MILLIE Jaspert had a lightbulb moment during her son’s bath time three years ago – and now it’ll help her treat the family for Christmas.
At the time, the primary school teacher realised there was a gap in the market for bath toys for kids beyond toddler age.
4
4
Her son Tobias, then seven, would lie in the bath for ages wanting to play with something and Millie, 44, would struggle to find anything suitable.
Shortly after, despite a busy life as a year four teacher, as well as being mum to Oscar, 14, and Tobias, now 10, with her husband Gus, who works in renewable energy, she set up her side hustle.
Millie told The Sun: “It’s a precious time when they’re in the bath and you’re sitting with them, a chance to chat and be engaged with each other, so I wanted to make it fun for the children and their parents.”
The savvy mum, who lives with the family in Horsham in West Sussex, added: “It was a bucket list thing. I’ve always wanted to have a business.
“I spent six months coming up with ideas and, looking back, I leapt in at the deep end.
“I had prototypes made for one but it turned out to be a minimum order of 1,000, so I was way out of my depth.
“I scaled it back and decided to source items and put them together instead.”
Millie said she spent between £500 and £1,000 to get her side hustle up and running, launching her first two products a year ago.
Most read in Money
These toys, which currently sell for £14 each, are to encourage learning and tie in with her teaching work.
One is called Splashy Towers, which are 3D foam blocks with a big float as the base.
The other is Dribble Lab, which has lots of different science bits, like measuring cylinders, to encourage scientific investigation and improve kids’ STEM skills.
4
4
She came up with the name Spark Bubble and discovered a company called 99 Designs to make a website to sell her toys through.
Millie’s also using Canva for designing and developing her brand identity herself.
She said: “I’ve got this little logo I really love, an octopus with a light bulb – the idea being that when you’re playing in the bubbles and relaxing, your brain is sparking and all the ideas are coming.
“That was a really fun part of it. There are so many different aspects to starting your own small business that are really interesting.”
Getting the business off the ground
Millie had her first sales at a local pop-up market run by her local council last December, having produced 50 each of her products.
“Having that face to face interaction was great,” she said.
“I’d explain what the products were and people would say ‘Oh that’s interesting, I’ll buy them for my grandchildren for Christmas’.
“It was very exciting and made me realise there was a market. People were interested, they liked it.”
Launching the website and starting off by selling mostly to family and friends, she made enough to cover her initial costs by last Christmas.
In January this year, she went to a toy fair at London’s Earls Court to develop her idea further.
“I did my market research to see what was happening in the bath toy industry and started speaking to brands that had interesting products,” she said.
“I realised it wasn’t that ridiculous that I could sell them on my website.”
It turned out to be quite a low risk.
She’d assumed that she’d have to order 1,000s of them, but then realised they were quite small minimum orders.
How much time she spends on it
Millie is now selling over 30 products on the Spark Bubble site.
Having worked hard on search engine optimization, she’s making an average of around £1,000 a month to supplement her three-day-a-week salary as a teacher.
While Millie didn’t share her salary, qualified teachers outside London earn between £28,000 and £38,810 if they work full-time, according to Gov.UK data.
She said: “It’s working well because I do the proactive stuff that leads the business forward in the holidays.
“During any other spare time I get, like when my sons are playing football on Saturday mornings, that’s when I do the tweaks to the website and try out any new products.
“Then, day in-day out, I’m just dealing with inquiries and fulfilling orders when they come in.
“Luckily I’ve got a post office one minute away from my house.”
It’s not all been plain sailing, however.
“It can be frustrating when I’ve run out of products and people want to buy them but I’ve got some items coming in from China that haven’t arrived,” she said.
“That’s poor planning on my part.
“But I’m learning a bit about business as I go along, though I’m more excited about the products I’m selling than diving into spreadsheets.
“Goodness knows what will happen come January, but I’m feeling positive at the moment, the graphs are going in the right direction.”
‘I can treat the kids without worry’
The extra money is being used to provide her family with a good Christmas during the cost of living crisis.
“At the moment, it brings in a useful extra bit of money but I hope it will bring in a bigger contribution at some point,” she said.
“It’s nice to be able to treat the kids and not worry about the cost, because you don’t want to feel you’re cutting back on giving to the people you love.”
Millie’s advice to anyone who wants to start their own side hustle is to just simply give it a go.
She said: “When you’ve got a nice steady job as a teacher, it’s quite easy to think ‘I’ll just keep going with that’.
“I do love my job as a teacher and I can’t see myself ever not doing that but this is also very rewarding.
“I’ve learnt a lot of new skills along the way, it’s already bringing in a bit of money and maybe one day, it’ll really turn into something quite big. I’m excited about that. ”
Tax rules for earning extra income
Running a side hustle is similar to running a small business, so it’s important to get clear on your rights and responsbilities.
If you earn more than £1,000 extra a year, you’ll need to pay tax on your earnings.
You can operate as a sole trader, a partnership or a limited company.
The rate of tax you pay will depend on whether your side hustle is a limited company or not.
If you are trading through another platform, such as Amazon, eBay or Depop, ensure you fully understand the legal terms and policies.
