'I quit my minimum-wage job at 22 - now I make £50k a month but it's not enough'

A 22-year-old entrepreneur managed to quit their minimum wage warehouse job after finding a way to make £50,000 every single month - and they now have even bigger ambitions

A former minimum wage worker has revealed how they managed to ditch the daily grind in favour of making £50,000 a month.

After finishing college, Jack Long, 22, went on to work as a warehouse picker, where he spent his days finding and packing retail items for dispatch, with hopes of one day saving enough money for a future business.

However, after stumbling across a pair of Nike Air Force trainers at a car boot sale, Jack's fortunes changed forever. The Buckinghamshire-based entrepreneur purchased the shoes for £15 and managed to sell them for double the price.

It was at this point he could be looking at a very profitable business plan...

Recalling his Eureka moment, Jack said: "I was just helping out a family friend, and we saw a pair of trainers and it basically went from there. It was all luck from that point."

By April 2023, Jack had raised approximately £5,000 through his warehouse picking job and was in a position to launch his pre-loved trainer business, Recycled Streetwear, which he operates out of a commercial unit in Buckinghamshire.

At first, Jack had to contend with a few mixed responses to his idea. He explained: "I was confident about it, but there were mixed opinions (from my family) of whether I should leave the job and do it. Obviously, now it's paid off but there was definitely some tension."

Starting modestly, Jack began by selling approximately 30 pairs of trainers per month, however, after joining the real-time shopping app Tilt, he was able to up his game considerably.

Jack, who livestreams six evenings a week for up to three hours, said: "Tilt gave us the platform to scale up really quick to where we are now. 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."

Nowadays, Jack sells approximately 1,500 trainers per month, pulling in monthly earnings of £50,000 monthly. However, his efforts have taken plenty of hard work.

Business-minded Jack, who says he mainly puts the cash back into the company, says he works 24/7 to make Recycled Streetwear a success. His work involves sourcing, cleaning, and authenticating training - all while spending his evenings livestreaming himself showcasing the shoes on offer.

Outlining his process, Jack divulged: "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."

Jack has shown a talent for entrepreneurship from an early age - and began selling family members' unwanted items on eBay to turn a profit at the age of just 12 years old.

He remembered: "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."

Going forward, Jack hopes to become the leading retailer in the field of pre-loved shoes. And he now has ambitions above and beyond his current monthly earnings of £50,0000.

Jack shared: "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."

Emphasising his hopes for the business to be a force for environmental good, Jack continued: "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."

Described as the 'number one place for pre-loved trainers', Recycled Streetwear sells a wide range of shoes for adults and children, and offers free shipping.

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