Nine years ago, Olivia Adkins started posting outfits on Instagram while pregnant with her first child, on a whim and a nudge from her husband. He thought she could probably do it. She figured, why not.

Today, she’s a San Diego-based fashion and lifestyle creator with more than 250,000 followers across platforms, a thriving affiliate business where affiliate marketing accounts for about 75% of her total earnings, and a clothing line in the works that she built from the ground up. The girl who never thought fashion could be a career has quietly become one of the most consistent and community-driven voices in the creator economy.

And she’s still just getting started.

From Pre-Med to Full-Time Creator

Olivia and her husband met in college, both on a pre-med track, and both working at the same hospital when their first child arrived. She always knew she wanted to be a mom, and after their first, she knew she didn’t want both of them in medical school at the same time. When COVID hit a few years later, that decision became permanent.

“COVID happened, and I was like, I’m never going back to medicine,” she says. “And that was also, coincidentally, when I started making money. So I was like, you know what, this is easier and a lot less stressful.”

The timing was no accident. Olivia had been building her platform steadily since 2017, initially posting fashion and motherhood content on Instagram before expanding into travel, home décor, and general lifestyle. Fashion remained her anchor, not because it was a strategic choice, but because it was always just who she was.

“I remember taking cute outfit photos even in high school,” she says. “But I was raised pretty traditionally, and the idea of fashion as a career never really crossed my mind. In my head, the only job in fashion was to be a designer, and I didn’t want to do that.”

She laughs at the irony now, given what she’s been building lately. More on that in a moment.

Affordable Style, Real Life

Ask Olivia about her go-to brands and she answers without hesitation: Walmart, Target, and Amazon. The preference isn’t just a content strategy. It’s personal. She and her husband were young and broke when they had their first child, and she grew up with a single mom who dressed her from Target and Walmart back when that wasn’t considered the cool thing to do.

“Finding affordable things has always been a fun experience for me,” she says. “And now it’s like the most popular thing. It really did change.”

That grounded perspective has shaped how she creates content. Olivia is acutely aware that her consumption habits as a creator, buying and testing hundreds of items a month, are not the norm for the average consumer, and she works hard not to let that gap show.

“You have to be able to put yourself in whoever’s shoes you’re selling to,” she explains. “No normal person is shopping the way that you are. So you just have to try to think like a consumer and make it realistic for your audience.”

It’s an approach that has paid off. Affiliate marketing now makes up roughly 75% of her total income, a split she says surprises a lot of newer creators who underestimate just how lucrative it can be compared to traditional brand deals.

The Art of the Pivot

Nine years is a long time in any industry. In the creator economy, it’s practically a lifetime. Olivia has watched the landscape transform completely, from a world of static Instagram photos and blog websites to one that demands Reels, TikToks, Stories, Pinterest boards, and YouTube videos, often all at once.

“When I started, there were no Reels, no video, no Stories. It was literally just photos on Instagram and a website,” she says. “I can’t imagine jumping in today and having to handle all of those things at once.”

But she’s navigated every shift, and she’s clear about what’s made the difference: the ability to adapt.

“The most valuable trait you can have is to be able to pivot,” she says. “It’s very clear, looking back over nine years, that the people who have been able to change and do different things have always been the most successful. If you don’t change, you’re going to get left behind. It’s a very fast-moving industry.”

Olivia is currently active on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Pinterest, and YouTube, with Instagram remaining her primary platform. She’s also in the midst of one of the most exciting pivots of her career: the development of Maybell and Mine, her own clothing line named after her middle and maiden names. It’s a project her community has been involved in from the beginning, following along as she’s shared behind-the-scenes glimpses of the process.

“I never wanted to be a designer,” she laughs. “Which is funny, because here we are.”

A Community Built on Real Life

One of the things that sets Olivia apart is how deliberately she maintains connection with her community beyond the products she recommends. With four kids and nearly a decade of life shared online, she’s learned that the most meaningful moments aren’t the outfit posts. They’re the ones where she shows up as a person.

“I involve my audience in things, whether that’s something as simple as asking them to help me pick an outfit or sharing advice,” she says. “You have to have something else there to connect with them on a level that’s not constantly asking them to buy something.”

Motherhood, and specifically the postpartum experience, has been one of the most powerful connectors. Olivia has gone through postpartum publicly four times, and she’s consistently heard from followers that her openness helped them feel less alone during a chapter that still isn’t talked about enough.

“When I went through it the first time, it was not talked about on social media at all,” she says. “So especially going through it the first time, you’re like, what is happening? Those messages from women saying I helped them feel more comfortable, or confident, or just less like they were losing their mind? Those are my favorite messages. That’s the stuff that makes it feel worth it.”

She’s also learned to recognize the community members who’ve been with her for years: the ones she can spot in her DMs, who know her references, who have watched her grow.

“It’s nice,” she says simply. “They’ve been there through the whole thing.”

Coming Back to Mavely

Olivia first worked with Mavely in 2023, but stepped back for a period as the platform was going through a season of rapid growth and change. When Creator Success Manager Amina Butt reached out and encouraged her to reconnect, Olivia was honest: she’d need to be convinced.

She was.

“Amina got me on a call and really sold it,” Olivia says. “The big thing was Mavely getting acquired by Later. And I just appreciated that she came to me directly and said, I promise you things are different.”

What brought her back, and what’s kept her engaged, is a combination of transparency and genuine relationship. As someone who describes herself as highly analytical, having clear access to her performance data matters to her. But beyond the numbers, it’s the dynamic she’s found with the Mavely team that stands out.

“A lot of relationships in the creative world can feel really one-sided,” she says. “Where you’re talking up a brand because you need something from them, but it’s not really reciprocated. With Mavely, it feels like a two-way street. They take feedback. They’re creator-forward. And they’re actually in tune with what the creator world looks like day to day, which not every platform can say.”

Her Advice for New Creators

When asked what she’d tell a creator just starting out, Olivia pauses. The question is genuinely hard for her, she says, because the industry looks so different now than it did when she began that she’s not sure where she’d even start. But she lands on one thing.

“Just be yourself and let that part of you come through your platform,” she says. “Anyone can share deals and outfits and a picture-perfect lifestyle. But there’s not a ton of people who share their real self and a real-life view of things. And that is something that is genuinely valued in this industry, more than a lot of people realize.”

For a creator nine years in, still building, still pivoting, still showing up for a community that has grown alongside her, it sounds less like advice and more like the thing she’s been doing all along.

Want More Inspiration?

Follow @oliviamaybell to keep up with Olivia’s latest fashion finds, behind-the-scenes content, and everything she’s building next. For more creator stories like hers, head to the Mavely blog and explore our full library of Creator Spotlight features.

Not on Mavely yet? Join now and start building your own creator business today.