Meeta Vengapally is a leading Instagram influencer and the founder and CEO of Garnysh, a Silicon Valley-based fitness and technology company that uses real-time tracking and analysis to support fitness and nutrition goals. Known for its glamorous photos and eye-catching product recommendations, Meeta's Instagram profile page is @meetamoment, where it has and counts over 179,000 followers.
More than 500 brands have turned to Meeta for sponsorship and promotions, including Target, Bumble Biz, Amazon, Fresh Beauty, Frigidaire, and Sephora. She has also named many magazine covers as top influencers, including Gmaro, Moevir Paris, and Rich & Beautiful.
We sat down for an interview with Meeta to find out how she got started for the first time, how she deals with influencer marketing and how others can start their own influencer careers.
Meeta Vengapally: When I started my tech and fitness startup, I was approached by a fitness company to test their new products and give feedback. I had less than 5,000 Instagram followers at the time. Giving that kind of feedback seemed like a good fit. I loved it and the rest was history. One partnership led to another, and now I have a team whose entire job is to review sponsorships and deals on a daily basis. In retrospect, the whole process was natural and organic.
Vengapally: That's a good question. When I started I didn't know what I was. As this thing started to grow, I heard someone refer to me as an influencer and actually had to go see what that meant. This was back when the concept was fairly new.
