→ Nominated by Kinsey Grant, managing editor
→ Written by Hannah Doyle
Tezza Barton is redefining creativity for lifestyle creators. Over the last decade, the 32-year-old has built an audience of 1+ million as a sought-after photographer, multi-hyphenate lifestyle creator, and tech founder.
On that last one: While most lifestyle creators grow their reach by dabbling in beauty, snacks, or fashion collaborations, Barton dove head-first into one of the most competitive and volatile industries out there: tech startups. The risk seems to have paid off—her popular photo editing app, Tezza, is taking on some of the app store’s biggest players.
"It's been interesting to see Tezza's brand evolve to both rise to the changing standard of a successful lifestyle creator and to help her create a sustainable, scalable business outside of just making fashion content."
– Kinsey Grant
→ The ‘Tezza’ brand released its first zine in September, which featured 15 artists. / Tezza Barton, Tezza
She innovated by…
Building Tezza into a true contender in tech. The app is on track for its highest-performing year yet, expected to end 2023 with $32 million in annual recurring revenue, the company told Forbes.
Since launching in 2018, Tezza has been downloaded 20 million times and currently has 2.5 million monthly active users—99% of its revenue comes from paid subscribers. While competitive apps like VSCO and Snapseed have upwards of 100 million monthly users, Tezza’s app stands out for a few reasons: It’s female-led, self-funded, and self-developed, with her husband Cole Herrmann as co-founder and lead developer. But maybe most crucially, Tezza’s audience is baked in because of her work as a content creator.
“VSCO and Snapseed are both great apps but they don’t have the built-in distribution that the Tezza app has via Tezza Barton the creator,” Kinsey Grant, Publish Press editor and cofounder of Smooth Media, said. “I think that’s an interesting strategic advantage.”
Tezza’s creator-first approach leans into Barton’s expertise as a popular lifestyle creator, empowering the app to zero in on exactly what Barton’s audience tells her they want. FYI, Tezza’s app users include a who’s who of Instagram: Kourtney Kardashian, Gigi Hadid, Shay Mitchell, and Ashley Graham, to name a few.
Barton’s followers told her they didn’t want to edit photos on desktop, which inspired Barton and her husband to begin working on the Tezza app in 2016. They launched in 2018 and received 1 million downloads in the first month. By 2021, they’d reached 14 million downloads.
Some interesting details
The app is free to download and has three subscription tiers, ranging from $6–10/month.
Tezza didn’t run its first ad until last year—Barton’s personal Instagram has been its primary marketing arm.
Where Tezza Got Her Start
From the time Barton majored in photography at University of Utah in 2010, she’s maintained a vision: make photo editing more accessible. So she started a blog and became one of the first creators to sell Adobe Lightroom presets. She shared photos on Tumblr, Pinterest, and Instagram, developing her own aesthetic and helping her audience learn how to take creative, artful photos.
Barton believed even the most casual Instagram user could create art—a mission that resonated with her followers. After graduation in 2013, Barton moved to New York and continued her career building a social following and taking on professional photography work with brands like Tresemme and Gucci.
“I actually saw her shooting on the corner of my street [in NYC] and it was so interesting to see how much care she and her husband were taking for an Instagram photo,” Grant said.
“Nothing was an accident, everything had a creative purpose and design behind it, and I think the care she’s taken to bring that creativity to life is why she’s had staying power,” Grant said.
How Tezza Connects It All
→ Beyond photography and app development, Tezza’s projects delve into music, apparel and eyewear, magazines, and more.
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The Path She’s Paving
Barton’s approach to app development is radically different from most tech companies: It’s community-first.
“We’re not an app, we’re a brand,” Barton said of Tezza on the Tom Ward Show. Tezza has a newsletter, a magazine, and collage prints for purchase on the app’s website. “Our brand exists because of our community. It doesn’t have to be big.”
For a small brand with about a dozen employees, Tezza makes a big impact—the app’s Instagram has over 1 million followers, collabs with influencers like Paige Lorenze, and drops merch that regularly sells out. Would a VSCO sweatshirt have the same appeal?
Looking ahead
Tezza plans to explore AI tools as it continues to build. For instance, the company is exploring a feature that makes a digital image look like it was shot on film.
🔗 Tezza’s Links:
Watch
“I think of all those lanes that she’s in, the common thread is this commitment to creativity and bringing art to life no matter the medium. It’s really interesting to watch how she’s let art infiltrate every aspect of her creator career. She takes a lot of care to bring artfulness and creativity to something as simple as a brand partnership on her stories.”
— Kinsey Grant on Tezza Barton’s creator career
