Matt Waterman, 43 and Gail Waterman, 45, from South Yorkshire were desperate to find a product in the market that could address a common problem - hair loss
All recommendations within this article are informed by expert editorial opinion. If you click on a link in this story we may earn affiliate revenue.
IMAGINE turning your idea into a thriving multi-million pound business ?
That's exactly what husband and wife - Matt, 43 and Gail Waterman, 45, did, with the hair raising couple now expecting their growing shampoo business to turnover £5 million in 2019.
The couple, from South Yorkshire, was desperate to find a product in the market that could address a common problem - hair loss.
They trademarked their formula and shampoo - the Watermans GROWME products - and set up their business from home in 2014.
Using £15,000 from their own savings, they made their first 5,000 bottles of shampoo made from their formula containing biotin and caffeine and put them for sale on Amazon.
Three months later they were already out of stock and now, the mega-hit product is so popular one tube is purchased every 30 seconds online.
Matt told the Sun Online: “When our first batch arrived, I remember thinking - what are we going to do with all this stock if it doesn't sell?
“But it ranked as a best-seller on Amazon in just three months. We went from selling 200 bottles a week to 200 a day to one every 30 seconds.
"It’s unbelievable where we’ve come from and where we are now.”
No stranger to hardship, Matt grew up "really poor" on the Meadow Well council estate - or what he describes as "one of the worst council estates" in Newcastle.
He said: "My mother was an alcoholic and we often had not electricity and no heating at home. I couldn't even afford a loaf of bread for long period times.
"I went to live with my grandparents when I was 16 and they put me through college. I moved away to Yorkshire when I was in my early twenties to start fresh.
"A lot of people turn to crime in those situations. But you just need to remind yourself that your background does not define what you are or what you're going to do with your life.
"I saved money by doing marketing for companies and eventually became the marketing manager of Dating.com with a salary of £35,000 a year, before launching the business with Gail."
Matt met his wife Gail, the owner of a humble local hair salon in Rotherham, on a night out in South Yorkshire 18-years ago.
The idea for the business was developed when they both began suffering from different variations of hair loss.
After trying lots of pricey products on the market, they could not find anything that did the trick and decided to come up with their own formula.
Gail said: "We just created our products to start off with for my benefit but because it was so effective, we decided to pass it on to other people who had hair loss problems with no success."
The business has grown from strength to strength since it launched four years ago, thanks to an impressive 500 five-star reviews on Amazon.
The shampoo also has a string of paid celebrity endorsements from the likes of Towie's Megan McKenna and Lauren Pope.
By its first year, the company had an annual turnover of £250,000.
It jumped to almost two million in 2017 and next year Matt believes that it could hit the five million mark.
He also aims to double that figure in 2020, and to get products stocked in Boots, Harrords, and Selfridges.
Matt and Gail now have four warehouses in Rotherham, shipping products all over the world including South Korea, Europe, Australia, Canada and and the US.
They employ four people with plans to hire more staff next year.
In 2018, they also scooped the award for best shampoo at the hair awards and it now grabbed the attention of 22,600 followers on Instagram and 36,000 followers on Twitter.
At £24.50 for a - not everyone can afford the luxury product.
HERE are few tips from the Waterman's
The couple - who believes you don't have to be rich to make a difference - have donated around £65,000 worth of stock to cancer patients since 2014.
Shoppers can find products from cheaper competitors like Lee Stafford or pricier ones like Grow Gorgeous Hair and Toppik at Boots.
But UK retailers are yet to stock Waterman's shampoos. The only department store selling their products is currently based in South Korea.
But what’s it like doing business with your partner? Matt said there's nothing better than working with his soulmate.
He said: "Gail is both my soulmate and my boss. There's nothing better than being able to bounce ideas of each other. I trust her opinions completely."
"We might get into occasional little fights, she often tells me to spend less money on advertisement for example - but it's never really serious."
We recently spoke to Rebecca Cope who launched her own candle business with £200 after being made redundant from a city job - and it now makes 50,000 a year.
The Sun also revealed how a single dad-of-two started his own firm with £1,000 and it now has a turnover of £500,000.
