When you walk through Tracy Colcord’s front door, the hallway is lined with shelves full of snacks, souvenir drink cups, shampoos and soaps. Cross into the kitchen and you’ll find a couple racks of clothing and a table piled high with shipping boxes.
“Cut this so it doesn’t sound crazy?” asked Tracy.
In case you didn’t catch that, Tracy’s asking me to cut this, so it doesn’t sound too crazy. We’re standing at her kitchen counter and she’s mounting her phone on a tripod.
“So I do most of my videos in my kitchen. Even when I do makeup or hair tutorials, oftentimes they’re in the kitchen, and I think it makes people feel comfortable that it’s not so formal in front of some big makeup mirror or anything that’s super fancy,” said Tracy. “It’s realistic and like, hey, maybe you got to put your eyeliner on in the kitchen while you’re feeding your kids and out the door.”
Tracy turns to the camera and unwraps a protein bar. Suddenly, a goldendoodle comes bounding in, leaps up and puts its paws on Tracy’s waist.
“He’s still all puppy. We just got him in January,” said Tracy.
Buddy is one of several dogs that live with Tracy. Not to mention her husband, her friend Megan and Megan’s son. Megan works remotely from the kitchen table. She has a desktop computer set up amidst the boxes and clothing.
“I’m a lot of times in the background or like I’ll hand her something, or I’m sitting here giggling because she’ll say something and I’m just like, ‘Pfft!’” said Megan
Tracy’s husband chases Buddy out of the kitchen, and Tracy resumes her post in front of the camera. She takes a deep breath and starts recording.
“Hey everybody, we are back. We need a little afternoon snack, a little protein pick-me-up. So we are back with Dive Bar,” said Tracy’s. “We had two more from our original four trial pack, and I will link that here in case you want to try them for yourself. We have salted caramel pretzel and then we’ve got peanut butter chocolate chip.”
Back in 2020, like a lot of people, Tracy was stuck at home during the pandemic. And when the NCAA championship was canceled, she had an idea for TikTok video.
“I started March Madness bracketing snacks. I started with pickles. I did the eight. Anything we could find eight of, we basically did that,” she said.
She started with the Elite Eight pickle bracket.
“And that blew up,” she said. “And then people were like, ‘Oh, we need to see this for Oreos. We need to see this for Pop Tarts. We need to see it for the … ’”
People kept watching, and Tracy kept posting. She built an audience based on snack videos. But before long, she started branching out. She posted about books she was reading, lip balm, a desktop iPhone holder that she bought on Amazon.
“The new shampoo that I got, which was for hair thinning because I’m getting older and my hair wants to fall out. And then I got some new hair tools,” she said. “As a 50-plus-year-old lady, I want pretty hair and I want to do all of these things. And so I buy hair tools and test them out and say, ‘Hey, if I’m not too old to figure it out, you aren’t either. We can all do this together.’ So I got a deep waver …” she said.
Her strategy, she says, was simple. She just filmed herself doing the things she was already doing, which she admits was often online shopping. But the videos weren’t just about the products she was buying, they were also about her.
“You know, there was a lot of talk at one point, and I guess it comes around about niching down and making sure you have your niche and what is your niche,” said Tracy. “And I said, ‘I’m me. My niche is me.’ Whatever I want to do that day, whatever I want to talk about that day. If I don’t enjoy doing it, it’s all going to come to an end. If I get stressed out, if I’m trying to beat an algorithm, I can’t do that.”
Whatever Tracy was doing, the algorithm really liked it. By the end of 2023, she had more than 450,000 TikTok followers.
And then someone told her about something called TikTok Shop. Basically, you make a video recommending a product and include a link for people to buy it if one of your viewers clicks that link, TikTok recognizes that the sale came from your video and you get a commission.
Tracy figured she’d give it a try. She posted a video of a table she liked, and, lo and behold, some commissions started to trickle in. So she kept going, making the same videos she’d been making all along but with tick tock shop links.
“And by the end of December, I think I made close to $9,000,” she said.
Tracy was hooked. One day she posted a video about a sweater she liked.
@officiallytracytime 3 sizes, Let’s see the difference. This sweater is the softest and most cozy ever! Run do not delay to grab at least 2. You will be sad if you biy only one beczuse you cant wear it everyday.
♬ original sound - Tracy Colcord
“And I had originally got a 2XL because I was quite heavier then. And I put it on and it was just so big. And so I was like, well, maybe I need an extra large. And then somebody in the comments had even said, ‘I think maybe even a large.’ So I went back and got more sizes, and then I came back on and they did a three-size comparison,” she said. “And people are like, ‘This is the most amazing video I’ve ever seen.’ And I don’t know how many millions of views it has now. I could I could go look at it, but — “
“At the end of that day, I had made $14,000,” she said.
Tracy’s life is complicated. She’s got the dogs, the husband, Megan and her son living with her. She’s got student loans, old cars that need repairs and a mortgage. Before December of last year, there were times when Tracy didn’t have enough cash to pay the bills at the end of the month. And at first, when the TikTok commissions started flowing into her bank account, Tracy couldn’t believe it.
“I was like, ‘This sounds fake.’ I mean, that’s more money than I’ve ever had in a month. You’re trying to just get through life and make things a little better. And the thought of that just was crazy,” she said.
But it wasn’t fake. Now, several months into selling on TikTok shop, Tracy says she’s paid off her credit cards. She’s making progress on the student loans and the mortgage. She’s saving up to buy a minivan to replace the old cars.
“My goal is, we weren’t set up for any sort of retirement. I mean, we were basically on the plan that work until you physically or mentally couldn’t anymore. And now with this, we have a chance to breathe and maybe get there,” she said.
When Tracy says she and her husband weren’t set up for retirement, that’s not because she was just sitting around making TikTok videos before she started selling on the platform TikTok Shop is just a side hustle.
“I’m lucky that, you know, my day job that I work 40 hours is, kind of I get to work the 40 hours that I want,” she said.
Between working full time and often taking care of her grandsons, Tracy finds whatever extra hours she can to film, edit and post her videos.
“I will say that I’m up late most evenings. Very late,” she said,
She said she goes to bed sometime between midnight and 2 a.m.
Tracy says people sometimes ask her why she’s still bothering to work the day job. And when they do, she points to the legislation recently signed by President Joe Biden that could lead to a ban on TikTok. So she’s not taking anything for granted. But for now, the extra work is paying off.
“In the first quarter of January, February and March, I tripled what my actual annual income is at my day job,” she said.
To me, Tracy’s life doesn’t sound crazy. Plenty of people have student loan debt and old cars that need repairs and loved ones to take care of and bills to pay. Plenty of people wish they could lose some weight, or fill out their hairline, or find a protein bar that tastes good and doesn’t have too much sugar.
I can see how all of that would make you feel a little crazy, especially if you’re working a full-time job and still find yourself coming up short at the end of the month. Plenty of people have had that feeling. I sure have.
And if you had told me at times in my life when I couldn’t make ends meet, that what I should do is self-produce free commercials and post them on a social media platform that might not exist in a few months? I think I would just feel defeated.
Tracy doesn’t feel that way. Sure, sometimes she’s trying to make a video and Buddy knocks something over, or she gets an email from her boss, or her daughter calls to ask if Tracy can pick up her grandson. And in moments like that, she does get momentarily overwhelmed. But no matter how crazy it gets, Tracy just keeps going.
So it’s just all kind of happening at the same time.
“Yeah, and I think if I waited for the perfect time or a moment or whatever to get anything done, no videos would get done. And I think a lot of people always are kind of waiting for the next best time or whatever. And I’m like, just do it in the chaos,” she said.
