color identity is valuable and makes you easily visible online — make it simple and easy to recognize
– Define your brand voice and how you communicate to your customers, audience, followers, community is crucial, as well as creating an audience persona and who you’re speaking to
What else should we know about how you took your side hustle and scaled it up into what it is today?
When I was in 8th grade, I started a town-wide newspaper, so I guess you could say, it was always in my blood — though it took me a while to realize it. I started The Hoboken Girl when I was 24 years old. I had a communications /journalism/psych BA + a psych masters degree from Lehigh University, but was working in education.
In 2010-ish, I was living in Hoboken and wanting to connect to other local business owners, meet people in the area, and discover new places to enjoy in the community.
I created The Hoboken Girl on a whim as a New Year’s resolution to explore my city more, and I realized my passion for social media and writing.
But I knew I couldn’t do it alone, and needed more experience. I wanted to grow a team. The Hoboken Girl wasn’t about me, despite my sharing on our social accounts and “blog” in the beginning.
To make this happen, I completely changed careers in 2015 to work in media, and got a job as an editor for Condé Nast.
On the side, I was growing The Hoboken Girl that whole time — with the blessing of my Conde Nast bosses, I might add. I accepted new writers and contributors to the site, and paid them a small fee for writing about local spots and fun content so that I could step into more of the publisher role, while working as a school counselor (and then later leaving education in 2015 and growing in the corporate media world).
Then, in 2017, I took my media site full time — which was quite scary. It took me five years to feel comfortable enough to do that. And it still stresses me out. It’s why I’m so big on diversifying income streams when you’re in this business.
At that time, we also started the charity arm of The Hoboken Girl, called Hoboken Girl Helps, dedicated to giving back to the local community and hosting events all around town. To date, our team, with the help of our amazing readers and community, has raised over $30,000 for local non-profits in the area. In October, we’re doing our annual drive for The Flow Initiative, which we’ve done for the past 4 years to combat period poverty in Hudson County and across New Jersey.
In 2018, I hired my first official part-time (who grew to full-time) employee and got an office in downtown Hoboken on Newark Street. We grew our team to 4 people by 2020, which for a fully self-funded business owner, was such a big deal to me.
Sadly, in 2020, we had to close our office, and really struggled to make ends meet during the pandemic. We worked hard to stay afloat at that time and provide news coverage of everything going on. I’m proud to say I was able to pay and keep all of my employees at that time, which meant taking some major financial losses here and there.
In 2021, our team of 5 launched The Montclair Girl, along with local writers in the area. We were a little loco at the time — but knew it was something that the Essex County area needed, and said if not now, then when?
In 2022, I launched my consulting business, The Local Girl Media Group + The Local Girl, the parent brand of our sister brands, and created several courses to help others around the country and world with their own media companies + businesses.
It’s been such a joy to be able to give back in this way, and follow my passions of education x media and content creation + publishing.
In 2023, our team launched The Asbury Girl (now The Jersey Shore Girl). In 2024, we launched The Bergen County Girl. We are slowly working our way to creating full businesses in those locations.
We now have a team of five full-time employees, and about 20 freelancers, all who are paid writers and journalists, but foremost, local residents who cover local happenings in their respective areas: Hudson, Essex, Bergen, and DTS. They pitch stories related to their interest, and we cover them editorially. It’s been such rewarding work, and I am so grateful to my incredible team every day.
Contact Info:
- Website: Coaching.TheLocalGirl.com
- Instagram: @thejennifertrip