I started my side hustle with £300 & now make £6k a WEEK from my bedroom – how to earn cash without leaving the house
A WOMAN has revealed that she started a side hustle with just £300 from her kitchen counter, and now rakes in £6,000 a week just from TikTok alone.
Candice Bannister, 42, initially founded Candy’s Cupcakes, in 2011, while on maternity leave.
What began as a hobby quickly spiralled, and thanks to her husband, Oliver Bannister, 42, who created her a website, and the support of a local bakery, things started to take off.
Now, Candice has 17 employees, ships her cakes around the country, and makes just under one million pounds each year.
The mum-of-two, from Dukinfield, Tameside, previously told Fabulous how she had grown her business.
But now, Candice has shared how she has taken her business to the next level – and no, it’s not with loads of paid advertising or posh marketing.
In fact, according to this business owner, the recipe for success is much more simple – it’s all down to TikTok.
Candice told Fabulous: “I worked in supported housing, supporting homeless people. I absolutely loved that job but I was always very creative and making cakes was something that I was always really interested in.
“In 2010 I had my first child so I was on maternity leave and that’s when I started hobby baking.
“Then organically, people came to me and asked to pay me for cakes, which is when the hobby gradually started to turn into a business.
“In February 2011, my husband said I should make a go of it. He gave me £300 so I could buy some items in bulk.
“I had gone back to work part-time at that point, but with the £300 I went out and bought cake boxes, ingredients and thought, if I buy from proper suppliers, I can look at making a mark up, so that’s when I started treating it as more of a business.
“Then with the help of Facebook, I started running competitions, to try to grow my followers and then that kind of boomed and spiralled.
“It started in my home kitchen and before I knew it, it was going really well.”
Candice explained that she decided to go full time with the cake business in 2014 and by 2019, was shipping her cakes around the UK.
Now, the brilliant baker, who has made cakes for celebrities including Niall Horan, Paddy McGuinness and Molly-Mae Hague, swears by TikTok as the secret to making cash quickly.
We started off with 2,000 followers and now we have 25,000 followers. It’s grown massively
Candice Bannister
Not only has she grown her TikTok account by 23,000 followers, but she has also made £167,000 in less than a year on the platform.
As a result, Candice has now set a clear goal to increase the revenue made on the app and hopes to try and reach £1 million TikTok turnover, matching current web sales.
Candice explained: “We hadn’t really been that active on TikTok, we were just doing the odd post without realising how much TikTok was growing.
“We decided to trial it properly last summer – I made a set up with a backdrop, went on and did a live video and started selling our cupcakes and cake jars.
“We got a really good response straight away.
“We started off with 2,000 followers and now we have 25,000 followers. It’s grown massively.
Our turnover since September, just from TikTok, is £167,000
Candice Bannister
“Now we’ve realised that consistency is definitely key when it comes to TikTok.”
As a result, Candice hired two presenters, who go live on TikTok for 11 hours a day.
She added: “Last September we decided to employ staff to present on live, much more full-time than I was able to do.
“Now we have two staff on there – a presenter that goes live from 8:30am and then they have a changeover at about 3:15pm and then we have someone on there until 9:45pm.
How to start your own business
Dragon's Den star Theo Paphitis revealed his tips for budding entrepreneurs:
- One of the biggest barriers aspiring entrepreneurs and business owners face is a lack of confidence. You must believe in your idea — even more than that, be the one boring your friends to death about it.
- Never be afraid to make decisions. Once you have an idea, it’s the confidence to make decisions that is crucial to starting and maintaining a business.
- If you don’t take calculated risks, you’re standing still. If a decision turns out to be wrong, identify it quickly and deal with it if you can. Failing that, find someone else who can.
- It’s OK not to get it right the first time. My experience of making bad decisions is what helped develop my confidence, making me who I am today.
- Never underestimate the power of social media, and remember the internet has levelled the playing field for small businesses.
- Don’t forget to dream. A machine can’t do that!
“At the moment, we are live for about 11 hours a day. We keep it rolling and that way we’re getting a lot of engagement. People can ask questions and they will answer them.
“We went down the angle of decorating the cakes live – people would place an order and we would decorate their cakes live and then it would get packed and sent.
“Now everyone loves our cake in a jar, so on the live, the presenter will decorate the jars, so people can see how they’re made.”
Candice revealed that the business has generated £167,000 in less than a year thanks to TikTok.
She shared: “Our turnover since September, just from TikTok, is £167,000.
“We make about £6,000 a week on TikTok.
Everyone has been missing a trick if they’re not on TikTok
Candice Bannister
“24% of our total revenue as a business now comes from TikTok.
“We have 84,000 viewers a week on average.
“I started out on Facebook, but it remained stagnant with the amount of followers, and the same with Instagram. It’s not really a place to get orders – people just like to look at pretty pictures. It’s not a selling platform really.
“We’ve only been on TikTok since September and we’re absolutely smashing it out the park with the followers we’ve got.
“We post regularly on there. You can do shoppable videos and tag products and then make money from those.”
Candice claimed that more businesses need to get on TikTok, as she advised: “There’s so many businesses that could be utilising TikTok. Everyone has been missing a trick if they’re not on TikTok.
We spend a fortune on Google advertising for our website, but the affiliate program on TikTok is by far more effective
Candice Bannister
“You can sell pretty much anything there, apart from alcohol.
“People need to stop questioning themselves that they don’t understand the platform.
“People shouldn’t be scared of using it. It is super straightforward to set up.
“Even if you just commit to doing one or two videos, or going live for just an hour a day, you will soon see it pick up.
Do I need to pay tax on my side hustle income?
MANY people feeling strapped for cash are boosting their bank balance with a side hustle.
The good news is, there are plenty of simple ways to earn some additional income – but you need to know the rules.
When you’re employed the company you work for takes the tax from your earnings and pays HMRC so you don’t have to.
But anyone earning extra cash, for example from selling things online or dog walking, may have to do it themselves.
Stephen Moor, head of employment at law firm Ashfords, said: “Caution should be taken if you’re earning an additional income, as this is likely to be taxable.
“The side hustle could be treated as taxable trading income, which can include providing services or selling products.”
You can make a gross income of up to £1,000 a year tax-free via the trading allowance, but over this and you’ll usually need to pay tax.
Stephen added: “You need to register for a self-assessment at HMRC to ensure you are paying the correct amount of tax.
“The applicable tax bands and the amount of tax you need to pay will depend on your income.”
If you fail to file a tax return you could end up with a surprise bill from HMRC later on asking you to pay the tax you owe – plus extra fees on top.
“It’s really not that difficult, out of all the social platforms out there, I think that TikTok is the most authentic.
“You don’t have to pre-script anything, you can just be yourself.
“It’s a very good platform to test things. If something doesn’t sell, you can just take it off. And you can get feedback from customers.
“The affiliate program is brilliant for businesses, you can send out products to influencers and they do the work for you. You can choose how much commission they get.
“We spend a fortune on Google advertising for our website, but the affiliate program on TikTok is by far more effective than Google.
“There’s so much revenue that you can make there, in support of whatever else you’re doing. It doesn’t make sense that people aren’t going on it.”
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