A resourceful teenager from the United Kingdom is raking in thousands of dollars per week selling candy and fizzy drinks from his parents’ shed in the backyard. The 17-year-old student entrepreneur is Callum Baker, and he first began his sweet-selling business by selling homemade cookies from home when he was just a fifteen-year-old boy. Now, he has expanded his operation to include packaged candy products and beverages and has even made enough money to hire his first employee to help him run his business from the comfort of his parents’ shed in the backyard.
Callum has since set up an online business called The Sweet Shack. He was inspired to start the business a week ahead of his sixteenth birthday after viewing a TikTok account belonging to Greedy Gwin, who was also selling confectionary items at a profit. Now, Callum is taking home a hefty profit himself by uploading videos to the internet to highlight the products he has available to sell from his candy shack at his parents’ house.
“I was really bored, and I watched a lot of TikTok, and I was watching these sweet business videos,” Callum said about starting his own business at the height of the pandemic. “I bought some sweets online with £50 of my own money and set up a small website with just five products and then just started posting on Facebook pages and TikTok.”
Every week, Callum estimates that he handles between two hundred twenty and two hundred fifty orders. He has accumulated earnings upward of 74,000 British pounds since January 2022, which means he is taking home thousands of dollars every week simply by reselling sweets and chips, and beverages to hungry people online.
Callum began by offering just five treats for sale. Now his inventory includes upwards of seven hundred different items available for purchase from his online retail store.
He said: “At first, I had the corner of my bedroom, the one shelf, then two, and then I took over the spare room as things got more popular.”
Although Callum has been running his business from his parent’s backyard in their shed, he is looking for a new larger location to expand into so he can sell even more sugary goods to hungry people online. He recently hired an employee as well. This person is a neighbor who comes to the shack every evening to fulfill orders that were placed during the day.
“When I first started this business, I was at rock bottom. I didn’t feel like I had much to live for, but starting the business really gave me a drive in life. My confidence has shot up; going on TikTok live and speaking to hundreds of people every night is amazing.”
Callum’s family is very proud of his success, and they are very supportive of his efforts to sell candy goods online. Callum’s mother also helps him with his business, although she is only paid for sweets.