In this week’s episode I got to chat with Taylor Price, also known as @pricelesstay,
a globally-recognized Gen Z financial activist and money mentor. After entering university and recognizing the lack of education taught in traditional schooling, Taylor started a blog and founded Priceless Tay to end the ‘silent’ pandemic of financial illiteracy. She has helped over 1,000,000 Gen Zers build a budget, start saving, pay off debt, and invest.
To further her impact, Taylor co-founded Dfinitiv, the startup helping people spend smarter by maximizing their deals, discounts, and offers.
Host of the Priceless Podcast; cohost of the Instagram series Chantel’s Money Moves, Taylor’s work has been featured on Good Morning America, FOX Business, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Business Insider, CNBC, MarketWatch, BuzzFeed, and more.A graduate of the University of Albany, Taylor currently travels around the globe educating Gen Z on personal finance, entrepreneurship, and investing all while being in the comfort of a hoodie and sipping on some bubble tea!
Taylor Price learned about Financial literacy through her parents’ small business and her own experience of getting a life changing surgery at 14. Her research into financial literacy led her to start a blog discussing why it should be a required course in all states and eventually to use social media platforms like TikTok and YouTube to spread her message. Through partnerships with brands, she began to help those struggling with finances during the pandemic. She eventually co-founded a company called Dfintiv to help young people maximize their deals and discounts. She also finished her four year bachelor’s degree in two and a half years, which helped her credibility and land her first major media op on Good Morning America.
“Failure is a tuition to your success. If you’re purposeful and your passion drives your mission, you’re unstoppable.”
In this episode, you will learn the following:
- How Taylor Price, @pricelesstay, is Pioneering Gen Z Financial Literacy Online
- How one media op launched her brand’s extreme growth
- How Taylor went from TikTok creator to startup cofounder
Connect with Taylor:
Website: www.pricelesstay.com
TikTok: @pricelesstay
Instagram: @pricelsstay
Dfinitiv: www.dfinitiv.io
Priceless Podcast: Listen
This episode is brought to you by:
Platform by RAW Artists: www.RAWartists.com/platform
Other episodes you’ll enjoy:
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Real Estate Investing Strategy with Palak Shah
The 411K on Financial Wellness for Women
listen to the episode
Speaker A
00:00:02
Awesome. I’m so excited to be talking with Taylor Price today. You may have heard of her before. She is the founder of Priceless tai and also the founder and Chief Experience Officer of Definitive, which I cannot wait to hear more about. So Taylor, first of all, thank you you so much for coming on today.
Speaker B
00:00:28
Thank you so much for having me. Super excited to speak to you and get to chat with our listeners.
Speaker A
00:00:34
Yes, me too. Well, as I said, I know some people probably already know you. You have a lot of followers and stuff. I know you’re like a person that people might have already heard of, but I feel like what people often miss is that whole backstory, I guess. First, give us the super quick overview of who you are and what you do, but then I can’t wait to jump into how you’ve actually made this happen and what that journey has been like.
Speaker B
00:01:03
Yes. So my name is Taylor Price, also known as At Priceless tay on social media. Yes. My actual last real name is Price, so I tell people that I was kind of born for what I’m doing. I teach Gen Z Financial literacy online. So think TikTok Instagram, YouTube. Really? All forms of social media. And I’m here to make a further impact on this next generation, especially communities that have been underserved previously when it comes to financial planning and wealth management. So I try to talk online, make my educational content free, and really discuss all the things that school doesn’t, especially when it comes to that transition of financial dependence to financial independence.
Speaker A
00:01:49
Yeah, I noticed that too. Your last name was absolutely perfect for this. It seems like too much of a coincidence that your last name is Price and you talk about finances. Tell me. Well, first of all, can I ask you I mean, you say you speak mostly to Gen Z. You are a member of the Gen Z generation, right? Like, how old are you? Can I ask that?
Speaker B
00:02:14
That’s correct. At the current time we’re recording this, I’m 22.
Speaker A
00:02:17
Okay. Amazing. I love a young, empowered, powerful woman in business especially. I started my business he was 23. So a little older than you. You’ve gotten a head start on me, but I remember very much what it was like to just to be doing it that young. It’s a different kind of experience. So I think it’s so cool that you’ve decided to get this started. But tell me, where did this come from? How did you start? First of all, even just running a business, even just working for yourself at such a young age is already, like, impressive. But also, like, how do you know enough about money and finances to be teaching other people this young? Because I feel like most of us are still figuring that stuff out at 22, which is obviously you have such a big audience for it, right?
Speaker B
00:03:09
Yeah, I have an interesting back story, both literally and figuratively. So I grew up in a small business. My parents are small business owners contributing to our Us economy as a whole. They run by mom and pops. And so I heard my mom growing up all the time talking about the budget we need to be in budget, talking to my dad about what he’s buying. As far as inventory goes, it’s a small industrial uniform rental company. So what that means is we do aprons, rugs, we wash them, we bring them to maybe a restaurant or a car dealership, and then every single week, we pick up the dirties, provide them cleans, and it’s a service based industry. And so from a very young age, I heard conversations about money going on. And always keeping aligned with the budget as well as organization is the key to success. Shout out mom for saying that. And so that kind of drove a lot of the conversations in my family for a very long time, especially when the financial crisis hit in 2010. And so also during that time, this is where my literal backstory comes in. I was diagnosed with scoliosis in our school library. I was in fourth grade, and during that time, my scoliosis was pretty bad. And so they recommended us to go to albany to go see a specialist. But again, being a part of a small business, my parents struggling through this time, really getting to that doctor’s appointment, wasn’t the top of mind thing for my family. It was just keeping afloat, trying to maintain our customer base, and figuring out when the service industry, if it’s going to continue doing well and flourishing. And so that led me, that whole experience into eventually getting a life changing major surgery. At 14, I had a spinal fusion. And what that basically means is that I have two rods in my back. They’re fused. I got screws. I’m kind of like the next version of Iron Man, but more like Iron Woman. They’re titanium, though. So that led me to want to become a neurosurgeon. Because of my surgery itself, I thought I could be extremely empathetic to the people who have gone through this. I had already had an intrinsic motivation to help people at that point. And so throughout my high school years, I did internships across the United States, staying places in the summer, studying under neurologist. And when I finally got to college, I studied premed. And come to find out that my own medical conditions in history really wasn’t going to align with my career path. 14 years of medical school to become a neurosurgeon when I didn’t even know if I would have to get my own neurosurgery again for my scoliosis. And so that was a big wake up call for me, especially when one of my dad’s customers had informed me, hey, if something ever happens to your hands, those are million dollar hands. In that industry, if you break a finger or if you happen to come to a crazy car accident or whatever it might be, that career is gone. There’s so much empowerment in being a business owner. And so that’s when I was like, okay, this has kind of gotten clicked. So I started working for my parents at that time, running the books, learning how to use quickbooks, learning how to manage a team. And I switched majors from the premed biology into finance and management. And when I made that transition, I immediately went into how to do discounted cash flows, financial modeling, looking at an income statement, looking at a statement of cash flows, looking at a balance sheet, basically all these statements that large companies use to see if they’re profitable or not. And I was like, Hang on a second. I’m 17, turning 18. That’s a pretty big age. I hear like, Well, I have to start paying my own taxes. Like, what’s going on here? I think I can get a credit card at this age. I think I can start investing at this age too. Not under my parents. And so I started to do research like, hey, did I miss a few gen eds? Like, when I switched majors? I didn’t. I come to realize after doing the research back then, yeah, I’ve come to realize at that time that six out of 50 states in the United States required a personal financial course for testing. And the small town that I grew up in, upstate New York, it’s called Soggerdies, did not require financial education. And so I was like, what the hell? I don’t know if I’m a lot of curse on this podcast. It’s fine. Yeah, I was like, what the hell? I’m a finance major. And I feel like, how could a large company trust me with their financials when I don’t even know my own financials personally? That’s a big deal. Yeah, it’s a great doing more research on this, I then started a blog to discuss, hey, finance is an extremely important subject that should be a requirement in schools across all states, not just these six. Here’s why so I got into some different demographics on why that’s extremely important, especially for women at the time, because we live longer, we go through different stages in our career, especially when it comes to family planning and things of that nature. And so that eventually led me to start sharing my own story of, hey, I’m 18 now. This is why I’m opening up a credit card, so I can get my first apartment. When they check my credit score, it will be amazing if you’re getting your first car or potentially maybe even your first employer. Sometimes they’ll check your credit history too. When it comes to a lot of people my age, there’s a pressure to taking care of their loved ones when they’re older. So when you get a job, you’re not only paying for your bills, you might have to start thinking about paying for your parents or your grandparents bills as well, too. So that adds a lot of stress. Well, what can we think about? Okay, when you’re 18, you can start putting $20 a week or $50 a week into a roth ira. By the time you become 65, you will literally be a millionaire. So talking about this on this blog really started to grab a lot of my younger friends attention, along with parents, family, friends, and people in the community. That led me to then go on YouTube and Instagram because I recognize that although blogs are fun, videos are a lot more fun in the Gen Z crowd. That’s where they love. And for that message to spread like wildfire, I knew that I needed to move to where the demographic was, which is social media, YouTube and Instagram at that time. That led me then to start publishing content. There happened to make some friends out in La. And in May of 2019, TikTok really started to come off. But as I’m from like, a small town in upstate New York, dancing was not something that I was comfortable doing on such a platform, especially talking about finances, being a young woman at that time, that’s kind of like, unheard of, by the way, in early 2019. And so eventually I’m like, maybe I’ll go out to La and try this thing. So in December, and I’m going to college also through this period, which is a whole other thing of trying to manage college while just starting your blog, which could potentially be a business, and turning that side hustle into a business when it starts to monetize and things like that. And so December was out in La. I’m like, okay, here, might as well start doing the dance move and talk about finance and point to different areas on the screen, talking about what a credit score is made out of and different things like that. And boom, the message grew like wildfire. I pioneered the financial literacy space for Gen zers on TikTok, especially young woman, and at that time too, simultaneously started going viral on Twitter as a meme for a lot of these older bros, finance bros, saying, what is this girl doing on TikTok? Pointing out the screen and talking about investing and talking about roth iras and budgeting. Like, she’s not, you know, this is this is weird. So at that time, I was faced with a challenge, like, do I continue on with this criticism or do I follow my passion and forget the haters to make a long lasting impact? And my mom had a really big impact on me at that time as, again, she operates a lot of the finances for our small business. And so she said, Taylor, she at that time, when she was studying finance in the 1980s, she was one of the only females in the class and so she was very familiarized with this whole notion of this is a male dominated industry. So her kind of being the leader and pioneering that space for me, I was allowed to really be empowered by that and then kind of take the torch per se and move that on to this next generation. And so being a pursuant, I continued posting, I continued spreading the message. COVID happened. Everybody then was like, oh my gosh, what do I do with my finances? That led into really where the business started occurring. I know a lot of people struggled in COVID and with the work that I have been doing, it actually helped serve my business, actually helped serve some of those communities who didn’t understand when’s my stimulus check coming, what’s going on with my student loans. And I was able to work with some amazing brands as far as being able to talk. Like currently I’m in a partnership with chime where during that time they stopped all overdraft fees, which was an amazing thing for communities that had been furloughed or didn’t have a paycheck coming in. And so being able to get people empowered in that sense and just driving them home felt absolutely amazing. So kind of fast forward to where we are today. I recognize that financial literacy is step one in this movement. It’s the ignition, but you decide to do what you want then on after. And so recognizing that, I was like, maybe I should create an app or something. Because hearing something is one thing, but actually doing something with that knowledge is another thing. And that’s where you can have the pivotal, life changing mood, because you can be smart. But those who have the grit and the hard work to I always say, like, ambition is so much more important than intelligence. Because the ambition person, the ambitious person, is going to go after and drive and take home the bread, whatever they wish. Whereas an intelligent person might just be thinking about some of these thoughts, but doing it might be a whole other story. And so with that in mind, I was able to survey a lot of my audience and get tens of thousands of people to say, here’s the problems that I’m facing in finance. Like I have two bank accounts, three credit cards, I invest here and there, I don’t know where to begin, I’m lost, I don’t know how to grow my wealth. As well as some educational questions, as literally where’s the routing number on this check? Where’s the account number on this check? And so that eventually led to me coming to realize that there was this huge gap in this fintech space or financial technology space, which is a lot of like apps that you see today on your phone when it comes to finance. And so I was like, hey, there’s a big problem here. People don’t know where to begin. They’re leaving a lot of money on the table. When it comes to knowing which credit card to use when they’re checking out, there’s these deals, discounts, and rewards that are associated with these credit cards. And especially in these economic times, you want to get the most bang for your buck. Why not? You’re working hard for the same amount of money. Why not be savvy with it? And so that led me to try and pursue my own path. I’m not a technical person. I outsourced trying to build this app on my own. Turned out you need a team, like, doing it on your own. There’s not ever any successful company, to me, at least, that, like, self made. I don’t really consider self made a thing. It always is alongside a strong team, at least in my opinion. And so speaking with my mentor on this topic, I said, we got some really valuable data here, and people want this. They have this problem. We need to serve them. We need to make a bigger impact than just financial education and financial literacy. We need to create an app that helps them figure out there’s this money being left on the table. What can you do about it? And so eventually, fast forward to only several months ago, we co founded a company called Definitive, where we’re helping young people maximize their deals, discounts, and offers so that you can actually get the money you deserve, get your money’s worth. You’re not leaving money on the table. You maximize all the dollars that you have. And kind of, here we are today, just coming out more publicly about what we’re working on. I know, a very long winded story, but I think each portion has a very significant factor on how it all kind of plays out.
Speaker A
00:18:23
Yeah. Oh, my God. No, that’s amazing. I love a 22 year old who already has such a long business story. You’ve already done a lot, which is really cool. And I love how you can kind of see that thread of following the way through. Here’s kind of what I’m figuring out now, and here’s what people need, and here’s what I can provide, and here’s what they need now, like, two years later and how I can provide it in another way or provide something that will help them with what they need now. And you’ve just created it. Why not? I love it. I absolutely love it. Oh, my gosh. I do have so many questions still. That is so much. Are you still in college, or did you just finish college?
Speaker B
00:19:22
I do get that question often because I’m 22, and you can imagine I should have just graduated, but I actually stacked classes, so I finished my bachelor’s degree in two and a half years instead of four. And during COVID yes, during COVID I was contemplating my business had just started to get started to monetize. It was doing pretty well, and I was contemplating dropping out of college because what I was learning in college was great, but I wasn’t going to go onto Wall Street or I wasn’t going to go into investment banking, where that series Six, series seven license wasn’t really required. And so, again, speaking to my mom on the subject, she’s like, no, you got to stay in school. This is your credibility. This is like that paperwork. That when some older folks of the previous generation say, how are you teaching this? Okay, the first thing that you say, I have a bachelor’s degree in finance. I did really well in classes. This is the first step, and people.
Speaker A
00:20:33
Want to see that college sometimes, right?
Speaker B
00:20:38
Yeah, right. Exactly. And it turns out that it was so true. The first big ever media opportunity that I had was with Good Morning America, january 4 of 2021. And it was one week beforehand they had called me, and they said, hey, we’re coming up with this New Year, New You segment. It’s about budgeting. We think you’d be a perfect candidate. You’re so relatable. Your TikTok is popping off at this time. A lot of people could use a new budget, which I talked about at the time a lot, the 50 30 20 method. But you’re in college. How do we know that you’re credible? Well, actually, I said I graduated college just a few weeks ago, so I do have a four year bachelor’s degree. Believe it or not. I’m 20, but I do have my degree. And then they’re like, okay, sold. We’re good. Nothing more there. You can continue on. And from that moment, that time of getting on Good Morning America, everything had just boom, exploded. And so that one little thing of getting that piece of paper has allowed me to really expand my career. And again, in such a traditional environment, like, you have to imagine finance is such an industry where it moves really slow and change is very, very slow. The things that have happened with crypto and nfts unimaginably fast, but everything else besides that in finance is like a turtle speed. Yeah.
Speaker A
00:22:09
So interesting. Yeah. Weird to think about, because it feels like to people who are not in it, I feel like it feels, like, complicated and, like, oh, I don’t understand. I don’t get it. I don’t know how it works or how to make it work for me. But it’s a good point that it moves so slow. It’s almost like there’s no excuse to not figure it out or to not be able to make it work for you, because it’s not like the concepts are changing that fast or anything like that, but it just still feels, like, overwhelming to people. I think a lot of the time you say that you focus on Gen Z, which I totally get that’s. Oh, jeez. Do you hear my clock chiming? There’s a church in your mouth. Okay. It just all of a sudden started chiming 11:00. Yeah, we’ll edit that. So you talk a lot about how you’re obviously, like, you’re tailoring your content towards Gen Z, and you say that Gen Z I don’t know what’s the differentiator okay, I guess I’ll preface this by saying, as you may know, I am technically a millennial older than the Gen Z. But what do you see? Are there major differences or what is wrong with how Gen Z thinks about money? Because I feel like you kind of position it as, like, you’re helping them. And obviously your content is helpful to everyone, I think, or at least to multiple generations. But when you say specifically, like, you’re helping Gen Z think about money in a better way, and what is that? How is that different from how other generations are thinking about money? And why do you think that Gen Z especially needs this new mindset or this kind of education?
Speaker B
00:23:51
Yes, extremely great question. So, in all honesty, when I first started, I was 1718 year old, trying to figure out going from financial dependence to financial independence. And through that, I gained this really strong following, I guess, for that demographic, just because I had lived through it. They’re my peers. I speak their lingo. It makes sense to me. Whereas millennials per se, they’re in a different chapter in their life, such as potentially getting a house, maybe trying to start family planning, or still figuring out the whole student loan, paying that off, and credit card debt and paying that off. So when I first started my platform, it was me sharing my story on what I was going through right now, now that my platform has expanded, like you said, I have over a million priceless people in my community. That message has expanded to a lot more demographics. Like, I get parents saying, oh, my goodness, thank you so much. Like, I’m I’m able to now teach and my kids about financial literacy and have conversations about finances with my family in a comfortable way, whereas the previous generation before that, that didn’t happen. And so my story originated by me sharing my content. If you think of, like, a lifestyle creator, like, hey, I’m doing this. Like, what I spend in a week. I’m starting my roth. I write in a finance niche. But now it’s a lot more open to cater to other demographics, especially when people in my community are asking questions and they don’t necessarily follow Gen Z. I think they should still be served as well, too.
Speaker A
00:25:43
Totally. Okay, wait. I don’t know. I have so many other questions I guess I want to jump into. Kind of like how I feel like we all see people with a million followers on TikTok. Maybe not super common, but we see people with a lot of followers, and we’re like, okay, they’re definitely making money from this. But from a business standpoint, how did you first start monetizing? Was it like those partnerships that you were talking about? Like, you were making money from partnerships with other brands and stuff? Or I also know you have like, courses and stuff on your website. Is that kind of how you were monetizing the brand at first? How did you first kind of go from like, okay, here’s Instagram, rails, or TikTok videos to, okay, this is actually like a business that’s making me a substantial or at least a consistent revenue, right?
Speaker B
00:26:39
So the blog first got monetized through affiliate links. Hey, I just signed up for the Discovery student cash Back. Like I said, I was 18. That was one of my first credit cards. Okay, I see and discover that if my friends sign up, I’ll also get $50 or whatever the rate was at that time. So affiliate marketing just happened to be really synergetic with what I was doing on the blog. Eventually there came a point where so many people were just asking the same question of, how do I get started? That I ended up creating more digital products like ebooks courses, which also helped monetize the brand. And prior to that, I was doing quizzes. I created this thing called fiq. Your financial iq. And it’s a quiz that takes you, it’s about ten to 15 minutes. It takes you through a different plethora of questions regarding different subjects within financial literacy. So that might be budgeting, that might be investing, might be taxes, different areas. And it will tell you similar to, like, a credit score. It will give you a score like, okay, 820. You’re really financially savvy. Your fiq is good. This means that you know what you’re talking about as far as financial literacy goes and financial knowledge and know how. And that really helped drive a lot of the monetization for the ebooks and courses, because to me, you have to provide a significant amount of value first before you can ask for any dollar from anybody.
Speaker A
00:28:20
It’s like a free quiz that they could give you their email address to do this quiz to get that information.
Speaker B
00:28:28
Okay, yeah, that was an assessment, a tangible assessment. Whether you go with me or somebody else that says you’re lacking right now, you’re budgeting know how. These are some quick tips that you could use right now. You can implement them tomorrow. Hey, I also have this course that goes further into this if you’d like to learn more. If not, no worries. Here’s some free resources to check out as well too.
Speaker A
00:28:54
Love it.
Speaker B
00:28:55
So that was kind of the initial monetization. When I got onto TikTok, I had my first brand partnership with SoFi I had like 300,000 followers at the time, and boy, was I under charging. I had no idea about any sort of rates or anything at that time when it came to TikTok, posts. And so TikTok reached out to me, hey, we love your content. This brand so far, absolutely loves your content too. Can you partner with them? Can you create a video for them? I’m like, oh, sure.
Speaker A
00:29:30
I love sophoc that connected you.
Speaker B
00:29:33
Yeah, which is also crazy because at the time, I didn’t even know TikTok was doing their own brand partnerships. I think this was before TikTok Creator Marketplace came out, where they were testing Creator Marketplace by doing their own thing. And that’s actually how I got verified, too, because when they had came to me with this partnership and we had such a great partnership, I showed my credibility and I showed my work ethic. At the end, I was like, hey, I actually have a few articles that I was mentioning beforehand from Thrive Global and other things. I see people that have verification checks. Can I get verified? They’re like, oh, yeah, sure, no problem. Here’s a form. Fill it out, get verified. And so around, like, the 300,000 mark, I ended up getting verified, and from there, the business just kept on growing.
Speaker A
00:30:28
Wow. So has it been mostly, like, brands that come to you and stuff, or do you ever kind of be like, oh, I love this brand, or, this is a brand I know that I talk about a lot or refer people to use a lot, like, let me reach out to them.
Speaker B
00:30:43
Yeah, in the beginning, it was a lot more reaching out. Now it’s a lot more inbound, which is them reaching out to us. I work with such an amazing team right now, and so they kind of handle all correspondence. But I recognize, again, as far as business goes, when I had about 100,000 followers, it was getting a lot for me to comment back to every single person, which, again, I think it’s extremely important to be engaged with any community that you have and you serve. And so I hired my first contractor to be my assistant to help out with community engagement, to help out with, like, email administration. So if somebody is reaching out to us, getting back, maybe scheduling a podcast, whatever it might be, and the team just kind of started to grow out from there, which allowed me to continue to do what I do best, which is create educational, bite sized video content that is relatable, that people can understand, that even fifth graders can understand. Like, a big principle for us is that whole concept of are you smarter than a fifth grader? If a fifth grader can understand what we’re talking about as far as when it comes to anything finance, then this can be really helpful for anybody.
Speaker A
00:32:05
Yeah, I love that. It’s a good way to think about it. It shouldn’t be complicated. Anyway, let’s make sure it’s not. Yes. That’s awesome. So what does your day to day look like now? What does your team look like? How do you work. On your yes, I don’t want to lead the question. What does your day look like? How much time do you spend on actually creating content and what else are you doing?
Speaker B
00:32:28
Yes, really great question. So I do content batching now. I am full time on our startup Dfinitiv. I’m chief experience officer there, so I lead a pretty hefty team. So a lot of my time is focused there while I have a business development manager on the Priceless Pay side. So I actually have two businesses. One is Dfinitiv, that’s an incorporation. The other is Taylor Price, LLC. And that’s where you see like the social media, educational content. So there my team members and I will get together every morning. We’ll have stand up, which is basically here’s our priorities for the day. Here’s some questions we can tackle right now. And here’s some projects that we’re working on. If you need any help, just syncing up with different team members there. And then on tuesdays, Tuesday mornings, I’ll record for Priceless Pay stuff and anything else there. And after when I get a chance, like I’m traveling, I’ll get back to dms and messages and things like that. And in the afternoons for Priceless tail, I’ll get back emails. But really for the majority of the nine to five, I work a nine to five now being a founder of a startup. And so that is taking a lot of my time. So mondays and wednesdays is traditionally when I like to host all of the meetings that I have, whether that’s internally with my team members or externally networking with other individuals who might be interested in the startup or partners who we might be partnering with for the app that we’re working on.
Speaker A
00:34:06
Awesome. You say you’re a co founder of Definitive. How did you find the other people that you’re working with on that? How did that come together in a more cohesive way?
Speaker B
00:34:16
Yeah, so my mentor has been extremely successful when it comes to having other startups. One IPO, and he really brought on the rest of the co founders. I’ve known them for several years and so it just made sense kind of getting all together. We each have our certain superpower. Like mine is really being the voice for this next generation and being able to take what they tell me and condense that to a way where I can provide that into our vision and strategy for the product that we’re building. There’s our other co founder who is extremely technical, he is all engineering, like a literal master chess player, super smart, talented guy. Yeah. Then we have our CEO who again has led these ships before and has successfully landed them either into some merger acquisition activities. And then finally our fourth co founder has been in the recruitment enterprise software industry for the past 40 years. So when you talk about company culture, which is the primary foundation for any successful company, he is that, man. So we’re kind of like the dream team when it comes to having such an awesome leadership team.
Speaker
00:35:47
That is really cool. Are you guys fully remote right now, or are you in the same place?
Speaker B
00:35:53
Yeah, all of us right now are based in the upstate New York, New York New Jersey area, and so all of us try to get together in person at least once every few weeks. We’re working on making that more of like, once every week. Because proximity is power, and when you’re able to get in person, not only does it just help with company culture, but there are different things, like brainstorm conversations that wouldn’t have happened or these side conversations with your colleagues, that oh, man, we just had a really great idea talking about here. Let’s bring it to the broader group. Whereas on Zoom, you can’t really have those, like, intimate little side conversations because are you going to schedule a breakout like, hey, we’re going to leave the meeting for a quick minute to discuss something and then come back.
Speaker A
00:36:49
Yeah. Well, that sounds really exciting to be, like, starting that new kind of project, which it sounds like obviously all came out of what you’d been doing before, out of the social media world and the awareness and audience that you build out of that. Right? Yeah, definitive. Did you say it’s going to be live at least by the time this episode comes out? Right? Like you said, it just is launching right now.
Speaker B
00:37:21
Kind of, yes. So it’s launching. As far as publicly online, we’ve been operating in stealth for many months, and now we’re kind of unveiling the curtain just like a little peekaboo. Hey, we’re definitive just check out our website, join the waitlist for our app, check it out when it’s ready. And so we’re not publicly on the App Store just yet, but that time will come soon. And I’m going to do a shameless plug if you go to dfinitiv io.
Speaker A
00:37:53
Okay, I was just going to ask that. Where can we at least look it up? I know at the end of the episode, I will definitely share your links and how to find you and all of that, but, like, right now, I want to know how we can right now.
Speaker B
00:38:06
And the spelling is a little different. It’s D-F-I-N-I-T-I-V. So we don’t like all the vowels. We like eyes. Dfinitiv io.
Speaker A
00:38:18
So, like, dfinitiv io. Okay, cool. Oh, I see it. I’m there right now. Spend less, save more, get savvy so people can go join that with us. It’s going to make people get money back when they’re signing up for stuff that should be giving them money back kind of thing.
Speaker B
00:38:36
Right, so you’re at the gas station. You have four credit cards. Which credit card should I use? I have four. I don’t know oh, well, did you know in December, if you use your Amazon Prime Visa card, you could have got 10% back on your gas station purchase? So if you’re filling up $100 worth, you could have got $10 back. That could be food on the dinner table for some families out there. And so there are some pretty sizable discounts deals and offers. When it comes to maximizing your money.
Speaker A
00:39:18
Is it kind of like you’ll enter, here are the credit cards that I have, and then it will sort of show which ones to use when.
Speaker B
00:39:26
Right, cool.
Speaker A
00:39:28
Well, yeah, we’ll be in touch about when that’s going to be live so that if by the time this episode comes out, it is something you can go download, we’ll put that in the show notes, and otherwise we’ll put obviously sign up to be on the wait list here because that’s awesome. And then I’ve got to ask, in terms of from the business side of things, is this like an app that people will pay to download? Is that where you’re going to how you’re making money off of definitive as a company, or is there some other revenue structure there?
Speaker B
00:39:58
Absolutely not. I personally believe that, again, in order to eliminate barriers of entry when it comes to building wealth, we are making it a free app for people to use. And early on, we recognize the difference between consumers versus customers. Consumers are those who are using it. Customers are those who are paying for it. So we’re in different conversations about how we will monetize, but we really would not like to have our consumers pay. We’d rather go to a merchant or brand per se to say, hey, starbucks versus dunkin donuts, let’s broker a deal to get 5% off. We have all these amazing gen ziers who love your product. How can we figure out a way that we can provide a discount for them? So if you think about omnichannel marketing, it would just be another omnichannel marketing stream for a particular merchant.
Speaker A
00:41:05
Okay, cool. So, yeah, I know you did say that earlier that you believe in having things be free and accessible, and I totally respect that and love that. Yeah, that’s great. I’m glad I asked so that people know that. Okay, you have a lot obviously going on. Do you have any other ideas for the future? Do you have any plans for, like, before you’re 25 or anything like that?
Speaker B
00:41:33
Oh, my goodness, such a great question. I literally just had a conversation with a friend yesterday on being so focused in the present. Like, for my entire life, I was so focused on being successful and working hard to help retire my parents because they work their asses off and doing all these things.
Speaker A
00:41:54
I was just thinking, I got to ask if you still help with your parents business at all too.
Speaker B
00:42:00
Yes, honestly, sometimes they do, yes. But they now know, like, I’m a full working woman. I got my own things going on. I can contribute where I can, whether that’s financially or put in some sweat and grit if an employee calls out or something like that. And they really absolutely need me because they did provide and I’ve had such a privileged upbringing that it’s the least that I can do for them. But I do have two full time operating businesses that are going on, so they understand that. But the conversation of focusing in the future, like, no, I’m not really focused in the future anymore. I have so much gratitude for the present and just taking moments to breathe and enjoy this time, building the story out, like writing line by line instead of focusing on, will this book be a bestseller? That’s the perfect way to put it for me. I am enjoying so much of being in the present. Yes, I’m obviously focused on, like, what the next two quarters look like and maybe what the next year looks like, but as far as me hitting 25, like, that’s like, three years from now. So I’m not there just yet. I did live there before, and I enjoy living in the now.
Speaker A
00:43:21
Yeah, no, I think that’s a great mindset. I think it’s like, you have no idea what I love that three years, Phil. It’s like a long time still for you because it kind of is, and you have no idea what you’re going to want by then. Like, you might want totally different things than what 22 year old you thinks that you’re going to want then. And so to plan too far for what you as a 22 year old thinks you’re going to want to be working towards that 25. I think that sometimes sets people up for, like, unhappiness, because then you get there, right, actually, I want to be doing this thing and that thing, and it’s totally different than what I thought I was going to want at this point.
Speaker B
00:43:56
Exactly. Yeah. And I truly believe, too, like, twenty S is a time for learning and failing. Like, failing in particularly, like, make those past failures and make them into your future successes. So for me, being a sponge, like, come, come life, come at me. Show me what you got. Like, I am ready for it. I am here to learn so that by the time that I am ready to start, you know, a family or I don’t even have a boyfriend, at least as of yet, at the time of talking about this. But when the time is ready, I will be more prepared because of the learning and the education that I’ve done. And I think I have a Twitter post promise that I pinned on the top. It’s also priceless pay. And it’s like, learning doesn’t stop after school. It starts after school. And I cannot stress that enough. Like, the most important lessons that I have learned are outside of our traditional school system, and I think that it’s underutilized right now the resources that we have and the internet is accessible to most people and that just keep using it. Always stay curious, especially in your twenty s. Yeah.
Speaker A
00:45:15
Okay. I have two questions I always ask at the end of every conversation, which I feel like you kind of just went, well, actually. But before I ask that, oh my God, there’s still so many things I want to say, I want to ask you first. Is there like, I don’t know, any posts that you’ve done somewhat recently or at any point in time? I guess because especially because I don’t know when this is going to go live that you feel like is like one of the best ones or that you love or that you feel like people should go check out right now. Is there any post that comes to the top of your head if I say, what should people go look at on Priceless Tay if they’ve never seen you before?
Speaker
00:45:48
Just check out the website. I have to say personal finance is personal. There’s a reason why they call it personal finance. So there’s not an exact video or not an exact piece of content. If you check out my website, there’s different quizzes that you can take about your money, personality, your fiq and figure out. Start from there on. Hey, I do recognize that I’m stocking right now on Investing, I could start my investing journey. Here’s a few resources, go check them out. But I don’t have that one particular all star piece. Everybody should watch this because it’s just so at least in the United States, it’s such a diverse community and culture and people come up from different backgrounds. So I feel like that’s the best way I can serve is to help people identify where they’re starting at and potential resources that can help them jump and leap into the next best thing.
Speaker A
00:46:46
Okay, totally valid. When you’re doing all of these things, like all the things that you do, what is one thing that you do to just relax or wind down or something that you try to do every day? If you have something like that, some kind of routine to just stay grounded or relax yourself if you need to just not be thinking about work ever. Does that ever happen? Is that ever possible for you?
Speaker B
00:47:09
It wasn’t possible in 2020 towards I would say at the beginning of 2021, I recognized that I was not taking care of my health similar to 2010 2014 era for me, when my parents were also deep down into their business and not prioritizing their health or my family members as well too. I was literally repeating the steps of my family where I was so in the thick of it in business that I wasn’t going to my doctor’s appointments and taking care of myself. So I recognized that I needed to and I needed to start prioritizing time because what is wealth without health? Why do all this work when there’s going to be a shortcoming on certain things? I’ve developed different routines. One thing that I personally love is lighting incense. There’s just something so beautiful about lighting a nice scent and just sitting down and looking at it and watching the smoke in the air and just breathing it in and just reflecting and really practicing gratitude as well too. I got a gratitude journal this past November during Thanksgiving time and that has just leveled me up so much more. I do that every morning before I start my workday. Instead of it being now go, go what it was. Now I start on a nice level, clear, tranquil path and I feel like that really helps the work day because there are so many things being thrown at you, especially when social media is a very fast paced culture, whereas finance is a little bit slower, like I said. So trying to balance that can be quite hectic. But starting off the day with just the breathing and the calmness of lighting that incense, writing what I am grateful for, and practicing that gratitude has been revolutionary so far for me.
Speaker A
00:49:27
Yeah, that sounds really nice. I feel like we all need to just slow down sometimes in the morning. Okay. What’s one thing that you wish you’d known more about when you first started your business? Is there one thing you could pinpoint?
Speaker B
00:49:46
That’s a really great question. Yeah, there is. Getting a team even earlier. I am somebody who, growing up in school, I would take leadership and do all the school projects and not really work as a team. Because in the past, what that has led to me not getting a good grade as a result of other team members and in my adulthood, I can absolutely say, like, that is the furthest thing away of what I want to be doing now. Especially when we’re working with other people’s careers and really working as a team and putting that faith and trust into somebody, making them feel like they have ownership and accountability as well too in your work relationship is something that I wish I did early on. But again, because of my schooling and during the time in which I started all this, I was still in high school and in college, both several business centers that I’ve been in before. Yeah, that would have to be it.
Speaker A
00:50:58
Yeah, that’s a great one. Is there any last piece of advice you’d want to leave other entrepreneurs with?
Speaker B
00:51:08
Just keep grinding. Failure is a tuition to your success. So if you’re in the middle of you feel like you’re failing right now, take a moment, take a step back, reevaluate where you’re at. Be thankful for how far you’ve come thus far and just keep going. Because if you’re purposeful and your passion drives your mission, you’re unstoppable. Just make sure to find that arena and to continue to strive and go forward.
Speaker A
00:51:45
Love it. Thank you so much. Okay, can you just read? I feel like we’ve kind of mentioned all this throughout, but tell people where they can find you online. If they do want to connect with you, if they want to find your resources, any of that stuff, how can they find you?
Speaker B
00:51:57
Yes. So you can probably search Taylor Price and I’ll pop up. If not, you can check out Priceless pay that’s Price. That is for the financial literacy, educational content. For the startup. You can go to dfinitiv io. That’s D-F-I-N-I-T-I-V io. So check it out. Sign up for the waitlist. Thank you so much for having me. This has been so fun.
Speaker A
00:52:30
Absolutely. Thank you so much for coming on. I’m excited to go watch more of your videos. I was watching them before and now I want to scroll all the way down and see everything you’ve done. And I’m definitely going to sign up for Definitive, so I can’t wait to see what else you end up doing. I cannot believe you’re still so young and already doing so many, like, have your hand in so many different projects. I am impressed. So thank you so much for coming on.
Speaker B
00:52:54
Yes, thank you. bye.
