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How one 'messy' influencer turned her passion for organizing into a seven-figure business endorsed by celebs
Despite considering herself a naturally messy person, "RíOrganize" founder Ría Safford was able to turn a side-hustle of helping friends organize their living spaces into a seven-figure luxury home organizing business.
Safford spoke to Fox News Digital this week about how her frustration with her own messy lifestyle inspired her to get creative with organizing and grow a flourishing business from that.
"I couldn't keep living the way that I live life, which is totally messy, things all over the place, no systems," she said. "And so I was able to figure out systems that worked for myself, and it was at that moment that I knew that I could help other people."MEGHAN MARKLE SAYS SHE STRUGGLED BEFORE FAME AND ROYALTY
Currently, Safford's RíOrganize employs professional lifestyle experts to help people find creative and tasteful ways of organizing their spaces. The business helps people reorganize everything from their kitchen pantries to their bedrooms, to even their entire homes. It also provides moving services for clients.
"For our bread-and-butter home services, it's typically a whole home – like overhaul of organizing – so helping people edit their inventory, coming up with new storage solutions, and product sourcing, and installing to make the most sense for their life," she said.
Safford added that her teams focus on observing clients' habits, to find out "what would make the biggest impact for them to live a routine-ready, stress-free streamlined life."
She also described the moving services her company offers, noting she added them to RíOrganize during the COVID-19 pandemic.
"We do packing assistance, moving coordination, and then unpacking and whole home organization. That's all within 'relocation,'" she said.
When asked where she got the idea for her business, the business owner noted the surprising fact that she is "not your typical organizer."
"I'm a naturally messy person and I had a daughter at 24 and when I started having kids, there was just chaos," she said, adding that helped her figure out systems that worked for her and then find ways to help out others.
As to the exact spark behind the RíOrganize idea, Safford pointed to an old idea from college, saying she first dreamed it up in a marketing class.
She added that once she had her daughter, she "realized very quickly the corporate life wasn't for me" and decided to lean into the business.
"What started as a side hustle to, you know, help cover mortgage and be home more, turned into a seven-figure business," Safford said.
RíOrganize serves clients in the Los Angeles and Orange County area in California, and has most recently established a team in the Dallas area. It has been featured in People, US Weekly, Better Homes & Gardens, and its famous clients include model Chrissy Teigen.
Safford told Fox that one of the biggest breaks for her company came in 2019 when she organized a pantry for Teigen and it blew up on social media.
"I'm cooking dinner and my phone starts blowing up. My husband's phone starts to blow up. I'm like, 'what is going on?'" Safford stated.
She continued, "People Magazine called me within 10 minutes. [Teigen] had posted a carousel of a pantry that I had done for her, and it was her third or fourth-most liked Instagram post ever. It got like 1.4 million likes. It was totally insane. I ended up getting nearly 200,000 followers cumulatively from that project."
Safford explained that she got the Teigen gig after going viral for helping Jen Atkin, the hairstylist for the Kardashians, organize her home in 2019.
She said that was the moment her "life changed."
When asked if she had any tips for people looking to get more organized on their own, she didn't hold back.
"One is, do not purchase without a purpose. And I feel like, so often people are in the aisles of Home Goods or Costco, and they're like, 'Oh my gosh, something's on sale,' or 'Oh my gosh, these jars are so cute. I'll figure out something for it on the backend…' And so you find yourself trying to force your things to work for these products because you bought the products versus having edited and intentionally created a space that you know, OK, I need this product to really help maximize here."
The second tip she gave is "giving yourself the appropriate amount of time" to take on reorganizing projects so they actually get done.
Watch Ría Safford appear on "Fox & Friends" on June 23 at 6:50 AM ET.
