Why 'Your Rich BFF' Spent $1M Building An App To Disrupt Personal Finance

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1:23Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Forbes Top Creators Show. I'm Forbes editor Steve Bertoni, taking you on a deep dive inside of the creator economy and teaching you tips and tricks from the world's top creators. Today, returning to the show, we have a one-woman financial media company, now a one-woman financial technology company, although you do have a team and partners. Vivian Tu, your rich BFF, thank you for joining us.

1:46Vivian Tu: Thank you so much for having me. So we met two years ago. Yes. You've done so much. I feel so lazy. I feel like a loser. I feel like I've been on the couch just watching old Seinfeld episodes. Fill the viewers in on what you've been up to. You know, it's so funny you say that so much has happened. It does feel like so much has happened, but also nothing has happened and no time has passed. It was like yesterday. In that time, the licensing rights to my first book were sold to Amazon MGM Studios. We're currently in development for a scripted television show. Can't wait for that. When did your first bestseller?

2:18Vivian Tu: My first New York Times bestseller. My second book, Well Endowed, came out, also became a New York Times bestseller. And we're actually rolling into season four of my podcast, Net Worth and Chill. But the big news that I'm here to share with you and chat about is today is actually the launch day of my app, Ask Dolly. It is a financial companion app that essentially compiles money knowledge and allows my BFFs to apply it to their personal lives, situations, and goals. You can get things done like asking your burning money questions to real human CFPs. You can get a breakdown of economic headlines and how it might actually impact your wallet.

2:57Vivian Tu: And my favorite part, you can get a financial diagnosis of what you're doing really well and what in your financial journey might need a little improvement. Oh, I'd be scared to upload my journey on there. Astali did tell me that I needed to ratchet back some of that dining out. It was a bit of a read. Oh, it's fine. It's fine. You got to splurge sometimes when it works. I love this because when people always ask me, you cover all these creators, what's the most surprising thing? And I always say they're becoming more and more entrepreneurs. Very few people just kind of do selfies, videos, and dance.

3:28They're launching companies and brands, in your case, software. Tell me about that because you're making a very good living on media, on brand deals, production deals with MGM and Amazon. Busy life, now you're launching an app, which is not easy. Tell me about the thought process.

3:43Vivian Tu: Yeah, the thought process is it actually came from my audience. So I was getting thousands of DMs every single day asking me money questions. People were literally providing me like very sensitive personal finance information via DM. And first off, that's not safe. Don't do that. But I thought about that and I'm like, OK, if there's like an infinite amount of financial knowledge out there, but people still have a bunch of questions and they don't feel like those questions are being adequately answered. Like there has to be something missing from the financial ecosystem right now. And it kind of hit me that it was really frustrating for me personally to go through my financial journey.

4:21Vivian Tu: At 22, when I was broke and had no money, no financial advisor would touch me with a 10-foot pole. And I frankly couldn't afford them. Now that I'm 32, I've built this media empire. I'm making really great money. These headlines on Forbes are coming out about how much my business is making. I mean, I am getting emails constantly from every street, you know, every single bank on Wall Street that are like, oh, Vivian, we would love to take you to lunch or please come into our office. We'll have a meeting. And it's like, where were you? They want to manage your money. They want to manage my money.

4:50Vivian Tu: But I'm like, where were you when I was 22 and broke? And so the reason why I built Ask Dolly in part was because I felt like somebody needed to bridge the gap between people who need guidance and people who can actually afford it. And there was an easier way to do that than the old school model. And so it feels really cool to be a disruptor. Like I get to break an age-old industry that has historically shut out a lot of young people, that's historically shut out people who didn't come from generational wealth. And the person that I'm describing is 22-year-old Viv. I love that. You're going back to serve the young version of you.

5:27Vivian Tu: Yeah. Well, I want to go back to your origin story in a minute. Yeah. In terms of you said you're getting DM, thousands of DMs a day. What was the most common money question you get from your fans? You know, I think the biggest thing on people's minds right now is student loan debt. I get a lot of questions around student loan debt. And if I'm honest with you, the way that we have rolled out the new income-driven repayment plans were, oh, it's no longer safe. It's now wrapped. It's confusing. Like if someone like myself who literally does this as a day job that I have all the time in the day to be going through the governmental websites and being like, how are things changing?

6:02Vivian Tu: And I'm still scratching my head being like, wait, this is confusing. These two statements are contradictory. How is the average person supposed to figure it out? And so I think.

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6:39Vivian Tu: The best holiday finds aren't always the ones you went looking for. At Ross, discover unexpected gifts, fashion, decor, and plenty of reasons to keep looking. Ross, expect the unexpected. That is really, really a big stressor for people. They want to know how they can actually pay their debt back. A lot of people are feeling like their college degrees weren't worth it. And now they're asking, is there hope or am I screwed forever? Wow. How do you go? And I want to hear, like, this is great. I want to hear more about how Dolly solved this. But how did you start Dolly? Because the idea of, like, you're very busy and people have ideas, like, I'm going to start an app.

7:16Well, that's great if you're, you know, strolling down the street, walking your dog, thinking of an idea. How did you actually get started?

7:21Vivian Tu: Yeah. So it's funny. I actually had this, you know, little light bulb idea, but I'm not somebody with a tech background. So I can't build this. I'm not a software engineer. So I actually spoke to a mentor of mine. Her name is Seema Gandhi. She ran a successful fintech called Creative Juice that actually had a really great exit. And so her feet were up. She was chilling. She's exited. She's just, you know, relaxing. And I'm like, hey, Seema, can I pick your brain a little bit about how you started this? I end up chatting with her about my idea. And she was like, oh, you should have a conversation with a PM who is on my team.

7:55Vivian Tu: And so I end up talking to this woman. Her name is Stephanie Neville Alejo. Shout out, Stephanie. And she loves this idea. She was a longtime Your Rich BFF follower. And then ultimately we decided that we were going to build it. And she had the technical abilities to be able to hire the right team to help us get this off the ground, to actually physically build it. And, you know, I feel like now at this point, it's really my turn to grab the baton because You're Rich BFF is what every single startup dreams about. Having that marketing arm already built in and the cost of acquisition right now is free because I've already built this community versus, you know, the normal startup model is build a product and then find the audience.

8:36Vivian Tu: I know my audience wants this because they were the ones who asked for it. I love it. So now you have this giant marketing arm organically. What is the plan? how are you sharing Dolly with your fan base? Yeah, there is a very robust - Besides going on very powerful and popular podcasts at Forbes. Listen, I think that's part of the beauty, right? Ask Dolly is part of the Urich BFF ecosystem. And right now I'm really focusing on it as kind of the nucleus of like, are you enjoying the social content? This might be able to help you. Are you someone who wants to listen to a 45 minute podcast? Oh, the thing that we talked about doing, Ask Dolly can walk you through how to do that.

9:10Vivian Tu: If you're reading the books that I have, Ask Dolly can help you implement a lot of the things we talked about really easily. And so what I think is so powerful here is that we are able to use this as kind of like a renewable resource, like reduce, reuse, recycle. We're driving everybody to another part of the business. And so they're really being funneled in a way that's super efficient, super smart, but actually serves their needs. At the end of the day, I'm not selling another lip gloss. I actually believe this product is going to change people's lives for the better. What's the business plan?

9:43Yeah.

9:43Vivian Tu: So the business plan is currently there's two ways of monetization. We have B2B partners, enterprise partners who are signing up for Ask Dolly as a benefit in the same way that they are signing up for the Calm app or some of those meditation apps as part of their like benefits package. Okay, that's smart. And then we have a direct-to-consumer model where you are actually able to just subscribe to Ask Dolly. There are free tools that you can use without necessarily needing to be a paid subscriber. But once you do have a subscription, it really does unlock a lot of value. And then kind of another pivot is we actually have a marketplace because we get so many questions around what is the best XYZ?

10:24Vivian Tu: OK. I can't tell you what the best XYZ is, but I might be able to help you find the best XYZ for you. So we actually went through a process where we tapped all of our CFPs and had them actually vet one by one all the major options for different XYZ, whether that be robo-advisors, whether that be prenup writing services, whether that be, you know, estate planning services. And we've actually now gone through and said, hey, these are the best for these people. These are the best for these types of people. This might work if you're XYZ. And so we're able to have a place where people can go to find the best XYZ for them.

11:01Gotcha. And if I choose that, I assume you guys make affiliate money on that?

11:04Vivian Tu: Yes. On some of the partners and others that we just want to recommend because we think it's the best product. We don't. Wow. Can people trade on your app? No. We do not manage money. We do not open accounts. Because I felt that a lot of financial products in the past were incentivized in the wrong way. Like, I want you to open XYZ with me. You have to open our credit card. You have to do this with us. Well, no, we just want to provide you the best possible solution, regardless of who that's with. Tell me about the funding of this. I know a lot of people in venture now are looking to back creators and they love the idea of software, right?

11:40Because it has the margins. Did you raise money for this? Did you bootstrap it? Do you have sponsors? Tell me how you paid for it.

11:46Vivian Tu: I paid for it myself, Steve. All right. Because here's the thing. Bootstrapped. You mentioned I have a very healthy media business. I'm very fortunate to be very profitable in that arm. And I thought about a couple other examples prior to my creator business funding a tech piece, and it kind of scared me. A lot of these people announced, oh, we got$35 million of funding. You now have all of those investors breathing down your neck of when am I going to see an ROI? How are you going to become profitable? How are you going to grow as quickly as possible? It doesn't matter. Do whatever you need to do to make money.

12:21Vivian Tu: I didn't want that kind of pressure. And I luckily had the cash. So I'm fully self-funding this, fully bootstrapped. But that also means I built the best possible product for our BFFs versus just building something fast, building it cheap, and building it to make a bunch of money. I love that. What advice do you have for creators that want to get into a product, get into a service like you're doing? You know, I think if you're making good money, fund it yourself, one. but two, find an expert in the areas that you're weak and then balance it out with your strengths. I don't think anybody can market better than I can, especially in the financial sphere, but I needed someone who was going to be technical.

13:01Vivian Tu: I needed someone who understood and had the connections and the network to be able to hire software engineers and project managers and people who understood product really well. And so getting a great team behind you is so important. And last but not least, recognize that business profiles and creator content need to look very different. You know, launching brand new social media channels, you see all those people who make content that are like, oh, if my account went back to zero or I got banned, you know, tomorrow, this is how I would rebuild. Okay, I get to try now. Like, am I still interesting?

13:35Vivian Tu: Is this still exciting? And how are we going to grow these new social channels? Well, I think we're going to find that out. I don't necessarily know if it's going to be as easy as it was with Your Rich BFF because Your Rich BFF is me. But Astoli is a business. So we're navigating that as we go. Are you building its own kind of social media handle for it? Yes. Of course. And obviously LinkedIn to connect to – linking it to connect to your office space. What was the hardest part of building an app? Patience, if I'm honest with you. My creator story is unlike many, many others. The very first video I posted got 3 million views and I went viral overnight.

14:10Vivian Tu: And by the end of the week, I had 100 ,000 followers. When I signed with my agency at WME, within two months, I had a podcast deal. And then within three, I had a book deal. It all just felt like it kind of happened pretty easily, pretty quickly. And then all of these things really, really just were like a big snowball. I have been working on this app for two years. The saying my mom loves is like, the day you plant the seed is not the day you eat the fruit. Mom, I haven't tasted fruit in two years. I don't even know what fruits are about to come out of the ground. Like, I hope there's fruit. But I've had to be really patient.

14:47Vivian Tu: And I'm not good at that. And with all these things, how much did this take up most of your time? What percentage of your week was spent on Dolly versus all your other engagements? Commitments, I should say. I think that's hard to say. And it's not consistent every week. There are some weeks where Ask Dolly was 80 % of my week. and then there are some weeks that it was 10. And it really depends at what point we were in certain builds, certain sprints, certain beta testing. I think it varied a lot, but obviously right now launch is 100 % of the week. Come on. It's so cool. It's so easy to have ideas.

15:22Yeah. And also sometimes, especially you're creating an app, saying no is the most important thing. I'm sure you and your team had all these amazing features that could do and let's do this, let's do that. How did you kind of build on what it could be? was it exactly what you thought it was going to be from like day one? Or did tell me how you kind of evolved and what you added, what you got rid of? Was there something you were super excited about? And then you're like, you know what, maybe we should just, that's too much clutter, too much noise.

15:45Vivian Tu: Yeah. If I can be really honest, we did a lot of competitive research. We looked at a lot of the other products online and looked at what was working, what wasn't. You have no idea how many app store reviews I've read on every possible finance app. But when we saw there were a trend of complaints about certain things, we asked ourselves, what feature could we build to actually address that? We wanted to make sure that this was something that people actually wanted. And that's why we actually did IRL beta testing. We invited people, you know, it would be roughly three, four dozen people at a time to come in and actually test it in front of our software engineer's eyes.

16:25Vivian Tu: by the way, having someone critique what you made your baby is stressful. Oh, I'm sure. But it gave us valuable feedback that we were never going to be able to get. Just being like, hey guys, do you like yes or no? Like everybody's going to say yes. But when they actually have to sit there and look you in the eye and be like, well, this could be better. That is how we know something is good versus something's bad. I wish all the mean comments against me were valuable. They're not. They're just mean, but you're getting some good feedback. So I like that. You know what? I'd rather actually get constructive criticism prior and then actually have a better product than for everybody to just say sweet nothings and then for it to suck.

17:00For sure. When you were doing all the app reviews and then also these in-person reviews, what were features that people wanted and what were some things already out there that people drive people crazy already in other apps?

17:11Vivian Tu: Yeah. So I think something that was really frustrating for a lot of people was the fact that it felt like they weren't able to provide nuance and context. So they couldn't mention that like, hey, everything might look good on paper, but I have a chronic illness. So like my medical bills later in life might actually be higher than everybody else's. Or hey, like everything looks good on paper, but by the way, I have a special needs sibling and I will be financially responsible for them for the remainder of their life once my parents pass. Ask Dolly lets you take that into account. I think something that we really wanted to make sure that was available to people, so this wasn't just some random app, was access to human CFPs.

17:55Vivian Tu: That was one of the first things we did. And tell people that don't have a CFP degree what that may mean. So these are real human certified financial planners. They are there to actually provide you one-on-one guidance and can just really understand your situation a little bit better. and if this is like a big emotional decision you're about to make or something that requires a little bit more TLC, they can do that. So I think those are some of the things that we really focused on that other people may not have. With your community, with all your comments and just we were studying, you were so dialed into like the young money mindset, what people are thinking.

18:32And I've read a lot of stories about this financial nihilism in Gen Z where basically people are saying like, I have all this debt. I can never afford a house. So why save? I'm going to bet on, you know, sports gambling. I'm going to bet on prediction markets. Or you know what? Instead of saving my 401k, like I'm going to go to Coachella and go like, is that just selling headlines? Is that really happening? Like take me in the mindset of like, not the young millionaire, but like the young person who has a degree, who's done everything right, and they feel they're falling behind.

19:02Vivian Tu: No, this is absolutely real. We've already also, by the way, seen it through, you know, the lipstick index, right? When you can't afford a home, you go buy yourself a new flat screen TV. And now when you can't even afford the flat screen TV, you go buy yourself a lip gloss. And so people are basically going through their life and trying to buy the little treats to make up for other things and those larger goals that they maybe don't feel are attainable. My problem with part of this attitude is, yes, we should acknowledge that things are harder for you than maybe our parents' generation. 1 ,000%.

19:36Vivian Tu: That's no joke. Cost of living is higher. The cost of going to a secondary education is higher. Housing is more expensive. Wages have stagnated. Like, yes, things are hard, period. You're not crazy for thinking that. But saying, hey, I'm not going to prepare for the future. Hey, I'm not going to, you know, actually be responsible with my money. Let me just sports bet all of it or go put Coachella tickets on layaway or buy now, pay later. OK, but you're robbing future you. And at some point, you are no longer going to be this young money. You are going to be somebody who's 55, five years away from retirement.

20:16Vivian Tu: And if you don't have a dollar saved, you have just basically subjected yourself to working until you die. And that's a really scary thought to me. So my argument is that, yes, you should have fun today. But that doesn't need to come at the expense of everything in the future. So what's like the prescription from the rich BFF for someone who's in their 20s, they're feeling trapped, they want to have fun, but they also feel that pressure of, you know, you can't just be eating dessert all day, right? You need to have some vegetables. What's the prescription? I know everyone's different. Everyone's in different situations.

20:48But like in general, to these nihilists, the financial nihilists, I love that title.

20:53Vivian Tu: I mean, like, I think just like break down the budget in a way that actually makes sense. So the 50-30-20 method is so popular for a reason. You spend half of your take home on basic necessities. These are things like rent, basic groceries, the transportation to get to and from your job. You put 30 % towards your wants. This is the fun part. This is getting your nails done. This is going to go get drinks with your friends. This is those sporting event tickets that you wanted to go to. And then 20 % is set aside for taking care of future you. So that's debt pay down, that's saving, and that's investing.

21:27And then hopefully over time, as you become an older adult and more senior in your career and make more money, the 50 and the 30 will become a smaller and smaller percentage of what you are spending.

21:39Vivian Tu: And that 20 % can get bigger and bigger. I like that. Except if you're in New York or Miami where you are or California where rent itself is going to be 50%. Here's the thing. The cost of living in coastal cities is higher. But you know what else is higher? The average income. Because the average starting salary for certain jobs, the same job in the middle of Iowa, is going to pay very differently than New York City. And the hope is that is able to account for some of those increased costs of living. So cool. I want to switch gears for a second. I want to talk about your first book. Tell me about your first book.

22:13Vivian Tu: Okay. So Rich AF was my first baby. She's a New York Times bestseller. We have now sold over 250 ,000 copies, I think, is actually the number. It's a lot of copies. People don't realize that the average book sells like 2 ,000 copies. Yeah. So it's been such a great blueprint for so many people who have been able to really master the basics of personal finance. It's broken into two sections. The first is you work hard for your money. So that's how do we actually negotiate for a higher raise? How do we actually budget? How do we make the most of our money? And then the back half is your money works hard for you.

22:52Vivian Tu: So that's the saving, the investing, the actually understanding how debt works so you can use it to your advantage versus it being this very scary four-letter word. And I love how, so it got bought by MGM, Amazon, but it's not a documentary. This blows my mind. It's a scripted. So how do they turn like a how-to finance book, a very popular one, and you're turning that into scripted content. There's characters. I want to hear about this. I'm fascinated by this. Throughout Rich AF, unfortunately, every single lesson that I'm largely teaching comes from a pothole that I fell into or a bump that caught me off guard or something horrible or terrible that happened to me.

23:31Vivian Tu: And we are going to be weaving those stories through a scripted storyline of a young woman who is navigating finances for her first time and, you know, dealing with quite a bit of turmoil in her personal life. That's incredible. So it's you. It's not. It's based on you? Is the person named Vivian? She's actually not. Okay. But there is, well, she's not at the moment. Okay. We're still developing. But the story is weaved so that there are certain similarities. And definitely she's going to go through some of the struggles I went through. But it's not a one-to-one. And I think that's great. And I'm sure they'll make it a little more dramatic.

24:09Vivian Tu: Yeah, of course. Yes. Um, but I do think the beauty is that like, if it's not me, hopefully people can look at her and see themselves. Gotcha. And now will this show have financial knowledge in it or is it just kind of like, like what's it called? Like a nineties rom-com. Are you reading my crib notes? Um, of course I want to make sure that anything that I do still edutains, right? I want you to want to watch this with your girlfriends and gossip about it every single weekend, but I also want you to learn something and take something away. So that's something very important to us as a team to make sure to still incorporate.

24:45Well, if you need a cameo from a Forbes financial expert, Tim can play me. I'm just a storytelling nerd. So do you have a screenwriter? Are you working with them? How is this process like?

24:58Vivian Tu: We are super, super lucky. We have a showrunner and a full writer that is working on this. Shout out to Sarah Kusierska and Mallory Rosenthal, as well as Patrick Moran Productions, PKM. And we are working all together on it. Gotcha. And are they shooting it? Have you started production yet? We have not started production. We're still in development. But, you know, we're going back and forth and just trying to make it the best show possible. Yeah. I've never heard of like a drama that actually teaches you, you know, business lessons. Yeah. Maybe Breaking Bad did that. Yeah. Right. But I love that.

25:32It's wild. I love this thing about patience because, yeah, you're kind of a freak that you got famous overnight. A lot of people grind out for years, but you kind of got lightning in a bottle. And you're your own talent. You're your own editor, your own production. Now you're kind of in the super slow Hollywood process. How is that different? How does someone who's like entrepreneur or creator, which is the phone, is now into the studio system or the – what do you call it? The production system.

25:58Vivian Tu: I mean, if I'm honest, it is a very new experience. I always joke, I'm like, man, if I was shooting this with my iPhone, I would have been done last week. But you know what? I think there's a reason why it takes this kind of time. Certainly the quality of my videos is very lo-fi, which has done really well for short form. But this is going to be a little bit more of a hi-fi, glossy production process. And I want to make sure we do justice by the story. That's so cool. Do you see a lot of this happening now? Do you see creator IP going from the phones to now? 1 ,000%. You see it now with even just shows on Netflix and Amazon and the game shows.

26:38Vivian Tu: Yeah, but like Drewski, come on. I feel like that guy has got to be a business genius. Or maybe he's not even thinking about it as a business, but everything he creates is comedy gold. And there is a reason why could have been love is getting more views than traditional dating shows. You've got just Alex Earl, who used to vlog her everyday life, just came out with Earl Meets World. Like, I really do think— Boltruski and Alex have been on the show. Yeah. Or they've been on the Forbes Top Creators, so shout-outs there. Yeah, so certainly a good company. She lives right down—her family's like a town over from me, so you see the filming going on.

27:13We don't want them to blow up our spot too much. But yes, that's the gossip in Monmouth County, New Jersey. Everyone's watching Earl Meets World to see where the action, the drama goes.

27:22Vivian Tu: Yeah. It's incredible because you said it's built an audience. You already have, you're not taking a gamble on an actor or actress that maybe people like. It's like, no, we know this person has 10 million fans. That like them. And they're going to go over to that sort of thing. Yeah. You've created a one-person media company, books, shows, and now an app. What is your advice for traditional media? Because I think Forbes, for example, everything's changing. AI is changing our business. We need to think more like creators. We need to figure out a way to translate and distill our stories. Like the old thousand word written story, still really important.

27:56You get a lot of information, investigations, but I'm not sure people are reading much anymore. So we're trying to find ways to distill that content into a 60 second video or an animation or a chart. Maybe that can't be done. Maybe it shouldn't be done, but that's where the audience is. Like if you were like the head of a traditional media company right now in business or in finance, what would you be doing?

28:18Vivian Tu: I would really be prioritizing clipping. Like, you know, I think there is value in long form, but sometimes you're just not going to get someone who can sit down and watch a 45 minute documentary or read a 2000 word, you know, full, you know, expose on something or something that's like deep dive research. what are the most important points? How can you boil it down as a little bit of a teaser? Get people really excited, get them bought into something, and then actually get them to pay attention for the long term. There's a phrase, it's like, you had my attention, now you have my focus. So what are you trying to optimize for?

28:56Vivian Tu: Is it attention or is it focus? Because I think traditional media often wants focus, but you don't get that until you have someone's attention. How do you define those two? I think attention is eyeballs, as many eyeballs as you can. And then focus is how long is somebody willing to spend with you? I think people who are creating content that the video completion rate is 25, 50%, you got focus. Yeah, that's good. That's really, really good. But you can get a zillion views on a video, but if people are only watching the first five seconds, it doesn't really make a difference. So it's football season.

29:33That's one of the rare times I watch TV, let alone live TV. And during the commercials, you see a lot of banks, bank commercials, spending millions. You might see me, by the way. Oh, yeah. I like this.

29:45Vivian Tu: I've got commercials going. I've got to hear about this in a second. Yeah. But what should the finance, and I feel like these are still banks for, they're advertising to boomers, if you will. What could the financial industry learn from you, whether you're a bank, whether you're an investing firm, whether you're, you know, and also you have to disclose who you're working with as a bank too. Yes. If you are watching a lot of television, you actually may see an ad of me and my amazing partners at SoFi. And what I think they have done so well is that they have made talking about finance actually applicable to your daily life.

30:18Vivian Tu: A lot of these commercial spots aren't just, hey, do you want a house? Okay. Like most people would like one. Great. Thank you so much for sharing. No, our spot is actually following a couple who are concerned about not being able to afford a home or, you know, feeling like something is out of reach. And then I, as a essentially a fairy godmother pops into frame and, you know, we're able to talk about like, hey, these are some great solutions that SoFi might be able to offer you. And so I think there's power in storytelling. And I think a lot of financial services companies, especially the old guard, have done a very bad job of that.

30:56Vivian Tu: Dude, make your commercials fun. Make it so that people actually want to watch them. Yeah. Do you actually, we have wings, fairy godmother? No, no wings. A money wand or something? I just look like a helpful good Samaritan. But it's very much so that like, you know, I'm playing the your rich BFF role of, I am there to help all of my BFFs be smarter with their money. How did that commercial work? I mean, what was it like on the set? It was crazy. It was like a commercial shoot. I was there for all day and they're in an elevator, essentially, and we are filming in this elevator and we're telling a number of stories, whether it's someone thinking about investing, whether it's people wanting to beef up their savings and needing a rainy day fund.

31:39Vivian Tu: But I'm having conversations with each of these different people and they're really, really good spots. I'm really proud of them. That's awesome. I'll be keeping an eye on that when I'm watching the New York Giants win, I hope. We'll see what happens. Okay, keep dreaming. It hasn't started yet. I don't know anything about football. I know that's not happening. The season hasn't started yet and the Giants are still undefeated, so I'll take that. What is the difference between you in real life and kind of your rich BFF persona online? Unfortunately, I think anyone who has actually met me in real life will tell you there's not that much of a difference.

32:09Vivian Tu: I am very similar to the person I am when I come across the screen. I think that's actually one of the best compliments I've gotten is when I meet like BFFs in real life, they're like, wow, you are just like I thought you would be. And it's like, yeah, I think, unfortunately, I have one personality and that's the personality you're getting. And for some people, that is absolutely their jam. And for some people, it's not their cup of tea, but I don't need to be everybody's BFF, but maybe I can be yours. Have you always been like that? Very kind of bold, outspoken. Yeah. Not about BS. But it was not good.

32:43Vivian Tu: Like I used to get in trouble in school, like all the time, actually. Like I remember grade school, like elementary school, like I would get a lot of notes home that were like, hey, it doesn't really matter where we put Viv in the classroom. She like unfortunately will chat to anybody. And like the other kids are getting distracted. Like she needs to talk less. And look what talking too much has gotten me. Here we go. And the teachers are like, oh, you turned out better than I thought. Yeah. I like that. So some people say like they have a whole persona or some people say like, oh, like, you know, I'm 10 % extra on film.

33:17Isn't that exhausting? Yeah.

33:19Vivian Tu: Like, I don't know if I could keep that up, if I'm honest with you. Like, I will say like I am very much someone who is extroverted. But at the end of the week, end of the work week, I do love a quiet evening at home, like just with my husband or by myself. And maybe people don't wouldn't guess that. but I think like people who really have been following me for a long time would know that actually. Like I can be both, but for the most part, I've always been like this. What's your investment style besides betting your own money on a risky app? Yeah. Are you, are you a boring or smart and boring index fund person?

33:56Do you pick stocks? Do you bet on Kelsey and, uh, certainly not bet against the New York giants on draft. Absolutely not. What is the, what is your investment like plan?

34:05Vivian Tu: First and foremost, I think prediction markets are a poison. They are the equivalent of sports betting. But for everything else, I do not consider them investing. That's gambling. That is a digital casino and way less fun than going to Vegas. For me, because I'm actually taking such big risks and major investments in myself and my business, I do have to be responsible when I invest. So largely my portfolio is like not that exciting. Lots of index funds, some international funds to give me some diversification. And then where and when it makes sense, like, you know, I might write a check for a private investment.

34:42I was going to say, you have such great access. Are you an angel? Do you have people coming in for angel investing and getting pitch load time or people coming to you?

34:50Vivian Tu: Yeah, I've been getting pitched a lot. I certainly make some investments in private companies between like my husband and I. But if I'm honest, still the very largest investment that I have made in anything like that would be in Ask Dali. I put in over seven figures of my own money. Wow. Do you own the whole thing? I was able to provide some equity to some early stage employees. So I don't own the whole thing, but I do own a good chunk of it. Two years from now, I think you're going to be on the billionaire list because you're going to be like, I own 90 % of this. It's going to the moon and all that.

35:23That's awesome. What's next? What's the next year in store? You launched your app today. Hello, Dolly. I'm sure it's a huge weight off your shoulders. What are you going to do with all your free time?

35:34Vivian Tu: You know, I think today is launch day for Ask Dolly, but it certainly is going to be a long, long slog. I'm really excited to just be investing more of my time into it. Really, really making sure that my audience knows what's available to them. Focusing on building it out to make the product as great as possible. Hopefully moving from development into production for that TV show. Nice. And, you know, continuing on to season four of my podcast. I mean, if I list any other things, I'll probably be oversubscribed, right? Not too much. I'm working a lot, if I'm honest with you. But I feel lucky. I get to wake up every day and do something that's cool that I enjoy doing.

36:11Vivian Tu: It could be a lot worse. I could wake up every day and go to a job I hate. Are you going to run Ask Dolly day-to-day? Do you have a CEO? Is it AI so it runs itself? Tell me about that. No, I have to run it. So I am the CEO. But I have an incredible COO who is Stephanie that I mentioned earlier. She typically leads really strong day-to-day product organization and making sure that everything is as good as it can be. But I'm 100 % leading the company and certainly running the marketing arm. And what's great is that we are able to have synergies between the employees I have for your rich BFF, but also working on Ask Dolly content.

36:47Nice, and you have your podcast.

36:48Vivian Tu: Yes. Everyone has a podcast, even me. What are you seeing in the podcast space? What is working? What is not working for people? If I can be like kind of like hot take here, like there are no podcasts left. They're all vodcasts. You have to do video. Yeah, we gotta think of a new name because vodcast, no one calls it vodcast. Nobody does. They still call it podcasts. Yeah. And yeah, it's just, they're shows. They're shows. But beauty of it is they're very easy to produce. Yeah. The negative side is they're so easy to produce. It's so hard to break through. Well, that's the thing. I think that right now, what you consider a podcast is this, two people with microphones.

37:23Vivian Tu: Podcasts, I think, are getting much more complex to the point where they're almost like sketch shows where each segment is like a little show in itself that otherwise would have stood on social as a standalone little short clip. But now it's being put together as almost a, I'm trying to think of like, what was that show back in the 90s? Like all that. Yeah. Like a little bit of everything. And then it fills a 30, 45 minute slot. Yeah, it's almost like the Tonight Show, the late shows. SNL. There's skits, there's interviews. Yes, yes. There's, you know, debate. They're becoming real TV shows, just not on TV.

38:00Vivian Tu: Yeah, exactly. And you can do something with yours besides – you have a straight-up interview show, obviously. No. So I do interviews as well as a lot of solos. I think there is likely going to be more interactive segments coming. We're still nailing down the details of those. Pranks and contests? Certainly not. Like the Price is Right? I mean, that actually is a fun concept, but I don't think – I want to be really mindful because sometimes I'm covering really big topics. ones that can be very scary to the average listener. I don't want to make light of the cost of living crisis. But when we are talking about Black Friday shopping, a price is right moment might actually be fun and cute.

38:43Yes. That's the thing with money.

38:45Vivian Tu: There's endless possibilities. There's serious. There's frivolous and everything in between. Exactly. Well, Vivian Tu, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you so much for having me.

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