WHEN Amy Knight left university in 2016 she was £30,000 in debt.
However, just two years later, she completely paid off her debt, earning her first million at the age of 23.
Now the mother is expected to turn over £60m by the end of next March, having made around £10m since the start of April.
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The 27-year-old mother’s secret to success? An idea she came up with at the kitchen table.
Amy, who has two daughters under the age of five, set up Must Have Ideas with business partners Chris Finch and husband Rob Knight in August 2018, each investing £1,000 into the business.
Must Have Ideas was inspired by their management roles at Ecoegg, which sold household products, through shopping channels such as QVC, with the trio opening the business in 2018 when their former company was sold.
When Amy joined Ecoegg as a warehouse assistant whilst studying law at the University of Kent, she never imagined becoming warehouse manager and then head of supply chain, before leaving to run her own business.
She worked a minimum of 40 hours a week while studying and earned around £35,000 a year.
“My attendance at university wasn’t amazing,” admitted Amy.
“My lectures were recorded and I watched them before and after work.”
Having a full-time job meant Amy didn’t need to take out a loan to cover living expenses.
She took out a loan to cover her monthly fees and paid it off shortly after launch. You must have ideas.
Eager to market her business, Amy taught herself how to advertise her brand on social media by watching YouTube.
Speaking exclusively to Fabulous, Amy says: “We put our ads, which were mainly one-minute videos, live on Facebook at 6am on the day we launched the business in August 2018.
“I remember sitting down to lunch and thinking ‘are we going to sell something?’”
So within minutes of her asking that question, they sold their first product – a Hygiene Hero, which is an antibacterial sponge for washing dishes.
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“We were incredibly excited and relieved because the sale made us feel like we can actually do this,” she says.
Must Have Ideas has gone on to enjoy many other milestones since its first sale.
In February 2019, the company sold £10,000 worth of products (around 400 orders) in one day – exactly six months after the first sale.
“We were on a plane heading to a fair in Germany when this happened and I remember being so excited because 10,000 seemed like a big number, a real milestone,” recalls Amy.
Must Have Ideas’ first year of trading ended on a high thanks to a healthy turnover of half a million pounds, with the value doubling to £1 million by the end of the company’s second year of trading.
In August 2021, three years after Must Have Ideas began trading, it reached a major milestone when it sold £100,000 worth of goods in one day.
Amy, who appeared on Forbes’ 30 under 30 list of top retail and online entrepreneurs, revealed that the secret to Must Have Ideas’ success is listening to its customers.
“Our entire business is incredibly data-driven, with extensive dashboards in different areas of our warehouse to monitor what’s selling and what’s not selling,” she explains.
“It’s increasingly difficult to secure sales by advertising on Facebook and Instagram, so we have to work harder and improve, constantly testing videos, trying out new ideas and finding out what resonates with customers.
“Knowing our data and learning what works and what doesn’t so we can improve sales is key to our success.”
She adds: “As a company we focused on being profitable from the first order and in the first month, when we had a turnover of £3,000, at the end of it.”
Amy says that building strong relationships with customers has been key to the success of her business.
“When the business started, people didn’t know if they could trust us enough to deliver the product they ordered, but we worked hard to earn their trust by providing a toll-free phone number from day one so they could call us. us if they needed it,” she says.
“We also make a photo of our families available on our home page, to show that we are a family
business.”
This strategy not only increased sales, but ended up generating over 100,000 TrustPilot reviews for the business.
Getting the right staff is also critical to the success of the business, says Amy, whose 135 full- and part-time employees range from shipping assistants to customer service representatives and writers to video editors.
“I have found that it is important to hire people based on attitude rather than skills, because skills can be taught but attitude cannot.”
Must Have Ideas’ best-selling products include Nanna’s Secret Cleaning Clay – a natural clay product that cleans and shines stainless steel sinks and Better Brush – a rubber broom that leaves nothing behind.
Amy Knight’s Business Tips
For anyone eager to experience the ups and downs of running a business, follow Amy’s top three tips:
- Understand your customer so you can provide the products or services they need.
- Build a business focused on what you love.
- Hire people based on attitude rather than skills, as skills can be taught but attitude cannot.
Seeking new products to sell to new and existing customers is a priority for Amy and her business partners.
And expanding the business to the US and parts of Europe is part of its future plans.
In addition to making money, one of the biggest perks of Amy’s job is being her own boss.
She adds: “I like the flexibility.
“If my two daughters need me at home, I can help them without asking the boss for permission, because I am the boss.”
But, of course, this doesn’t come without challenges.
She says, “You can’t switch off because you’re always worrying about it; It’s like a third child!”
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This story originally appeared on The-sun.com read the full story
