A young entrepreneur went online to get her products directly to customers during Covid

I won the Junior Entrepreneur competition in the school and then kept going with it. So my school project then turned into a real business.

Everything blew up when a social influencer featured one of our toys on their channel. Things went crazy. That day all of our products sold out on our Etsy site. We’ve become this multi-award winning children’s brand providing early stage children’s toys and baby gifts. I now make a point of using a team of brand reps on social media, as they have such sway and impact.

Originally I hand-made the toys myself. I was flat out making them 18 hours a day. But I’ve now recently partnered with several social enterprises in Nepal and Morocco to create my beautiful cuddly creations. I still design the toys, but the people who now make them are women who are marginalised and have no source of income. We’ve been able to create work for them under ethical conditions, and make sure they are supported with decent wages and childcare, and a safe place to work. We use online videos to show them how to put the design together. Wonky Woolins has developed from being inspired by granny’s toys to helping women all over the world in bad situations. So I feel like we’re making a positive difference in this world.

Initially I’d been very reliant on selling my products at craft fairs. So during the Covid lockdown, I learnt how to create a website by watching Youtube videos. And after several iterations I built the Wonky Woolins site in 2020, which is an ecommerce site. I can now sell directly to my customers, and keep in touch with them through email marketing. I’m a young business person, still living at home. In fact I’m still too young for van insurance, so my dad sometimes has to drive me to events, which is a bit mad. It’s a strange contradiction, as I’m just back from a trade fair in Birmingham, where one of the Dragon’s Den’s mentors, Theo Paphitis, helped us with a stall!