Meet Trailblazer Madison Strong

Today we’d like to introduce you to Madison Strong.

Madison, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
Ever since I was little, I have been in fashion. I was always wanting to dress up and I was always trying on my mom’s heels. I was a girly girl who wanted to be in pageants and putting on pretty dresses was just my favorite thing. Although at this time, I wasn’t very good at putting together outfits, since I never knew what matched!

Around the age of 11, I was introduced to YouTube where I found a community of girls who were older but had the same interests as me. I absolutely loved watching girls do clothing hauls, outfit of the week videos, and lookbooks for different seasons. Watching these started teaching me what colors matched and how to style different textures together.

Once I was about 14, I discovered that there were fashion blogs and Instagram pages dedicated to just fashion. I was so excited that was another community dedicated to what I loved. I started reading tons of different ones. This is when my inspiration to start my own blog and brand began.

Fast forward to being 19 years old, I was still reading fashion blogs and watching videos, but I still had not had the courage to start my own blog. Finally, after years of thinking about it, I decided to do it. I set up a little page on Blogger. I wasn’t sure exactly what content I was going to post, but I knew I had cute clothes in my closet that I wanted to share with the world. I wanted to share my love of creating outfits and expressing myself.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I definitely would not say it has been easy. There have been multiple times when I have wanted to give up. When you see that your views have gone down or you lose followers or no one seems to want to look at your stuff, it becomes really hard to want to create new content for people. My advice would be, make sure you’re doing what makes you happy. If you are not doing what makes you happy, you are going to burn out quickly and quit. For example, I create fashion content, and I keep creating even when views go down because I love it and it makes me happy. But if I was to be writing about something I did not love like cooking, the moment my views go down I would want to throw in the towel. So, just make sure you’re doing it for yourself, not for other people.

Please tell us more about your work, what you are currently focused on and most proud of.
I am a fashion and lifestyle blogger, over on my blog Madison’s Cup of Tea. I mainly do fashion posts. I share new pieces of clothing that I buy, ways to style different outfits and where I buy my clothing. I am known for my outfits being fashionable but affordable and it is what sets my blog apart from others. Most fashion bloggers buy clothing from expensive brands that the average person could not afford. I want people from every stage of life to be able to get inspiration from my blog. I think what I’m most proud of is that my blog helps inspire people to get out of their comfort zone and be able to express themselves.

Finding a mentor and building a network are often cited in studies as a major factor impacting one’s success. Do you have any advice or lessons to share regarding finding a mentor or networking in general?
This is a little hard for me to answer since I would not say I have had particularly one mentor. I mainly did lots of research from other bloggers to really start my own brand. I did build some relationships through social media by commenting and liking pictures from other people that have similar interests as me.

Contact Info:

• Website: madisonscupoftea.blogspot.com
• Email: madisonscupoftea@gmail.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/madisonscupoftea/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/madisonscupoftea
• Other: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4Gp_sRd_6eFF-MQRHvi1xw?view_as=subscriber

Image Credit:
Images were taken by my mother.

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