Glitter Girl founder Sophia Rizzo’s mother Megan opens up on her daughter’s wild success

The mother of entrepreneurial sensation Sophia Rizzo who started soaring company Glitter Girl before she was 10 has plenty of advice for parents of youngsters planning start ups.

How do you raise an entrepreneur?

It’s a question Megan Rizzo has been asked a thousand times … and it’s little wonder.

After all, her daughter Sophia set up her Glitter Girl business at age nine, was turning over hundreds of thousands of dollars by the time she was 10, won the Gold Coast Bulletin’s Young Woman of the Year Award at 14, and now at age 17, her business is sponsoring the very category she won.

From selling little pots of loose glitter to glitter make-up, glitter accessories and sparkly fashion, Sophia is beloved by pre-teens, drag queens and Swifties alike.

But behind this teen sensation is a mother who sees her for exactly what she is – a true girl boss.

Megan says while there might not be a science to raising a business baby, there is an art to it – and it’s something she has spent the last seven years mastering.

“I didn’t realise it at the time, but we were always sort of talking about business and business ideas at the dinner table,” Megan says.

“If we saw an ad come on the television, we would ask the kids what they thought the product would be before it was revealed, or we would ask if they could tell by the brand name what the product did.

“There was no grand plan behind it, we were just interested in that and the kids were too, but it was all in fun. We just had a mindset of looking at products from the perspective of a business rather than a consumer.

“Whenever we would travel we would point out the different brands and products and ask what they would create if they could do anything. We wanted to point out that anything is possible, but you have to be committed, show up and work and know that it’s not going to blow up overnight.

“Ultimately, they have to take an interest in it themselves. But when they do, trust their ideas, they know their demographic, they know what their friends want to buy and they know what’s on trend. You just have to be sure they have that passion.”

Sophia Rizzo and Megan Rizzo at Gold Coast Bulletin Women of the Year Awards Presented by Harvey Norman 2024 at The Star Gold Coast. Picture: Portia Large.

Megan, an award-winning photographer, says the family first invested $2000 into Sophia’s sparkling dream, but only after she had convinced them she was serious.

But once they were behind her, they took their own commitment seriously as well.

“We were in Hawaii on holiday and I casually just asked her if you could have a business. what would it be and what would you sell?

“She said her business would be called Glitter Girl and it would sell all things sparkly to make people happy.

“I thought that was cute but didn’t think anything more of it. A couple months later she came out of her room with this unicorn notebook just filled with all her ideas. She hounded us for months and we realised she’s not going to drop it, let’s look at it.

“We never put any pressure on her that Glitter Girl needed to work or be profitable, we just started small by putting it online with free tools like social media.

“But then at the twelve-month mark it was doing so well I decided to quit my job and just focus 100 per cent on helping her build this.”

For the Rizzo family, the business lessons never end.

Sophia Rizzo whose Glitter Girl was the sponsor of the ‘Young Women’ category of the Gold Coast Bulletin Women of the Year awards. Picture Glenn Hampson

When Glitter Girl needed more space they used it as an opportunity to buy a warehouse in West Burleigh and explained that the beauty of investing in bricks and mortar was that if the business one day failed, they could still rent out the space.

Megan says one hurdle in the development of the Glitter Girl brand was its reliance on social media when Sophia was so young.

But once again, they tackled it together.

“We needed social media to sell your products and to build the community, but I always had the logins and the control. When Sophie reached the age to have the logins as well, we still both have access and I monitor all the messages and comments, it’s my job to protect my daughter,” she says.

“In the seven years we’ve had the brand, I think there have been two messages that made me feel uneasy … there’s never been anything inappropriate or nasty. Our brand is so joyful and fun.

“If your child wants to get into business, think about what they’re selling – does it align with your values and their age?

Sophia Rizzo and Megan Rizzo at the launch party for the Gold Coast Bulletin Women of the Year Awards at the Gold Coast Convention and Exhibition Centre. Picture: Portia Large.

“It’s also just common sense, when Sophia was little we would never post anything with her in school uniform and we would only post 24 hours after we had been somewhere because I was just extremely aware that this is a little girl. I had seen how people reacted at an event, they just swarmed to her and she handled it so well, but I have to make sure I protect her.”

While Megan struggles to stop Sophia from spending all of her time in the business, she says she also regularly stresses that she can quit anytime.

“I think getting her through these last years of school is one of the biggest challenges, she just wants to be in that warehouse,” she says.

“But as her mother I know how important it is that she finishes her schooling and has all those other social milestones in high school.

“Even so, I remind her at least once a year that she doesn’t have to do this. She always has options. If she grew out of this we could copy and paste with another brand or she could move to New York or have a gap year. It’s her decision.

“But right now she says she plans to graduate high school next year and then walk across the road to the warehouse and get right back to business.”