I had to quit my job when I became a mum so I started a side hustle – now it makes me £15k a MONTH
A MUM has revealed how she was forced to give up her job after giving birth to her second daughter.
With no part-time jobs available, she did something she never thought she would and started her own business, reports .
Jade Wood, from Melbourne, Australia, quit her 50-hour-a-week job as a secondary teacher to create the life she wanted with her family.
The 38-year-old gave birth to her second daughter, Piper, and knew she had to make the major decision to leave.
She said: ";I knew that it wasn’t possible to continue with my old career with the life that I wanted for my family, so this gave me a sense of purpose to create a new one.
“I had to make it work, I had no choice. That was my motivation.”
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So back in 2017, when Piper was six months old, Jade came up with a design for a silicone teething toy, which was uncommon at the time.
Despite being a mum to two children under three, Jade was able to get her first product ready - a shooting star teething toy.
It was the first product she sold on her website, .
“I would work during breastfeeding, naps, and mostly at night up until late,” Jade, who worked out of the room that used to be Piper’s nursery explained.
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The mum said she sacrificed many bedtimes in the first year of her product launch, but has no regrets.
With her husband working during the day, Jade missed out on a lot, but knew putting the hours into her business would pay off.
Not only did Jade give up a successful ten-year career, but she also put her family's $20,000 saving on the line to launch her company.
"I was confident in the idea and had positive market research to back it up, so I went for it.” Jade told Kidspot.
It may have taken some time for her company to launch, but Jade still remembers her first sale.
Her cousin was the first and Jade was so proud she didn't want to spend the money from it as a keepsake of how far she'd come.
Thanks to her children, Jade then got another idea for her next product launch.
"She (Piper) was getting frustrated with the fork I had, so I knew there had to be a way for her to be able to pick up chunks of food more easily.”
It took two years to perfect the product to meet strict safety requirements.
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It's a uniquely-shaped silicone utensil which has a spoon on one end and thick-pronged circle-shaped fork on the other.
“It works well because babies randomly stab food, and with this style, the food gets caught in the cavity between the prongs, allowing them to bring it to their mouths more easily,” Jade explains.
“And then they keep doing that until they can use a proper utensil when they get older.”
Although jade had risked a lot with her company it paid off and in 2020 began making more than $20,000 per month in sales online and via wholesale orders to stores.
Now her company has branched out, selling an array of silicone tableware and accessories.
“It was such a great feeling after having done so much work that the products were resonating with parents,” she says proudly.
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Jade's favourite part? Is that it’s all been achieved in the time that she has chosen to work around her family, which has been no more than 20 hours-a-week until five-year-old Piper joined her eight-year-old sister Eliza at school this year.
“When I can go to my child’s assembly or pick them up from school when they’re sick, those are the moments that I feel lucky that I can do what I do.”
