How I Built £180k in Side Hustles | Real UK Bedroom Guide
- Billy Giles
- May 6
- 15 min read
Updated: 5 days ago
I don't claim to be some world-class business guru. I’m just a guy with a lot of experience in the trenches of the "side hustle." I have successfully created side incomes from scratch several times.
If you are looking for a guide on how to become a multi-millionaire overnight, there are plenty of over-inflated venture capitalist posts out there you can read instead. But if you want to learn how to earn real extra money while working from home, navigating shifts, and managing a tight budget, this is the guide for you.
I’ve built three businesses from my front bedroom with no outside funding. I’ve made mistakes, I’ve had £6 days, and I’ve quoted one £100,000 contract. These are the lessons I learned while building nearly £180,000 in turnover from scratch from my bedroom over the 3 businesses I ran, all whilst working full time.
This Guide Is For You If...
You've been sitting on an idea for months—maybe years—but haven't taken the first step.
You want to build something of your own but keep waiting for the "perfect" moment.
You're working a job—maybe nights, maybe shifts—and you're wondering if it's actually possible to build something real on the side without betting everything you own.
Hopefully, I can help you get started, and you will far surpass my own achievements.
See the table below for the 3 businesses i have started and ran from the front bedroom of my house.
Business Name | Starting Capital | Peak Performance / Milestone | Total Items Sold / Lifespan |
The Lucky Lorry (eBay) | £72 | Consistent monthly income stream | 1,800+ items sold over 2 years Turnover £21,000 |
GoTo Workwear Ltd | £0 (Contracted) | Scale from £5k to £36k turnover | 5-year operation / £100k contract pitches Turnover around £90,000 total |
Shelley's Wax Melts | ~£200 | £350 in 6 hours (Great Harwood Show) | Active Today - Turnover Approaching £70,000 |
Part One: The £72 Front Bedroom Business Experiment
A bit of background info on how I got started, there are a few simple lessons here for anyone just starting out. I'd never run a business before. No background in marketing, no accounting knowledge, no mentor. I was a mechanical engineer working four till midnight, and I was tired of thinking about starting something without ever actually starting.
So I ran an experiment.
I sat at my kitchen table, opened up an eBay account, and spent £72 on a small batch of stock—kids' football tops and women's Olympic vests. Nothing strategic; just cheap, lightweight items I could move without much risk. The World Cup and Olympics were coming up, so it seemed like a good idea to focus on that.
The Breakdown
Item | Quantity | Cost |
Kids' Football Tops | 24 | £1.50 each |
Women's Olympic Vests | 24 | £1.50 each |
Total Investment | £72.00 |
The Strategy: "Fast & Free"
I shipped the items in 7p mailing bags as a "Large Letter," which was £1.27 at the time for first class postage with Royal mail.
This allowed me to offer my customers fast and free postage on eBay, which meant I got maximum visibility for my listings, i posted all of my items out the same day they sold up until 3pm.
This was the strategy I used to give me maximum visibility on eBay and secure the "Top Rated PowerSeller" badge. Getting this rating reduced my selling fees and made me more profitable.
The "Front Door" Sale:Before I'd even listed anything properly, nine of the football tops sold to my neighbours while I was unloading the boxes outside my front door for £5.00 each. This was the first lesson I got, getting your products in front of real people, gives you the chance to explain all about how wonderful your product is, and it let's them hold the product and see it's quality, and removes a lot of doubt.
The Result
That £72 eventually turned into £180 total once the items sold on eBay (minus fees and postage), all within a few weeks.
Not life-changing money. But it definitely lit a spark and proved to me that it wasn't that hard to make a bit of extra money on the side. All you need to do is make a start.
Part Two: Scaling What Works (The Lucky Lorry)
Once I knew the basic business model worked, I started hunting for more stock. I found ex-chainstore clothing shops and scoured the Sports Direct discount section.
The real discovery was Firetrap. Sports Direct had bought them out and was clearing polo shirts at £3.99 that still carried the original tags showing £16.99 to £19.99. The perceived value was intact; the cost to me was negligible.
The "Per-Shirt" Profit Breakdown:
Sale Price: £13.99
Costs: eBay fees + £1.27 postage + 7p bag + 3p thermal label
Net Profit: £7 to £8 clear profit per shirt.
When first testing a product, i would search for sold listings to see what had been selling that month on eBay using Terapeak.
I would then order a size medium, a size large, and XL, just to gauge interest. If they sold I would expand to size small and XXL and buy 2 of each.
It became apparent pretty quickly what the most popular listings were, so I focussed on buy more stock for those as they sold, before eventually buying 20 - 30 items at a time for my most popular listings.
I found this a great way to manage my risk, even the poor selling listings would eventually sell out providing I didn't over invest in stock.
Finding the Rhythm
That’s when it stopped feeling like an experiment and started feeling like a real income stream.
Here is what happened within 2 months over Christmas....
December: Sold 124 Firetrap polos. (Bought at £3.99 sold at £13.99)
January: Shifted 96 pairs of Ladies Karrimor running pants (Bought at £6.50 / Sold at £17.99).
Total: Over two years, The Lucky Lorry sold 1,800 items.
⚠️ The "Scale" Lesson (Important!): I used the money to boost my income, when in reality I should have saved most of it to scale! Remember this—it’s important.
What I learned:
Branded stock outsells unbranded stock significantly. I tested generic items early on—they barely moved. Nike and Firetrap and other recognisable brands drove traffic to my store. I always had 1 Nike listing.
Margins matter more than volume. I aimed for 100% to 200% markup minimum. Anything less wasn't worth the handling time.
Communication builds trust. I printed thank-you slips and messaged buyers the moment I posted. That consistency generated repeat customers and reviews.
Time investment scales with success. I started spending Sundays on it. By the end, it was a daily ritual. Pack my orders, go to the post office, replenish stock once a week.
Top tip: If you sell on eBay and from your own website, put a thank you slip inside your parcel with a QR code. Offer a sign-up bonus to move traffic from eBay to your website for free. (I wish I thought of this at the time!!)
Part Three: From eBay to B2B (GoTo Workwear Ltd)
The eBay store taught me how to sell. But I wanted something with longer-term potential—recurring clients, bigger orders, relationships rather than one-off transactions. Workwear made sense. Businesses need uniforms. They reorder. They refer others.
Workwear stock normally can be bought in thousands at a time offering true fast scalability, and many of the suppliers will help you fund large orders once you build a relationship with them, especially if it means they win the order instead of a competitor.
Year one: £5,000 turnover (Setting up and testing our service)
My first job came through a friend; Alwyn's Autocare in Chorley needed embroidered overalls. I didn't own embroidery equipment. But I had found a local embroidery company willing to do contract work, and they became my main production partner for 5 years. That first order was around £300.
A helpful tip for garment decorators: the £8 digitiser from India that changed everything: Embroidery requires a digitised file—a programmed version of the logo that tells the machine where to stitch. In the UK, that cost around £30 per design. The embroidery contractor told me about digitisers in India who could do the same work for £8. I tested them. The quality was identical. This made smaller orders viable. I could quote competitively by charging a small set-up fee to my customers or hiding it in the price of the full order and packaging it as "free set up."
Year two: £12,000 turnover (Our first small factory)
I got serious about outreach. I built a LinkedIn profile, identified local engineering companies and factories, and started messaging potential buyers. I chose engineering because this was my area of expertise, having worked within engineering for almost 20 years at this point.
I made a simple email template and took my time picking companies I thought I could supply. I posted regular content every time I completed a job for someone and encouraged feedback.
I created a Google Business profile, a Yell page, and a Facebook page, also a Twitter (now X) account to help our website rank higher in the search results. (We got to page 2 for the term "workwear" against some of the biggest in the industry for zero spend on SEO.)
We dominated local search results, especially in Lancashire and our local towns.
Pro Tip: Create a Google Business profile and get as many reviews for your services as you can; this will help propel you to the top of the listings, especially locally. It will also help your website to rank higher.
Where did I find my larger customers?
Blackburn Yarn Dyers—who dyed fabrics for Burberry—found me through my LinkedIn profile.
Yorkshire Pro Paving, who installed the new square outside Leeds United's ground, came through Twitter.
Harrison's Direct, who supplied Welcome Break motorway services, found me on LinkedIn too.
Cruise First in Manchester found me via LinkedIn.
All of it came from showing up consistently online and making it easy for people to find me. I was a finalist in the Hyndburn Business Awards this year; it was such a nice feeling!
Year three: £20,000 turnover (Secured Harrison's Direct, BYD, and Yorkshire Pro Paving)
I brought high-vis printing in-house.
Stahls clamshell heat press: £450 plus VAT
Cameo cutting machine: £200
CorelDRAW subscription: £30/month
Sports Film HTV vinyl: £5.90 per metre
This changed my margins for the better on smaller orders and meant I could produce samples quickly when quoting.
The sublimation breakthrough top tip: Through research, I found Siser EasySubli material via Target Transfers—a sublimation-printable fabric that could be heat-applied to cotton. If you print onto cotton you will know what a game changer this is.
Year 4: £18,000 turnover
This year was about expanding my service; I took my eye off the sales, choosing to service existing customers and to add the following to my service:
Safety signage for businesses (Caledonia Signs)
Open a brand new website with 80,000 products (Ralawise's digital embedded website)
PPE supplies (Walsh Blythe Turton)
Finalist in the Hyndburn Business Awards again—what a great evening!
By Year five: £36,000 turnover (Lockdown impact)
I had a website with 80,000 live products and the capability to supply factories and workplaces. I was quoting contracts I never imagined possible—Mainstay Homes requested a quote worth £100,000.
I met them at my virtual office in Oswaldtwistle Mills that cost me £40 a month. It gave me a professional address and meeting rooms for bigger clients.
I offered them competitive pricing, but we sadly didn't win the order. I passed the opportunity to a friend with a larger company with the proviso I would earn commission if they won the order.
Then the world decided to kick me incredibly hard... The lockdowns disrupted distributors and our customers stopped ordering completely, with some of them closing and others laying off up to half of their staff.
Supplies now took months instead of next day, despite holding accounts with every major supplier in Europe. Costs were higher. Customers were decimated; we had very few quotes after this. We didn't hold tens of thousands of pounds in stock. Had we done so, it's possible we could have ridden the storm a little better.
We took the sad decision to close in January 2021. This was possibly a mistake looking back; I should have weathered the storm as many of our competitors closed, which would have potentially given us more custom.
Use this section as your blueprint; it's gold for anyone looking to start a garment decoration business.
Part Four: Wax Melts and the £6 Market Day
We spent a couple of hundred pounds on raw materials and began testing. We gave samples to family and friends—but specifically chose people who would be honest with us.
The feedback was brutal:
The scent throw wasn't strong enough.
They didn't smell good when cold.
They didn't last long enough.
We spent seven months refining the product. Testing different waxes. Adjusting formulations. We didn't sell a single one publicly until we had full confidence in what we were offering.
The Reality CheckWe booked a £20 market stall. First day: £6. Most people would have quit. We didn't—because we knew the product wasn't the problem. The exposure was.
The Turnaround: Same Product, Different Execution
We adjusted our presentation, pricing, and packaging. Within months, we were hitting £150 to £250 on market days.
Eventually, we did the Great Harwood Show, taking £350 in just six hours. The Margins That Made It Work:
Cost to produce: £1.67
Sale Price: £5.00
Markup: 199.4%
Profit per unit: £3.33
Scaling to a Shop and Beyond
After about a year, the customer base was strong enough to support a shop. We opened one nearby, and it started generating enough income to allow my partner at the time to go full-time.
The business is still going from strength to strength. We recently pivoted to 100% online, which has proven to be our fastest-growing segment while reducing our operating costs to near zero.
Part Five: What Actually Matters (The Principles Behind Everything)
1. Start So Small That Failure Is Survivable
The £72 eBay experiment for the lucky lorry
The £300 first workwear job for Goto Workwear
The £20 market stall for Shelleys' wax melts
Every starting point was designed so that if the idea was a non-starter, I would quickly realise and be able to pivot to something new unscathed. It's a great way to get started and test out your ideas before committing time and money.
2. Sell Before You Build
I didn't build a website, brand, or identity before I had customers. I sold first and structured later.
On eBay, I listed items immediately.
With workwear, I took orders before I owned any equipment, I used contractors until demand justified bringing production in-house.
With wax melts, we tested at market stalls and built a loyal customer base before opening a shop.
3. Margins Matter More Than Volume
The single biggest mistake I made with workwear was not charging more for my services. I only typically marked up my product by 80-100%, and the lower profit margins during the pandemic made me second-guess my business and close, which at the time seemed like a good decision, but in hindsight was potentially the wrong one! (hindsight is great!!!)
The wax melt business was different, 1 jar of melts cost us £1.67, our sale price was £5.00 (199.4% markup)
That profit margin gave us room to survive slow days, reinvest in stock, and eventually open a physical shop full-time, which further boosted profits.
Top tip
Mark up your products with confidence, don't start a price war with your competitors.
If you offer a premium product, be confident and charge a premium price.
Learn the difference between markups and margins. Research how much you need to make within your industry and at your price point to enable you to both scale your business and weather any storms.
4. Control Your Supply Chain Before It Controls You
With workwear, I never relied on a single supplier or contractor, and the pandemic still caused us major issues.
I opened accounts and built relationships with multiple workwear suppliers, printing and embroidery companies; to try to make sure I always had alternative suppliers in place.
I tested suppliers with small orders and assessed them on quality, delivery times, consistency, and communication before trusting them with anything critical.
Your supply chain is your business. Make sure it is as robust as you can get it, to give an improved chance to navigate difficulties and to fulfil your customers' orders. Also, you guard against any of them not trading with you suddenly for any reason.
5. Learn the Skills Yourself
Over the course of all 3 businesses, I expanded my knowledge for free using YouTube, LinkedIn learning, audiobooks and by asking other professionals, also through experience.
Here are some of the skills I learned to a very high level, for free:
Accounting - Took several online courses for free and badgered my accountant endlessly.
Graphic design using CorelDRAW - Doug Green has an excellent channel on YouTube
Heat transfer printing - Many thanks to Alan at Target Transfers and to YouTube! (expert level)
Sublimation printing - You tube all the way (expert level)
HTML website coding - LinkedIn learning free course during a 30-day premium trial window
SEO - YouTube and Google (expert level)
I can now build websites such as this, design logos and promotional materials, rank highly on Google, handle all my own accounts, and I can print onto just about anything!
This allows me to save huge amounts of money and to pivot quickly.
6. Keep Overheads Artificially Low
At Goto workwear, the virtual office cost £40 a month and gave me a professional address, receptionist, parcel collection, and meeting rooms.
From the outside, my business looked established. On the inside, my overheads were minimal. This allowed me to compete with well-established businesses on price right away.
I didn't rent premises until the wax melt business had a proven customer base. I didn't buy equipment until demand justified it. I didn't subscribe to software unless it saved more time than it cost.
Every pound you don't spend on overhead is a pound of profit or reinvestment. Keep it lean until the market forces you to grow.
7. Never Borrow a Penny
Every business I built was funded from personal savings and reinvested profits.
No loans. Loans eat up your profits in interest payments, putting you under even more pressure.
I mean, if you are looking to start something huge and to get investors, then this starting guide isn't for you anyway!
If my small business couldn't afford something, it waited until it could, or I innovated. That approach kept me solvent through slow periods when debt would have crushed me.
8. Track Every Penny
I used accounting software from early on—Xero made it simple. I separated business spending from personal spending completely and tracked every transaction.
That visibility matters more than people realise. You can't make good decisions if you don't know where the money is going.
Make sure you use accounting software from day one and have a separate business account, be disciplined from day one! You will thank me later!
9. Communication Builds Trust Faster Than Marketing
A small business can communicate and make decisions faster than a large business with layers of managers; use this to your advantage.
When you make a mistake, communicate immediately and put it right. This also builds loyalty.
Be courteous always.
Check your customers' requirements. My favourite way was to put everything into a quote later and ask them to double-check it before ordering. I would always get back to them with stock issues and delivery days and provide regular updates on progress.
I tried to deliver all local orders in person or to follow up with a phone call thanking them for their custom. Just to let them know I am a real person who appreciates their custom.
Visiting your customers is also a good way to generate new business and to find out more about them. It also gets you invites to company parties :-)
Part Six: What I'd Tell Someone Starting Today
Put your prices up. A premium product with premium service is easier to scale and more survivable in hard times.
Don't sell too many product lines. Focus on a few things and do them well. This will help you to control costs and avoid the trap of holding too much stock for products that don't sell.
Listen to your customers. They'll tell you what's wrong if you ask properly. The feedback on wax melts that "they don't smell good cold" saved us from launching a product that would have failed and cost us hard-earned profits.
Don't take on a shop before you're ready. I've watched people rent premises before they understand the basics of their business—stock management, customer acquisition, and cash flow. They put themselves under a massive financial strain that could have been avoided by staying lean longer.
Leave your house. You can hide away at home and make slow progress, or you can meet people, attend markets, visit clients, and accelerate everything. Relationships move faster in person. You will find more business by going where your customers are. Meeting clients in person is a game-changer.
Reinvest everything. In the early years, profit isn't for spending—it's for building. Every pound back into stock, equipment, or capability compounds over time.
Have days where you research. Study your competition. Look for new suppliers. Learn new techniques. The business improves when you deliberately level up your knowledge, not just when you're fulfilling orders.
Part Seven: People Around Me Who've Done the Same
None of this is unique to me. I've watched it happen repeatedly with normal people who started with nothing special.
Bakers who began selling from home on weekends and now supply cafés and local shops.
3D printers running small stalls, making products at home, and then opening a shop.
Candle and craft makers who started at kitchen tables and now trade at busy markets every weekend.
Some of the people I know went further
One sold over £2m worth of candles on Amazon
One won workwear contracts with a council and a regional retailer
They all started where you are today.
Final Thought: The Only Real Risk Is Standing Still
You don't need every answer before you begin. You won't find most of them until you start.
The £72 experiment wasn't special. The workwear business wasn't lucky. The wax melts weren't planned perfectly.
They all followed the same principle: start small enough that you can afford to learn properly.
Confidence doesn't come before action. It comes from evidence. And evidence only comes from doing.
So list something. Sell something small. Test your idea in the real world.
Because the moment you take that first step, you're no longer thinking about starting a business.
You're building one.
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