Man, 22, went from minimum wage job to earning £50,000 per month
A 22 year old entrepreneur went from working as a warehouse picker on minimum wage to earning £50,000 per month selling second-hand trainers.
Jack Long began his entrepreneurial journey at the tender age of 12, selling unwanted items belonging to family members on eBay, with the ultimate goal of launching his own business.
After completing college in 2021, he took up a job as a warehouse picker, responsible for locating and packing retail items for dispatch, in order to save money for his future business venture.
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In March 2023, Jack chanced upon a pair of Nike Air Force trainers at a car boot sale. He purchased them for £15 and managed to sell them for double the price, sparking the realisation that this could be turned into a profitable business. By April 2023, he had saved around £5,000 through his warehouse picking job, and launched his second-hand trainer business, Recycled Streetwear.
Initially, Jack was selling approximately 30 pairs of trainers per month. However, since joining the real-time shopping app Tilt, he now sells around 1,500 pairs of trainers per month, claiming he now generates a monthly income of £50,000, which he primarily reinvests back into the business.
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Jack says he works round-the-clock sourcing, cleaning, and authenticating shoes, while also livestreaming himself in the evenings showcasing the shoes available for purchase. His ambition is to become the leading retailer in the second-hand shoe market.
Speaking to PA Real Life, Jack said: "The £50,000 is not enough, that's how I feel. I'm not content with it really. There are so many overheads, I'm putting most things back into the business."
Jack, based in Buckinghamshire, says he has always had a knack for entrepreneurship. At 12 years old, he was already flipping his relatives' castoffs on eBay for some pocket money.
He said: "It was random books, clothing items, shoes, like one or two items a month. Even £5 at the time was a lot.
"I think from when I was very young, I was always buying and selling stuff, and then doing something like this, having my own business, eventually, was the plan."
After leaving college in 2021, Jack took up a job as a warehouse picker where he was on minimum wage. He did this with an eye on saving up to start his own venture.
Everything clicked into place for Jack in March 2023 when he chanced upon a pair of Nike Air Force trainers while lending a hand at a car boot sale.
"I was just helping out a family friend, and we saw a pair of trainers and it basically went from there," he said.
"It was all luck from that point. I think I paid £15 for them and sold them for £30, and then from there, I was like, 'I can definitely do something with this'."
In April 2023, after hitting his £5,000 mark, he opened the doors to Recycled Streetwear based in a commercial space in Buckinghamshire.
"I was confident about it, but there were mixed opinions (from my family) of whether I should leave the job and do it," he explained.
"Obviously, now it's paid off but there was definitely some tension."
Day-to-day, Jack sources his stock from suppliers, carefully cleaning each pair and verifying their authenticity.
He said: "I'm not going to say where we buy them from, but we have a lot of suppliers, and then basically we get them in and go through a full cleaning process on all of them, which will be unlacing the shoes, disinfecting them, cleaning them up, and finally, the prep before they go on the shelves for the live streams. We use an app called CheckCheck, which basically authenticates any shoes."
The business had a slow start, initially selling around 30 pairs of trainers a month through his website and TikTok livestreams.
However, things took off when he began using the Tilt app, where he now livestreams around six evenings a week, for three hours at a time, selling trainers from between £10 to £60 depending on their condition.
"Tilt gave us the platform to scale up really quick to where we are now," Jack said.
"Instead of people having to go to the shops, they can literally do it from the comfort of wherever they are, all they need is a phone and to be able to have a Wi Fi connection to join the streams. And then we send everything out, and it's with them within two days, and it's a lot cheaper."
On average, Jack says he sells around 1,500 pairs of trainers per month, generating about £50,000 in sales. He puts most of this back into the business, as well as giving himself a wage, which he is not willing to disclose.
Since launching Recycled Streetwear, he has been incredibly busy, often working close to 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to keep up with demand.
"I'd say nothing personally has changed since I started the business – I'm just busier and just constantly working," Jack said.
"We're nowhere near done or where we want to be yet, so there's no time to relax."
At the moment, he operates it himself, but currently has several staff on trial shifts as he is hoping to hire new people to help with livestreams.
Looking to the future, Jack hopes his business will continue to grow and make even more of a positive impact on the environment.
He said: "I just want it to keep growing more and want to change the way people shop online. I want to be one of the biggest retailers for pre-loved shoes in the country.
"Hopefully, bit by bit, we can eventually get in touch with the right people, and we can intercept the shoes before they end up in landfills, do them up and give them another life and then people can get them for a really good price as well.
To find out more about Tilt or to download the app, visit: www.tilt.app.