00:00:55.760Today's episode is a rerun, but a really relevant one.
00:00:59.060This week we talked about Australia's ban on social media for teenagers, and I wanted to bring another perspective back into our feed.
00:01:08.200This is an episode that's a deep dive into the world of a 16-year-old TikTok star who wants to change the industry as we know it and ensure that the next 20 billionaires are females under 25.
00:01:21.640Sloane Price is a wildly ambitious social media star, and she has big plans about changing the landscape and making it better for young creators, especially women.
00:01:33.260I think in light of Australia's ban, my conversation with her is really important to resurface.
00:10:22.940kind of what I went through and what I suffered through ended up helping a lot of others. And
00:10:27.460like, that is so exciting to me. And like, that is what I continue to aim for as I gain followers
00:10:32.260to reach as many people as possible. And I think that the very best part ultimately has been
00:10:38.040the connections I've gotten to make with other influencers that are my age as well.
00:10:47.400And how were your parents involved in all of this? Did they know what you were doing on social
00:10:52.540media? Were they nervous about it? Are they excited about it? Well, I think that at first
00:10:59.300they were a little bit nervous about it. That's for sure. I don't even know if they knew that I
00:11:04.500had TikTok, but they have always been pretty supportive of whatever I do. And as long as I
00:11:10.940take independence in it and I take control of it. So, you know, all the different sports I've did,
00:11:16.120the different activities I've had in some speech and debate, they let me do it as long as I'm the
00:11:20.200one reaching out to the adults and I'm the one scheduling my coaching and I'm the one making it
00:11:24.560happen so that I'm not being forced into anything, but I'm doing it like out of my own passion and
00:11:29.500because I really want to. And so I think that they saw that it was something that I was passionate
00:11:32.880about and let me go from there. But definitely during those periods of time where I was struggling
00:11:40.720a little bit because of the like hate I was receiving, I remember my mom sitting me down
00:11:46.700and saying like you don't have to do this you know like if this is if this is something that's
00:11:51.240this hard on you then you should stop but you know I couldn't and I didn't and I'm glad that
00:11:57.700I didn't now but yeah I've luckily had them be pretty supportive with this and I think that like
00:12:01.960them supporting me instead of trying to force it away is really helpful because I do have a lot of
00:12:08.020friends that are creators and their parents don't know about it or their parents very recently found
00:12:13.080out and are mad at them. And I think that the parents need to be just as involved in a teen
00:12:19.280social media journey because your teen is suddenly going to be offered things like contracts to join
00:12:25.080agencies that will take a percentage of your kids' brand deals. And just as much as the kids aren't
00:12:32.480experts in business, the parents aren't experts in how social media marketing and business works
00:12:40.340as well. Like it's a totally foreign thing for so many people. And so it is definitely hard because
00:12:45.140even when parents are supportive, oftentimes the inexperience can get parents and their teens into
00:12:52.300pretty, pretty unfortunate situations with different brand deals and agencies that I
00:12:57.660definitely found myself in a few times throughout the years. Yeah. And I want to hear a little bit
00:13:02.600about that. When did you start getting offered money to do things and how did you navigate that?
00:13:08.840I mean, I find that hard to navigate as a 44-year-old woman.
00:13:13.660How did you navigate it as a teenager?
00:13:16.520Yeah, I think I had around 40 or 50,000 followers whenever I first started getting reached out just by brands privately.
00:13:26.720And I remember that I did a deal with a phone case app, and I'm pretty transparent about these numbers.
00:13:32.880And I remember that I got like a few thousand dollars to make one or two posts.
00:13:37.540And that was wild to me. Obviously, that's wild to anyone. That is a lot of money. And I was so shocked that I was worth so much. Like my content and my ability to reach people was very confusing. And shortly after that, I got reached out to by one of these talent agencies, what they're called, that help coordinate brand deals.
00:13:58.780and so I signed with them it was a year-long contract and I immediately was in contact with
00:14:06.740them I was on a like a private group chat without my mom in it that was just like two of the people
00:14:13.360that worked at the agency and myself and they would offer me brand deals and I would you know
00:14:19.620send the deliverables and I would do it but honestly I think I very quickly realized that
00:14:25.000it was not my thing it really wasn't I I was given scripts by these brands and really strict
00:14:32.680requirements for the videos from the agency and they wouldn't be satisfied with certain ways that
00:14:37.540I did it and kind of took away what I think is like the most fun and exciting part of social
00:14:42.400media and that is um like the authentic relationship and trust that you have with your audience
00:14:47.900and I remember the first time I got a comment that was saying hey didn't she just promote
00:14:53.520um a different lipstick thing last week like she said that one was the best now she's saying this
00:15:02.420one's the best and that really alarmed me because I was like influencers entire job is built on
00:15:09.180the trust that they have with their followers and the more you throw products at them and the more
00:15:15.720you promise them things that you might you don't even believe in the less they trust you and the
00:15:20.320And that was super alarming to me. And I not only that, but the agency was very unprofessional with me. They would shame me if I wasn't willing to do brand deals with apps or brands that were not quality and compare me to other girls in the agency on things that I did.
00:15:37.780god but you're a kid i know and i i think that another aspect of it is like there's there's
00:15:44.440actually so many like strict guidelines and like legal rules around how you have to classify ads
00:15:50.000online and all these rules were completely disregarded by the agency there are multiple
00:15:54.780times where i posted um that they didn't even tell me to mark it as a paid promotion which is
00:16:00.520literally illegal and i was just like very alarmed by all of this and it made me stop and eventually
00:16:07.480rescind the contract and just begin doing it for fun. And it was so unfortunate because I'd heard
00:16:15.240so many similar stories from other girls that were going through that same thing. And I just
00:16:20.120think that it's pretty unfortunate that you get given this opportunity to reach people at a scale
00:16:25.980that so many business owners would pay so much money to do. So much money to do. Oh my gosh.
00:16:33.340We have all this worth and all this value. And
00:16:37.480these adult agencies come in and they exploit that and they limit your opportunities and
00:16:42.860they restrict you from working with people outside of them. And that is A, why I have stopped
00:16:48.920recently doing brand deals with an agency and why I'm trying to start an incubator that
00:16:55.060kind of handles teams differently, not with this approach of like short-term money and
00:17:00.260working inconsistently with all sorts of brands, but rather developing a message
00:17:05.000of your own so that you don't lose that influence and you become a permanent owner in the business
00:17:10.420space and so my kind of goal is to help other teen creators specifically girls find what they're
00:17:19.900passionate about and and really turn that influence into ownership because without ownership it's
00:17:25.180temporary and i and that's why i'm so excited about what i'm doing because i feel like i'm
00:17:31.300getting to help girls that are going through the exact same thing that I did and show them
00:17:35.740from a teen's perspective, not from someone who was just trying to exploit them or limit
00:17:40.340their opportunities, what they are capable of and what they can make out of this awesome
00:17:45.540opportunity that they have through the form of social media.
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00:18:58.360this bold question from Dentine Gum. Is it ever okay to compliment a millennial on their skinny0.89
00:19:05.760jeans in 2026? Dentine, too bold. Okay, we are back. You have big goals and big dreams, which
00:19:24.380I freaking love. Like, this makes me so happy. And I also love that you saw a true hole and a
00:19:30.780problem in the market, which is that I think too many young influencers, much like young celebrities
00:19:39.700have for years, have been exploited by, you know, hugely capitalistic agencies who do not have these
00:19:48.400young people's best interests at heart. And so, you know, having an agency created by a young0.60
00:19:56.020woman for young women makes so much sense to me. How did you get, how did you come to this idea?
00:20:03.380Well, I actually was working on a business of my own. I was thinking, hey, if I'm really worth
00:20:09.960this much, why am I only getting a 20% cut of it? This should all be going towards something
00:20:15.600that I create. I should have this message of my own. I totally had the mindset and I was applying
00:20:21.000it myself. I was going to need to work on creating a hair-related company. Whenever I took a step
00:20:26.840back and realized that me, one person making a brand as a teen influencer was only going to get
00:20:35.740us one step closer to this goal of kind of teen girl domination in the business world. And I
00:20:42.780I figured that since I kind of had this clarity and this ability to focus on long term achievement instead of the short term gain that a lot of other influencers haven't been haven't been exposed to or haven't gotten the opportunity to hear about that.
00:20:58.660the better move for me to make would be to help others and to get a whole group together in the
00:21:07.720way that we are able to band together and create influence and have all sorts of businesses created
00:21:13.360and really work towards this vision that I wanted to see because I realized that well you know me
00:21:19.540doing myself it would have been exciting I was excited about the idea of a business I can reach
00:21:25.260so many more people and help so many more creators by really investing in them and really giving
00:21:32.700them the help rather than just doing it and hoping they follow an example. And so I have all sorts of
00:21:38.960different friends that I've been reaching out with and really getting to see not only if this is
00:21:46.380something that they're interested in and something that they're wanting to do and they really do have
00:21:51.260a vision for a different product that they could create but also that they have the work ethic and
00:21:57.040that they have the mindset and time to really put in a lot of work and make it happen because
00:22:03.640starting a business isn't easy for anyone but for you know girls and teens that are in school
00:22:09.840and have other commitments and have this platform that they're focusing on building it's really
00:22:14.540difficult and so I'm hoping to find these people that are really inspired and I already have um
00:22:21.260five girls that I'm working really closely with and my goal when eventually is to have 10 or 15
00:22:28.340but I'm hoping to kind of take that weight off of their shoulders and provide them investment
00:22:34.480through the form of resources like app teams product teams and all the stuff that they need
00:22:41.920to navigate this business world that is so unfamiliar to a lot of them and kind of help
00:22:47.840make that happen because ultimately when it comes to marketing when it comes to promoting a product
00:22:52.400that is their time to shine and i'm really investing in communities rather than products
00:22:58.040and then helping them build the product from there and so i think that well it has definitely
00:23:02.080been a difficult process right now whenever we're working on forming ideas and i'm working on
00:23:06.500raising money for this i think that in kind of the second half of the business journey where you have
00:23:12.600the app or the product created and you're able to market it that is where they are going to step in
00:23:17.460and show that they are worth this investment
00:23:19.480because they know how to market lawlessly
00:23:46.900do they have to loop in parents i know that parents are required to sign like the official
00:23:56.360contracts that bind you into the agency but other than that no i i've worked closely with three
00:24:04.380different agencies um the latter two i of which i decided not to sign with and my parents really
00:24:12.180weren't involved until that end and that's another thing that i'm trying pretty carefully to work on
00:24:17.780is that um i don't um i'm working on creating a contract right now with my lawyer but this
00:24:22.640contract isn't going to be binding them away from opportunities i always thought it was so
00:24:26.700ridiculous because some of the girls that i'm i'm trying to work with they're signing with these1.00
00:24:30.940different agencies and the contracts will be non-compete to where they aren't allowed to be0.99
00:24:36.100a part of another group even though starting a business is a totally different thing than
00:24:41.160promoting other products. And I just think that it's kind of funny that these brands that are
00:24:46.980allegedly taking on creators and helping them reach the next level are limiting them from any
00:24:52.100opportunities. And I think that if you're doing that, then you're really not here for the kids
00:24:56.260and you're not here for their futures. And so while my contract does not bind them exclusively
00:25:02.120to what I'm doing, I'm hoping that once they start to see the positive effects of what they're doing,
00:25:08.380that they will be personally inclined not to focus so much on these agencies and these brand
00:25:16.440deals. But yes, I think it is unfortunate that the parents are kept out of the loop and that's
00:25:21.520what allows kids to sign themselves into pretty restricting situations. Yeah, yeah, of course it
00:25:29.440does. Like I said, contracts are confusing at any age. And particularly when you're a young person,
00:25:37.060what kinds of guardrails have you set up or have you set up any to protect yourself online? I mean,
00:25:43.880we know that there are a lot of online predators. There's a lot of concerns about imagery being
00:25:49.200stolen and used for nefarious purposes. Do you set up ways to protect yourself from those kinds
00:25:55.260of people? Yeah. I think there's luckily a lot of guidelines within the app of TikTok that
00:26:04.560these things that i'm able to access like being able to filter my comments to get rid of um like
00:26:10.840any words that are inappropriate or even words that are like rude and harmful i often filter
00:26:16.060and i and i always think that sometimes people wait i didn't know you could i didn't know you
00:26:19.680could do that yeah you can take any word you want and get rid of it and for me um i i know that
00:26:24.680sometimes people will be like oh this person's filtering comments but at the end of the day like
00:26:29.220it's your social media page and if people are saying something that you do not want to see
00:26:34.820you can get rid of it and for me I remember that there was one particular video I posted and
00:26:40.280for some reason I guess it was not my best angle because I got so many comments saying like making
00:26:47.240fun of the size of my forehead and this is like such a totally random thing that oh my god again
00:26:52.280people are terrible yeah it was pretty brutal and I remember that like there were literally
00:26:58.140hundreds of comments that were comparing me to megamind which again so mean so crazy but now
00:27:05.080that is one of the the many filtered words from my comments because i think that ultimately i used to
00:27:10.920read every comment i used to allow any comment to go by and that's what would make me feel really
00:27:15.020insecure about myself um but now i use things like filtering and also tiktok automatically filters a
00:27:21.900lot of the messages you get to ensure that you aren't going to receive any inappropriate messages
00:27:26.720is um but i i think that again i agree it is an unsafe space and i think that there requires like
00:27:34.100a level of discernment that you have to have as a teen and it's hard because you get so many emails
00:27:39.280you get so many dms and you get weird stuff one of my friends that is an influencer she is 15 years
00:27:47.980old and someone uploaded her home address on to google maps and they registered it as a business
00:27:54.820and it's her name like and then house so she can't get rid of it because it's registered as a
00:28:01.720business and so literally her mom has been trying her legal team has been trying but this minor's
00:28:08.000home address is forever publicly available on legal mass which is terrible wow yes absolutely
00:28:15.600terrible it is really unfortunate and so i i think that there is definitely a level of risk
00:28:20.220that can be hard to avoid um so you really have to be careful if you trust and and smart with the
00:28:26.060choices that you make and i think that hopefully that's another thing that um these girls will be
00:28:32.720able to gain from kind of the community aspect of what i'm doing like us us kind of almost being
00:28:37.880like a girl group or a hype house but focused on creating businesses because we'll be able to
00:28:43.360you know, help each other through these circumstances and have support from different
00:28:49.680adults to ensure that we are as safe as possible. But yes, I definitely agree. It is definitely a
00:28:55.740risky and scary place for teens. I want to take one more quick break. And when we get back,
00:29:03.760I want to talk about how you see the future of influencing. What do you think is next?
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00:30:04.800what do you see as the future of influencing and do you think that influencers
00:30:10.080are are on track to really replace celebrities as we know them 100 i i think that already
00:30:19.880we are starting to see um influencers having a larger impact like on sales and trends like that
00:30:30.560Compared to celebrities, I write a study that said that micro-influencers, so creators with like, you know, 50K or less, were able to generate a higher return on investment for brand deals than really large celebrities on Instagram.
00:30:51.860And this is crazy to me because I think that it shows that people trust these figures that they can relate to more, even even the smaller ones compared to the big influencers, because you start to lose your influence.
00:31:03.260And so I think that that's what makes it really risky because we're seeing social media influencers taking over 90 percent of people trust their peers on social media, whereas only 15 percent of people trust brands on social media.
00:31:17.660And so I think that brands now seeing that are taking advantage of influencers. And in turn, the influencer trust rate is going down. And so I think that it's kind of unfortunate because, you know, we saw, oh, wow, influencers is so great. And so we started taking advantage of that. And now it's it's going right back down because of how that's working.
00:31:38.760And so that's why I think that if influencers continue to do what they are doing now, we are going to lose relevance and we are going to die out and something new is going to come in and be the next future of marketing.
00:31:52.200And that is why I think that the only way that influencers will be able to maintain permanence is by having some sort of business or product of their own.
00:32:03.600And I think that we've seen a lot of influencers that have stayed really relevant for a while or like a YouTuber like Mr. Beast having businesses of his own. And I think that my eventual goal would be for influencers to be business owners and for all people that are starting a business to recognize that you kind of have to have like a face behind it.
00:32:29.700we've seen that work time and time again it's such a oversaturated market especially like in
00:32:33.940the beauty industry that you know unless you are um someone with a pre-existing audience and a
00:32:40.420personality that people really care about connect to it's hard to just put another product on the
00:32:44.600shelves or another app on the app store and so i think that influencers can avoid this whole trend
00:32:50.140of losing our trust and dying out but only if we are really strategic with our next step and ensure
00:32:55.680that we are consolidating our message to be a consistent one that our followers will care about
00:33:00.980and really stay engaged with throughout time. Well, I love what you're doing in terms of
00:33:07.540longevity, in terms of creating a career as opposed to an opportunity. I mean, I think it
00:33:14.060really does mirror what we see with young celebrities. It's like, okay, do you want to do
00:33:19.640this one really popular tv show which then might make it kind of difficult for you
00:33:25.240to move forward with a long acting career or do you want to think about what your career looks
00:33:30.460like even though that's a hard weird scary thing to do as a teenager for sure it's a hard balance
00:33:38.920that we have to navigate and i think i have so many friends that have like massive audiences of
00:33:45.140like 2 million and above. And I asked them what's next. I asked them, what do the next five years
00:33:50.060look like? And they're not sure. They say, oh, maybe I'll move to LA. Maybe I'll move to New
00:33:54.780York and keep going. But I just think that is such a risk. And we saw all creators that were
00:34:00.300teens and kind of the 2020 Hype House era. They, you know, didn't go to college and they pursued
00:34:07.260these opportunities and now are kind of lost and scrambling for how they can regain relevance and
00:34:13.740what's next for them and i just would hate to see the generation of influencers today which
00:34:18.380you know including me to follow a similar path like that and so i think that we definitely need
00:34:24.720to be focused on longevity because we have this like billion dollar opportunity in our hands and
00:34:30.500it would just be a shame to see it go by it would it would what do you want to do next i mean how do
00:34:37.340you want to ensure that you have longevity um do you want to go to college and if so what do you
00:34:42.480want to study? Yeah, I would love to go to college. I am huge. I'm like a really passionate
00:34:50.580student. Like I work really hard on my grades and my scores and things like that. And so, yes,
00:34:57.220ideally, I'd want to go to a college. My dream schools are Stanford and USC in California,
00:35:03.360not to contribute to the stereotype of influencers moving to LA. But I think that,
00:35:08.100For a school like that, it might be a little bit different. But I'm hoping that I will be able to
00:35:14.120find success in this incubator. And considering that I'll have a 10% stake of a lot of these
00:35:20.980businesses and really get to be involved with helping them, that it will be a huge part of
00:35:26.260my future. And I'm not sure what will come next, like when these companies will want to sell that
00:35:32.180ownership or when these companies will get bought by someone else. But it really is a field that
00:35:37.480I'm super interested in. So the idea of studying business or marketing at college is very exciting
00:35:43.760to me. But also, you know, everything is risky on social media. You never know if TikTok is going
00:35:51.120to get banned every day. You never know if TikTok is going to get banned. I mean, probably not
00:35:55.880anymore. I hope not. I hope not. But it is a risky thing. But luckily, I think that I have more to
00:36:03.840my life, I have other skills. I have other passions. I do pageants. I do public speaking.
00:36:09.160I would love to get into broadcast journalism. I would love to continue doing pageants
00:36:16.040whenever I'm an adult, doing systems like Miss America, Miss USA. And I think that no matter
00:36:22.200what I end up doing, even maybe if it is being a content creator whenever I'm an adult, making
00:36:29.280content as a mom or with my family I think that what I'm doing now and this kind of journey I'm
00:36:35.540taking on really learning about influencers and learning about business will hopefully be a great
00:36:40.860help to me whatever I end up doing and I just I know that I love marketing I know that I love
00:36:45.300business and I think that so many of those fields are really opening up thanks to AI and I'm just
00:36:52.540super excited to be involved and to kind of get started into it now even though I'm only 16 kind
00:36:57.100to give myself somewhere to work for and a purpose for college yeah which i which i think is great i
00:37:05.020mean too many kids go into college without a purpose in mind i certainly did um i think
00:37:11.700everything you're doing is fascinating and i love hearing someone that is so passionate
00:37:16.140about this world because influencing frankly is the future of celebrity it's the future of
00:37:21.360marketing and it's the future of business what are some things that you would want to tell
00:37:25.800parents of teenagers who don't really understand that i would tell them that your teenage girl that
00:37:34.780is sitting in her room um you know playing with makeup products or your teenage boy who is
00:37:40.260spending all day gaming um is more powerful than any businessmen they've ever met in their jobs
00:37:47.220and i know that this is unbelievable because it is so different and it is so new but it is the
00:37:52.940changing landscape of the world like you're saying and i think that you have to allow your kids to
00:37:56.840embrace these opportunities take advantage of the future um because that's the world that they're
00:38:01.720going to be living in and that's that's the world they're going to grow up into and i think that
00:38:05.020again prioritizing the culture of creating rather than consuming and allowing your kid to take
00:38:12.080advantage of the influence that they might be able to have and and helping them turn that into an
00:38:16.900impact that will really set them up for life is so important but yeah i i completely believe in
00:38:22.740the idea of kids using social media, if they're using it responsibly and if they're using it
00:38:29.200carefully, because I agree with you. I think that social media is our future and the next
00:38:34.920generation of billionaires are going to come straight out of it. So if you want your kid
00:38:38.280to be included in that statement, you have to let them pursue this crazy new field and
00:38:43.660really just let them embrace it. Sloane, thank you so much for coming on today. Will you tell
00:38:49.480everyone where they can find you on the social medias yeah on tiktok and instagram and youtube
00:38:55.280i'm at sloan alex underscore s-o-o-a-n-e-a-l-e-x underscore and i would love for you guys to follow
00:39:04.480along on my life and everything i'm doing thank you so much for coming on today this was such a
00:39:10.300delight thank you so much for having me i really appreciate it and that is all we have for today
00:39:16.480I found Sloan remarkable. And I think as parents, we have a lot of agita around this whole world.
00:39:24.740Because frankly, when we were growing up, influencer was, I mean, it didn't exist, right?
00:39:30.460So it definitely wasn't a career to be aspired to. And now we live in this world where it does
00:39:37.680feel like everyone has to be some kind of brand online. And influencer is absolutely a job.
00:39:43.480It's a job in pretty much every industry that I can think of at this point.
00:39:51.420I think her business idea is really smart.
00:39:53.880And I love the fact that she's thinking about what doesn't work for her, trying to solve the problem, and then also building that into a business to try to solve the problem for other people.