I turned my side hustle into a £375k business – my sister & I invested just £75, even J-Lo’s a fan
TWO sisters have revealed how they turned their hobby into a £375,000 business, that has been noticed by Jennifer Lopez.
Jen and Jocelyn invested just £75 into the business, which now makes £1026 a day.
Jocelyn started making candles as a hobby and gave them to her co-workers as gifts.
As her passion grew, she decided to do a Kickstarter to try and get some funding, so that she could make the candles at a larger scale.
However, she then became ill with food poisoning, so roped in Jen to help her out.
“She said if I helped her to finish the Kickstart we could make a business together”, Jen told UpFlip.
The duo then set about creating their own business, RxLA, making candles in their kitchen and selling them at farmer’s markets at the weekend.
They started with just £75 between them and made whatever they could.
“Whatever money we made we completely reinvested it, because we had day jobs“, Jen said.
During Covid, the sisters opened their own shop up, as all of the markets were closed.
However, they described it as a “money pit” and said that keeping the shop running cost them a lot of money.
“We did get a lot of new customers, but it was just so expensive”, Jen said, revealing that the sisters made the decision to close the store after the pandemic was over.
After two years Jocelyn decided to quit her job to focus on the candle business full time, and after another year, she managed to persuade Jen to join her.
“We were so busy, and I was working 70 hour weeks, so I had no choice and just went for it”, Jen said.
Jen advised anyone thinking of creating their own business to use AI to help you put together a business.
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!
She said: “You can literally task AI to create an entire company for you and it’ll spit out a name and come up with candle fragrances for you.”
She added that it is important to think about reinvesting money back into your company, so that you can buy better equipment, to improve the running of the business.
RxLA now makes most of its money from online sales, and Jen and Jocelyn also make perfume, incense and diffusers in their warehouse.
The business cashes in a whopping £375,000 a year, and Jennifer Lopez has been spotted buying the candles.
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