about kylie

The earliest I can ever remember being interested in marketing and having my own business was when I was around 11 years old.

My cousin and I were obsessed with Neopets, had some LiveJournal coding knowledge, and wanted to buy all the cool paintbrushes for our pets (shoutout to my fellow 90’s babies who understand what I’m talking about), so we started a business building guild layouts and selling them in the Neopet forums.

Not so long story short, we ended up becoming Neopet millionaires and I was completely hooked.

Business, marketing, internet, building things online have been all I’ve ever done.

From that point of sitting in front of my family computer (because early 2000’s) at 1 am with my cousin falling asleep next to me, I created a plan for my life that would let me do all of this AND travel the world (because this was my second obsession).

I was going to get a corporate marketing job that involved travel in some way and work my way up that ladder to eventually become a CMO or start my own business.

I got my Bachelor’s degree in Global Management and dove headfirst into my first corporate marketing job.

It was a great company with great people and I learned a TON, but I was never really happy there. Travel was unlikely and I was bored with the products, so I started applying to other jobs.

And I found one that I desperately wanted.

It was as a Marketing Associate for a travel company. I would be doing everything I loved AND have amazing opportunities to travel. I applied and waited. And waited. And waited some more.

But then, after I gave up thinking it would happen, they called me for an interview. I went in and got the job. 

I was so convinced this was going to be the most amazing opportunity that ever got in my entire life. And boy was I wrong (or right depending on how you look at it).

For about 3 months I was over the moon happy with my new job. But then little things started to trickle in and by the time I hit 6 months, I was exhausted. And by 1 year, I was hating everything and crying in my car on the way to and from work every day. 

Then came the breaking point. 

I was trying to work out a way that I could work remotely and travel to Costa Rica for 5 weeks for my honeymoon. It wasn’t that they said no and wouldn’t work with me on it. It was that it came down to, you can either work here and not go, or you can quit and maybe you can have your job back if we don’t find anyone and you reapply.

So I quit.

At the time I was up for a big promotion that would have almost doubled my annual income and I didn’t have anything else lined up. Just an idea that I would start virtual assisting, somehow, and make it work.

People thought I was insane (coworkers, family, friends, basically everyone I knew), but my soul needed this.

My soul needed this trip. My soul needed to get out of that terribly lit, outdated cubicle, office where it was not so slowly dying. And it was damn time I decided to listen and put myself first. 

And wouldn’t you know it? Before my last day, I found a new Virtual Assistant company that was looking for contractors and became the very first assistant they brought on.

After that, I went to Costa Rica, sat on the porch of our Airbnb, and worked while watching the birds and lizards all around me and spending my free time at the beach with my new husband.

I spent a year and a half with the contracting company learning everything I could about the digital entrepreneur space, working with women who were actively growing their businesses through sales flows and automations, before I decided it was time for me to do it on my own and form my own business, Magical Marketing with Kylie Ide. 

And the rest, as they say, is history.