. @JoshRichards is one of the world's most famous TikTok stars. He has 23.9M fans on the platform.

His goal? Be the first influencer billionaire.

The crazy part? He's 18, but already on his way to accomplishing it.

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2) Josh started his social media career on Musically at age 14. His goal was to have 10,000 followers before he entered high school. He spent up to 5 hours a day creating videos

He ended the summer with 26,000 followers.

3) ByteDance purchased Musically and all his followers transferred over to TikTok.

He started making money on TikTok and by the age of 17 had signed brand deals with Reebok, CashApp and Crocs.

He decided to pursue social media full-time.

4) Today Josh has 23.9M fans on TikTok, 7.5M followers on Instagram and 2.45M subscribers on YouTube.

He began to realize that there was a lot more opportunity to earn money than just signing brand deals.

5) In 2019, Josh Richards made $1.5M on TikTok. This made him the 5th highest earning TikTok star.

Josh started taking some of that money and began angel investing. His portfolio includes Stir, Atmos, Chalk Messaging & more.

Remus Capital, a VC firm, took notice and hired him.

6) In August 2020, he joined Triller, a TikTok competitor, as its chief strategy officer. He announced he was going to create content exclusively for Triller, but has since begun producing content on TikTok again.

7) He launched an energy drink with fellow TikTok star, @BryceHall. Their goal?

To be the biggest energy drink in the world.

The energy drinks space had more than $12.8B in sales last year.

8) He invested in Ellen Degeneres's company, UnHide. Unhide is a faux fur brand dedicated to finding alternatives to fur for the fashion industry and consumers.

He's not only an investor but a co-creative director in the business.

9) He has a budding music career. He's only released one song on Spotify, but it has over 20M listens. He signed a joint venture with Warner Music to produce his future music.

10) He launched the BFF's podcast with @stoolpresidente, founder of Barstool Sports.

Its consistently been a top 100 ranked podcast in the United States.

11) He is an even actor. He has starred in movies like his Brother's Keeper and has Gersh Agency representing him

12) He even has big-time mentors:

• Sean Rad, founder of Tinder
• @aplusk
• @wolfejosh, partner at Lux Capital
• Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, founders of Gemini

13) Josh Richards is the perfect example of the Creator Flywheel. Build an audience. Leverage that audience into other areas:

• Music
• Acting
• Merchandise
• Investing
• Brand Deals

14) He's only 18, but at this pace, there is no reason he can't hit his goal of being the first billionaire influencer.

cc: @motdraw1 https://www.forbes.com/sites/tomward/2020/11/30/josh-richards-wants-to-be-the-first-influencer-billionaire/?sh=342f077b4151

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