For many people, there can be fewer things more daunting than financial advice and social media, but one Scottish entrepreneur is excelling in both fields.

39-year-old Jennifer Kempson from Glasgow left her traditional 9-5 following significant growth in her Mamafurfur Youtube channel and business.

Kempson, who was called “Furfur” in her first job at a clothes shop in Newton Mearns has taken the nickname to her own family home, thus the name Mamafurfur was born.

Aiming to offer viewers financial advice and information from a range of topics from paying off debt, budgeting, credit cards, apps and investment platforms, index funds and leasing vs PCP, Kempson has amassed a legion of followers with over 72,000 subscribers on Youtube. 

Her success has also seen her nominated for Best Personal Finance Influencer 2021 at the British Bank Awards. 

While the business has been a success and has allowed Kempson to leave her corporate job to focus on content, she initially started the channel to mirror her own financial journey. 

After amassing consumer debt, Kempson, who had worked in IT sales all her life, wanted to share her own journey about paying off debt as well as the information she found about saving, investing, and more. She struggled to find videos relating to debt and more in the UK so opted to share her own journey which, six years later has now resulted in Kempson conducting courses, publishing a book, and a “multi-six figure side hustle” 

She said: “The reason that I started a Youtube channel three years ago was that I felt there was a huge lack of financial information for the UK. I was learning about how to pay off debt, we had £24,000 of consumer debt.

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"I love that because I am Glaswegian they’ve been able to relate to me, I seem like a local person. 

Jennifer Kempson

“I was learning how to get out of that debt as quickly as possible. I was then learning about investing and saving, building side hustles, and all things to do with money that I had never been exposed to when I was growing up.

“I wanted to share that journey because if I needed information then there might well have been someone else out there who would like to know this information as well. I picked up a camera and have been creating content to help people ever since. 

“It really was out of necessity a little bit - wanting to share a journey with other people, and in some way, I have been in IT sales all my life as well. I’ve had to talk to customers and get over a message and I really like helping people and teaching people.

“It just felt really fun, I saw a lot of Youtube channels of other people talking away to cameras and I thought, I could do that, that seems really good fun and I could help people with money.

"Particularly our own money, if I hadn’t learned about how to pay off debt and investing and been stuck for UK voices to find - I don’t think I would have started a channel, so that was the inspiration behind it.”

And her voice has been one of the characteristics that she believes has made her more unique and added to her popularity online, with a podcast with her husband Matt, called The Prosperity Project also adding to her business ventures. She said: “Scottish people will always leave a comment and say “Oh I’m from Glasgow or Edinburgh” which is fantastic.

"I love that and I love also that some people have said because I am Glaswegian they’ve been able to relate to me, I seem like a local person. 

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 “Some people might find my accent difficult to understand but thankfully Youtube offers subtitles if that's the case, but overall I don’t think being Scottish holds me back. If anything it makes me stand out more because there’s quite a lot of UK creators from England. I love the fact that it's another element that's quite unique and will maybe stick out in people’s heads.”

The channel also had a boost around Covid-19 with more people looking into financial advice during the uncertainty caused by the pandemic. Kempson, who has a range of videos from budgeting tips to investment ISAs said that while the pandemic didn’t impact her channel, she did see more people looking for advice on savings. 

She said: “It hasn’t my channel in terms of any impact but obviously I did find that a lot of people were looking for topics on money during the pandemic at the start, and hopefully they found my channel useful and that was a great help. 

“I did feel inspired to focus on more basics of money for the past while I was very aware people might be feeling they had income struggles, so I wanted to show people how to make extra income, how to save, spend well and invest even. 

“I think it was more being aware of what was happening and what were the pain points people might be feeling, and then being driven to make content that could help.”

Although the Mamafurfur brand has found success, the Youtuber has loftier ambitions for the future of her business but wants to make sure that she can balance it alongside her family life.

Having already published one book and launched a successful podcast and offered a number of courses, the Glasgow entrepreneur has her eyes set on further publishing. She said “There’s going to be more books on the way, so I am making the time now to write and get those books started. I would like to reach more people and that’s what I feel is the next part of that. I’ve got products.

“I’d love to see my book in WH Smith, that’s one of my visions and my goals - to be able to go to the airport and see my book there. That would be absolutely incredible going into Glasgow Airport and being able to get a copy of my books.”

One thing is for sure, with the remarkable growth and an ever-growing fanbase, you’ll likely be hearing more from Mamafurfur.