Top of the Class

#40 How a 15-year-old Turned a Newsletter Into a Global Social Change Media Company

• Crimson Education • Season 1 • Episode 40

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Jenk Oz is the founder and CMO of Thred Media. With hundreds of thousands of followers and a mission to introduce Gen Z to social change.

Thred reaches teens and young adults in 130+ countries a month and has won several awards including four W3 Awards, an International Davey Award, Amazon AWS Activator Award and been a finalist for a global KidScreen award. 

Jenk has been in West End theatre, TV, commercials, music videos, short films and voice overs. On the speaking circuit, Jenk has given three TEDx Talks entitled ‘Ideas Ink.’; ‘Breaking the Pattern’ and 'Can a 'Like' change the world- the power of clicktivism' as well as having spoken at conferences around the world.

In this episode, Jenk shares how Thred Media evolved from a family newsletter, hiring his first employee, how acting has given him confidence and the strategy he has for further growth.  

Podcast Host  00:17

Hello, and welcome to the Top of the Class podcast. I'm your host, Alex Cork. And in today's episode, I chat with social change advocate and founder of Thred Media, 15 year old Jenk Oz. Jenk talks about how family newsletter evolved into a global media company with a following in the hundreds of 1000s. And he's advice for students wanting to do the same. Let's chat with Jenk Oz. Hi Jenk, welcome to the Top of the Class podcast. It's fantastic to have you on the show. Can you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself?


Jenk Oz  00:48

Firstly, great to be here. Thanks so much for having me. My name is Jenk Oz. I'm 15 years old. I am the, and what we will be talking about today is the fact that I am the founder of Thred Media, which is a social enterprise based around four things publishing, media consulting and production content aimed at Generation Z, the central tenet of the website is the other central tenet of the business is the website. And that is a social change based website, basically talking about everything of youth culture through the lens of social change.


Podcast Host  01:19

Wow, that's quite an introduction you got there. And there's a lot of things going on a lot of things I'm sure we could talk about. But obviously, like, I think it's quite interesting to have a media company at 15 years of age. What point does it become a media company? Like how do you take say, for instance, an idea or like an Instagram page, or whatever it might be? And then start calling it a media company? Is it just like a turn of phrase? Or is it something that you have to get to a certain level or benchmark before you can actually call yourself a media company?


Jenk Oz  01:54

Well, I think there's a few points you said there, I think the fact that if you want to turn your idea or your Instagram page, he says intermediate company, it is crucial that you think of it as a media company. And the only way that you're going to make that transition from an idea to a company is by thinking of your idea as a company, or else if you kind of as a really good quote I heard is, if you think of your idea, as a dream today, it will be a dream tomorrow. But if you think of your idea, as a company today will be a company tomorrow. So I feel like that that turning point is much more of a your side mental thing than other people labeling it as a media company, or kind of hitting a benchmark of a set amount of followers or kind of getting verified I think it's much more of a of a mental change a you have to make to be able to then progress.


Podcast Host  02:43

Okay, well take us through your timeline for Thred Media, then from like, initial idea through to the moment you've thought of it as like a media company to where it is today with like, huge reach and a nearly 100,000 followers on Instagram doing, you know, across all different platforms you are at the moment. So take us through that kind of timeline and a few of the milestones along the way.


03:05

Right. So when I was gone as as a social worker now, when I was like eight years old, I had this weird kind of moment where so the teacher would always ask, what did you do this weekend? Oh, it's a civil match. What's your rugby match, kind of sat at home watching the telly. But I'd always say I went to this kind of dance convention, I went to this graffiti tunnel, I went to go see this musical or develop. So what ended up happening was the other kids would say Jenk, what are you doing this weekend? Because generally what you're doing sounds more formal. I'm doing like I'm with you. And so then their parents are emailing my mom saying what should I do this weekend because my kids even quite trusted and kind of wants to join. And then they ended up somehow my mom started writing almost like a weekly email of what to do this weekend. And that email went about as viral as it can do in a school mums, email and group. So then we thought this is quite a cool idea. This hasn't really been touched upon yet. So a few months later, I decided to show and tell at that same school to kind of talk about I called me and it was called iCoolKid at the time, the idea for that was just a website, a safe website, where kids at the time could get there in all their cool information, which at the time was just everything apart from major sports, celebrity gossip, and politics. So basically, whole information as we called it back then, then that was the show until after the show. And so we had about three years of guessing and knowing and a few years into like guessing and knowing once we decided, yes, we hired our first employee in May of 2016. Then may of 2017. We launched the website, I could get very different to how it wasn't the show and tell. But then we ran into an issue that the content was maturing as I matured, but the face of the brand and the name wasn't so what was happening is I was no longer a kid and ironically enough the name I cool kid or Word cool, wasn't that cool? So all we really had left was I, and that didn't work too well for us. So then we thought, okay, there has to be a change here because our content is kind of a Ferrari engine. And we're putting it into a fee of 500. Yeah, and we need to change the body of the website. So then we kind of develops and conceived Thred while iCoolKid was still live, late 2019. And then July of 2020, Thred launched. And that is a whole new website, same ish concepts. But all the news that we now talk about is 100%, social change related, it all has a thread of social change to use the name. And that was, yeah, that was one of 15. And I'm still 15. Today, I feel like to kind of further my point, I said before, I started thinking as a kind of company, when we hired the first employee, as you know, even before that, when we decided to make it a company that was when I started thinking as a company. I feel like if you're deciding to make it a company, and you yourself, don't think of it as a company yet, then you're that's just not gonna work out. So yeah.


Podcast Host  06:04

Yeah, I think it's interesting that hiring of the first employee, though, firstly, what were you hiring for? And secondly, how did you pitch to that employee to come and join you on iCoolKid.


Jenk Oz  06:16

So at the time, I was actually my guitar teacher who was looking for a his a part time guitar teachers looking for a job. And he's teaching me this all the time. And the what we pitch at the time, the job kind of description was an infrastructure developer. So just developing the website, and helping us develop ideas into a more concise way. And the way that we pitched it was this was basically what we had in our heads, because we pitched the idea to him. And as a group of us, me at the time, my mom and him, we would just kind of talk about it. And then we would can like kind of gather ideas and try and get them all down onto paper as quickly as possible to time and as most precise away as possible as time. And then the software didn't like we'd get rid of that piece of paper. And then we'd keep this off. We did like and then that is kind of how our storyboard started. And that's what we pitched him and that's who our first employee was.


Podcast Host  07:08

What point do you think it really started to take off? Because obviously, like, you know, you turned Ico kid into thread, media thread, media started gaining traction quite quickly, was it mostly bringing people across from Ico kid into thread, or has thread been able to grow on its own?


Jenk Oz  07:27

I think it really started to take off when we started to harness the different social medias, I think it's just it was I think I consider resigned to take off. Going from like, the first few days of Ico kid to like the first few months, and my cocaine was probably our most rapid kind of growth, purely based on the fact that I was I started to use my social media, my friends using social media. And then all of a sudden, we went from kind of hype, three daily viewers to like 3000 us on a within like a few days. So although we have more than 3000. Now, the percentage difference from three to 3000 is much more than other thing we could add, like we could even ever achieve at this point now, based on a given like a few days. So that was when it went from overseas like this is working. This is a thing now. And that was kind of my that kind of moment.


Podcast Host  08:18

Yeah. So basically, when people started sharing it, and you started sharing across multiple social media platforms that being I'm guessing, Instagram and Facebook and now Instagram and Facebook, LinkedIn, Spotify, Snapchat, so what's your strategy there to kind of spread yourself across so many different platforms?


Jenk Oz  08:34

Well, I think also website or as a brand, you have to be on as many social media platforms as you possibly can be purely based on the fact that your community is going to be everywhere. Now you want to entice community from everywhere. So the more kinds of seeds you can plant, the more community you'll have an extra bit of a no brainer. And also you're able to target different communities based on different platforms. I welcome my perspective. I kind of use different platforms for different things. I feel like people should treat their social medias very differently to how brands treat their social medias. I like to see my kind of social my social medias as two main things there's kind of like my business to face this kind of social media side and then my business to community effectively beat I know b2c is business to customer, but I can see it as business community. So business to business, I definitely use LinkedIn a lot more for that because I find that the best the most efficient way to be able to go from me to other like minded business people to be able to listen to them, and they're always super knowledgeable, and generally pretty trustworthy in the things that they're saying. Especially in kind of, I try and only follow people right find a super trustworthy, yep. But for b2c, I find that Twitter, Instagram and Facebook are really the classics there and you really cannot go wrong. And I feel like nowadays we'll be able to pull people with so easily. It's really just become like, unbelievably easy to be able to contact your community and ask them questions and kind of show them new things that also they think about things.


Podcast Host  10:00

Yeah. So it's really allowed you to, I guess, refine your content and really refine that message of social change actually loved going onto your Instagram going to your link tree. And at the very top of the list on your link tree is social change, you know nothing about why go to our website or anything at the very top, it's social change, you've got a PDF in your Google Drive. And it's like how to be like a social change maker, and it gets really kind of interesting, informative tips on how students could do that kind of thing, particularly as Gen Z. Can you talk me through, I guess why social change? is such a part of what you believe would work for Gen Z?


Jenk Oz  10:37

Oh, well, I think that to kind of both answer that question, you kind of have to define what social change is. And I feel like it's something that's not really done massively often for social change, and isn't a Google definition. So you've got to know it's true. Social Change is the change in social structure and cultural patterns throughout time. So what that means to our level, and what's happening right now, is we're seeing social change, these kind of changes in social structure and cultural patterns happen on a massive global scale, which is generally never normally the case. Because normally, social change kind of takes place on a country by country basis, which is generally why some countries on earth and others, generally is correlation between development and development of their social change pathway. And it's worth saying, there's so many different types of music movement, some people when they think social change, take all that's all about like climate change, and like helping, like global warming, clean water, plastic waste, equality versus equity, kind of human rights, animal rights, plant rights, kind of mental health, refugee age, gun control, abortion laws, like everything you could possibly think of that's considered socially good and needs to change will be under social change.


Podcast Host  11:50

And you think like Gen Z is engaged with that topic? And what's your answer? People who kind of doubt the power of Gen Z?


Jenk Oz  11:59

Well, I think towards your first question, I think generations that are really like very concentrated on social change is definitely a priority. I'm still quite funny statistic was funny, slightly concerning to refer 12% of generations that said that their priority was social change. And that's not concerning until you realize that the other priorities were things like love family and career, which kind of makes you Reaper perspective, and that's 4% higher than millennials and 8% higher than baby boomers the generation before. And that kind of trend is only going to rise, hopefully, as time passes. So yes, I do think generations Ed do play a massive role. I have that as a priority. Also, I think that generations, Ed can make absolutely massive differences. And there have been massive differences, especially in the US. I mean, that's really the epicenter of generations and social change in the US. And I find it, what I've done, there is unbelievable, and the kind of the combination of being very kind of opinionated, very loud group of people. And then the amplification of social media, which then amplifies their voices throughout the world means that one generations that are with an opinion and a share post can basically send a post across the world with within a few degrees of Instagrams.


Podcast Host  13:12

Yeah, I mean, it's one of those things that I was talking to one of our strategists here Crimson guy recently, and he's like, tick tock has been such a fantastic thing for Gen Z to not just share dance videos, obviously. But share a lot of like social change issues and distill those social change issues with people might not know anything about it. And within a minute, you kind of know, the bare bones of it, what it is, you know, what's happening, what I can do to make a difference, and how I can help and Gen Z are all over it. And they really good, I guess, distilling serious issues in a small amount of time to make it accessible for a wider audience, is that what you're trying to package these serious issues in a way that is consumable by the masses?


13:52

Basically, we consider Thred to be a bit of like a gateway per se, to social change. So what I think a bit of an issue is Generation Z have is that people who are in social change, know social change and understand social change. People who aren't in social change, only see the tip of the iceberg of social change. So they The only people that people who aren't in social change, see all the kind of super protesters super the world's gonna end in 30 days super like ahhhh kind of people. And they think that it's either a one or a 10 it's black or white. But what people have to understand is that actually, there's a two to nine in between that and they just the people who you all see but they are invested in social change. And that's a kind of like the gray space in between. and we thread kind of see ourselves as the website where someone's into social change. Okay, come read thread, we're going to let you in, we're going to be accepting because we're going to show you kind of the tip of the iceberg of all the different kinds of areas of social change all the different topics or the different lifestyles or the different everything's and then whichever one you really enjoy you pick up on, then you can go deeper you can depart you can fly from the nest and go to a kind of a specialized web. I wish you a bit more kind of BAM in your face bit more dark, a bit more gloomy, a bit more apocalyptic. We kind of like to think of ourselves as the social change light.


Podcast Host  15:08

People need that right, people need to find that first introduction to a pretty serious topic. And I always say for students, people get told to follow your passion all the time like is the biggest advice you can give to students is follow your passion. But it's I think you got to find what you're interested in first, what you're curious about first. And then like, after six months of reading and research and talking to people, it can start becoming a passion, but early stages, you've got thread media, you know, social change what I like that's a good concept. Give me a little of an insight into your life, though in like the week of a entrepreneur slash school students slash actor slash DJ slash doing all these different things. I know, there's probably a lot of glamour to that. And there's also a lot of unglamorous things to that as well, can you give us a little bit of like a bit from column a bit from column B, like some of the highlights of your week, and some of the lesser lights of your week?


Jenk Oz  16:05

Well, I think I kind of have two weeks, I've got week a, which is my school week, or week B, which is not school week. And because I'm a boy school, so it becomes very easy to be able to differentiate was able to score weaker was not. So when I was school, this is kind of my my full priority, kind of I need to get through school, hopefully, with is going to grade as possible finish school. And when I'm at school, that what's on my mind, that's kind of, that's my school life, when I'm at home, then you kind of start to have the kind of different things taking over. Generally, I kind of do thread as much as I can during the day. So stuff like this calls with clients, just like stuff like that, generally, anything around the website, interviews, managing the team, talking to the team, that will be during the day. And then in the evening, or kind of towards the end of the day, I'll be doing things like kind of filming videos for the Instagram, for me videos for the team kind of plugging stories, as slowly that will merge into more DJing, practicing piano kind of doing my own thing chilling out watching way too many hours of Netflix, that kind of thing. It's a bit of a gradient between in the mornings, I'm kind of very thread based. And then I start to film videos a bit more fun. And I've started to DJ, and then I start to play music. And then I'll watch Netflix, and I go to sleep, and then I'll back up in the next day.


Podcast Host  17:29

I think you need to have that Netflix time I think everybody does. I'd like to know a little bit more about your background in the arts in particular. And how do you see that as hoping what you do in thread, because obviously interviews and you know, going to create content and getting up on stage with TEDx. All these bits and pieces seem to require like the skill set that is often seen on stage as well, whether you be in theater in these kinds of things. So have you seen a link between the two?


Jenk Oz  17:58

I massively massively do, I actually tribute quite a lot of my kind of don't want to say this, but like my public speaking successes, such I attribute massively to bit to kind of being in the performing sector. As a young child, I think the one thing it taught me was confidence, and the ability to be able to trust in what you're saying. And be able to know that if you stand up and speak to people, you're you're able to do that you're able to listen. And so the fact that I kind of added various acting roles as child and actually not only gave me confidence, it also gave me that kind of ability to learn the script and learn lines a bit better be able to know what I'm saying and understand why I'm saying instead of kind of just regurgitating lines, yeah, and I feel like that massively helped with the kind of public speaking aspect, but I do because, I mean, as you can imagine, if you're stepping up to on onto a TEDx stage, and it's the first time you've spoken to public spoken in public, as opposed to speaking up onto a TEDx stage, and you've done this on the other kind of acting roles in front of a camera, some in front of a live audience, then you're gonna feel much more confident, I'm also fit the best thing for my confidence. 100% was live theater, because in front of a camera, you can you can redo things, you can make it a bit perfect, but life later and you're doing the same thing every other day for a month, it kind of it really instills your confidence, just be able to like know what you're doing, and be able to trust in the fact that you know, we're doing and, and therefore not feel nervous about it.


Podcast Host  19:26

It's great that you have taken that confidence into other areas. And I think that's a good note for any students listening who are in the arts, always look to other areas to see where you can take that confidence for you. What do you think has been the thing that's 10 next thread media? Is that a confidence and mindset side of things? Or is that a skill set and you know, pitching to clients and knowing what content works, those kinds of things?


Jenk Oz  19:51

Are they the kind of thing that where you push your forward was the innate mindset that am I kind of precious everywhere I go, is the innate mindset to to know That you should never fear failure, but you should be terrified of regret. I mean, how many people thought of Amazon or Starbucks? I mean, you put sofas into a cafe, that's all Starbucks is. But I mean, the one person that did it, look where they are now, or Amazon or Facebook, even like the people who thought of those ideas, but never executed, and are kicking themselves. So that's kind of where that concept of Don't be afraid of failure, be terrified of regret comes from, that's kind of a thing that really pushed me to do it was because if down the road, there's something really golden here. And there's something like that is untapped here. And a lot of untapped potential, which I personally believe there is, then I want to be able to reach there and not see it happen 10 years from now and then regret it.


Podcast Host  20:48

Yeah. So very much like a mindset side of things, right? Like, it's understanding that if you've got an idea, and you think it could work, and you've seen the kind of start of it working, then you should follow it up and exactly what you did, what makes you decide to follow one idea and not another because I'm sure like your 15 year around a lot of different entrepreneurs, you're hearing a lot of different things, having decided not to chase that and just to chase others?


Jenk Oz  21:14

Well, I think this firstly is worth saying is that the the kind of cost it really is nowadays is not a massive thing generation said, firstly, based on the fact that most of us still live with our parents. And secondly, based on the fact that nowadays, with things like AWS, cloud computing, I mean, the cost of failure nowadays is a 10th of that than it was last decade, which I think is a massive, massive thing. I think it's also worth saying that this was one of the kind of the first ideas I had. And I generally haven't had that many ideas since. But my mind has been very focused on this. So I haven't really been brainstorming that often. I think one strategy, which I've heard someone do, and I really wish I could remember his name now, but I can't is he and his team will ideate and they'll come up with 20 ideas. The next day, they'll come back and they'll shoot down as many of those ideas as possible, they'll say, This is bad. Because this won't work. This is bad. Because this will work. This is bad. Because this won't work. The ones that just won't get shut down the ones that have nothing bad about them, they'll come out the next day, and then they will try and shoot those down again. And then by the end of it, you'll have one or two ideas which just have no faults whatsoever. And then they'll follow through with those ideas. And the interesting part behind that is that for every idea which issue down, they get a pay bonus, which I think is the kind of really interesting concept behind that.


Podcast Host  22:30

I love that I think that's a brutal way of going through ideas. But also with that added bonus that you get paid for ideas that don't work.


Jenk Oz  22:39

I've just remembered his name is Astro teller. And he works with Google. So yeah,


Podcast Host  22:44

there you go. Alright, Astro teller. But yeah, I think that's a fantastic concept. What's next for thread media? like where do you see it going over the next couple of years, as you near towards, you know, college applications, etc.


Jenk Oz  22:56

We got a few things kind of install glue, we've just launched our hustle section on our website. And that's got three sub sections. You've got entrepreneur, and now the career code section. And we're fortunate enough to have the absolutely awesome Mr. Dan cannon, who is our kind of a social change career coach. So if anyone wants to go ask him a question, they just pick up a question on the website. And then he gets to answer it. And he is clearly knowledgeable because he works at University of Oxford at the Sayyid Business School. So he kind of knows his things about sociants careers. So that's just launched. And we're very happy about that. The next week, we're expanding our media partnership with global citizen, which is for people listening who don't know is one of the kind of biggest social change giggle websites almost in the world. And we're going to be inserting their petitions and the actionable steps directly into our website so that you can kind of sign a global citizen petition as you're reading thread without ever leaving the website, which I think is quite a cool feature which we're introducing now. Just few days ago, we've trialed what I tested the different languages of the website. So I've seen it in Arabic, Indonesian, Chinese, Japanese, French, Turkish, Spanish, Italian, kind of all the classics. So that's quite exciting stuff that was quite cool to see the whole website in symbols, were launching thread media.com, which is the kind of official website for the consulting side. We've been doing it a lot behind the scenes, but we think we re definitely want to release the website. Now as soon as possible rolled that out. Although we already have kind of clients over time on a retainer, we're launching the disc or channel called social x change, which I think is quite small because it's like x change and like social x change alongside a group of kind of 20 hopefully, non government organisations. And for example, you'll be able to have a conversation directly with verbal citizen through our discord as resolution embassador is and kind of digital moderators on that. And then kind of on that point, we're also launching our kind of global Changemaker network and that will be our product. Full network of our ambassadors, our remote writers, our disk or moderators, and kind of all of our interns who actually start next week, I just realized what the data is our interns start next week. So yeah, that's very exciting stuff. Over the next few months, we kind of were hoping, and it's a bit of a more of a kind of phase two thread kind of bit of a longer goal. And we're hoping to be able to make the website responsive almost to your IP address or where you're coming to us from. And we're going to do that through a series of remote writers spread globally across the world, who formed the kind of ecosystem of writers for thread. And the idea is that you would go onto the web, you go off the website, from rural Malaysia, and you would see one story based on your kind of town, City area of Malaysia, you'd see one based on Malaysia, you'd see another story based on your continent, and then you see a few stories based on the world. And the idea is that we're gonna have enough global writers across the world to be able to fulfill that goal effectively anywhere you go in the world. And that's the big phase two, that's the next big thing that we're looking forward towards.


Podcast Host  26:08

So there's a lot of different things going on. And some quite ambitious goals there. What are some of the like the the biggest threats to the future of threat? Is it you growing up? Is it you kind of getting older as it kind of happened with AI cool kid? Like, what are some of the other threats that you say to the future of the company?


Jenk Oz  26:25

I've read, I don't know, I think that the biggest threat that we kind of face is, I don't know, I've just I've thought about this as as myself, but I don't know if I'm going to go back on the situation, depending on what happens. But kind of as I grow up, I'd rather become more behind the scenes and find a new Jenkins a new better improved smiley, bubbly, a better looking jangles to kind of chew to kind of replace me in front of the camera. And I feel like we're going to stay in our demographic, and the only threat that and this is a big threat. But the kind of one threat is that the next generation generation alpha has none of the same traits this generation said. So when they kind of come into this demographic, and they're like, ooh, what social change, then we thought we have an issue. But I'll we'll cross that bridge when we get that Fingers crossed generation alpha, or even more social change based on generations and teach them even more about social change a threat?


Podcast Host  27:20

Yeah, well, if the trends continue, I think that that's exactly the case. I don't know how many students are out there. But hopefully, the future smiley Jenk Oz is listening right now, and is thinking how they can get involved. Who knows. So what would be some of your top tips for students if they want to kind of give a media company ago,


Jenk Oz  27:41

I think I've kind of said my two, my two best top tips I could ever give to anyone who's aspiring would be my, don't be afraid of failure, be terrified of regret. And my if you treat a dream, like a dream today, it'll be a dream tomorrow. But you can treat a dream, like if you treat your idea like a company today or be a company tomorrow. And I feel like I'm just gonna reach reiterate those two things, because they're unbelievably important. And they're both such an easy thing to change. It is really is a switch, we have to turn and we'll help you massively to any students out there who are talking to you before, if you're looking to be a part if you're looking to build a social change kind of media website, but lots of experience a quick little plug towards thread, we're starting our internship, but thread, if you would, like I can send you my email and details. And then if you can like them for the show notes, I'll be awesome. Do email me, and that could be I hate to plug myself, but I feel like it's necessary as envoys of course. So if you kind of want to experience a social media company, based around generation said with generations and all around you that do Beth definitely consider thread for a remote internship. I'll be awesome. And yeah, that my two major pieces of advice and a quick blog. There you go.


Podcast Host  28:50

Yeah, well, I guess it's that whole concept that I think a lot of the time students put mental barriers in front of themselves, because they are, you know, 14, 15 years old. And they're like, this doesn't sound something that like a 14, 15 year old should be doing like starting a media company. But there you go, right. Like, it must have been pretty interesting early on, when you were looking for support around this idea. Were there any kind of naysayers? Or was everybody on board?


Jenk Oz  29:16

I think everyone was mostly on board. I think naturally, you kind of have one of the first kind of steps you have a 112 really kind of eight years old to have an idea for a website. Everyone's like, oh, okay, well done. Well done. You do that. But then they kind of kick off and you never really see those people again, you kind of think, Hmm, I wonder what they're thinking now. But yeah, you kind of have a few of those moments, but there's never ever really been anyone who's saying, No, don't do that as a bad idea. Which I mean, I guess is good, but I feel like if those people are knowledgeable, I know they're talking about and say that to you. I think it's always something to be able to consider going to take someone's advice if someone is in the field and says that's genuinely just a bad idea. But almost saying don't do it. But I'm saying it's something which all advisory reads, should we take into consideration? Because all advice is someone's opinion. So if someone's opinion is that, then you kind of do have to think, well, am I doing the right thing? Or am I going around the right way? And if that person is giving such a provoked kind of opinion, is that Riley promote science think about?


Podcast Host  30:21

Yeah, actually, there was a student that I chatted with a couple of weeks ago, done some fantastic work in the social chain space as well. And Nathaniel, and he said, you know, be selective of who you take advice from, you know, everybody's got advice, but not every piece of advice is worth listening to. And it's kind of like understanding the people's background who's giving you advice and being like, it's probably not worth listening to at this point in my life. But you know...


Jenk Oz  30:44

I definitely agree. I definitely agree with that both of them. There's some sort of merit and kind of being able to appreciate where someone's coming from.


Podcast Host  30:51

Yeah, absolutely. No for sure. That's exactly right. And what's next for you personally? Like after school? What's your goals? Are you aiming for a particular University at all?


Jenk Oz  31:01

and I've got an epic GCSE year headed my way with full teachers s grades, which I'm really hoping all my teachers like me, which I definitely cannot back. Yeah, GCSE, then move on to a levels, and then even vaguely about University. So here we go.


Podcast Host  31:17

Yeah, you need to study in the UK or the US or somewhere else entirely.


Jenk Oz  31:21

Hopefully, the US only because my mom's Canadian. And it's really a nice change of scenery kind of going. I've kind of done the really classic British incrementally going up in scores kind of as you grow up, like I've seen the whole I've seen the same group of people in school my whole life. So I thought it'd be a nice change of scenery, nice change of accent, you notice.


Podcast Host  31:41

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I think it's a, you know, if you can aim for those top universities as well, they've obviously got a lot of different things going on, and a great community to get around. Yeah, who knows where people might go, but hopefully, you can pave your path to those universities in the US. And Jenk, if people wanted to follow along with your story, personally, what would be the best way for them to do that,


Jenk Oz  32:02

uh, on Instagram, the Thred Mag. So that's Thred Magazine, Instagram, Jenk Oz, which is just j e n, k, dot oz, O, Z, like the wizard. And the same applies for Facebook and Twitter, I believe. And then on the website, thread.com, everything we have mentioned is definitely a thread website. So that's very easy find,


Podcast Host  32:30

and in some of the show notes as well, so people shouldn't stress. But yeah, Jenk, it's been awesome chatting. And I think for students out there who want to know a little bit more about social change, who want to learn a little bit more about what's going on around of the world in a way that is digestible for them is targeted towards their me is like, realize that being of like, you know, a young age can be an asset.


32:55

Yeah, I must, I must be agree a lot, you find that I get caught up quite a lot. So do you ever find that your age is really being a massive restriction for you, but to the surprise, actually end up saying the opposite because I found that it is there literally every day that someone creates something, it's not every day that the someone who creates something is also 12 years old. So that's actually massively helped me to kind of fast track my way straight into like, massive amounts of press stories, because everyone wants to write about the 12 year old creditor website, but no one really wants to write about the 53 year old white haired business very formal guy who created his 14th website do you know what I mean?


Podcast Host  33:36

I know exactly what you mean. So yeah, no, it's great. And you got to ride that wave as long as you can. And you got to kind of make sure that you're, you know, telling media about it and spreading the word far and wide, which is awesome. That's exactly what I'm going to be doing with this episode. But Jenk has been fantastic to chat. And, yeah, look forward to hopefully getting a couple more people reading Thred as a result of listening to the podcast. 


Jenk Oz  33:59

Much appreciated. Thank you so much.