A 17-YEAR-OLD has revealed that her side hustle business makes a whopping £320,000 a year.
Bella Lin always knew that she wanted to be self-employed, and has run her own businesses since primary school.
As a young child she had a knitting business and a slime business, and even a lemonade stand.
Bella has always owned Guinea Pigs and began building her own cages for them when she came across issues with the ones on offer in shops.
At first, she made cages from crates and bricks, before drawing up her ideal cage in a notebook.
Bella’s father, a computer programmer, connected her to a factory in China, through one of his clients, and she worked with the factory to create a prototype for her ideal cage.
After about a year of work, she had perfected the cage, and using money she had saved up from birthdays and Christmasses, launched her business GuineaLoft on Amazon.
Bella was unsure that her product would be a hit, but after just two weeks, she sold out of her first 100 units.
“When I saw that the first 100 units sold out on Amazon, I just knew that I had to go all in to this”, she said.
Bella now has a six-person team working for her that help her with the production, product testing and product photography of the various Guinea Pig cages, and accessories that she sells.
The business has also expanded to include products for rabbits and hamster as well.
In 2023, GuineaLoft made £320,000, however, she has decided not to pay herself a cut of the earnings, as she currently still lives with her parents, who are able to provide for her.
She is aiming to have made £1 million in sales in the next two years.
Bella said that juggling running her business alongside attending school was very tricky, as she was working 20-25 hours a week on GuineaLoft, alongside her studies.
However, she has now enrolled into university, and will continue with the business whilst studying for her degree.
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Bella said that her parents are not really involved in helping her with the business, but have always shown her plenty of support.
She said: “I think that with a lot of parents, when kids are younger and they express an interest in startups with something trivial, it’s very easy to sort of shut them down.
“With my dad, he always treated me as an adult. He never made fun of my passions.
“I’m really glad that he never brushed that off, because look at where we are now with the piggies.”
In the next few years, Bella plans to expand her business to cater for even more small pets, and also plans to sell her own pet food.
She added: “Opening an in-person store is a big dream of mine.
“The ultimate goal that I have for GuineaLoft is just to be the recognised small pet brand.”
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