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RAGS TO RICHES
I started a business from my bedroom with just £100 savings – now I’m a multi-millionaire managing other people’s money
The business owner tells people not to worry about getting everything right
GROWING up in a family of creatives, Lucy Cohen learned from an early age about the challenges of self-employment - especially with managing your own money.
With a number of self-employed family members who "didn't earn tons of money", Lucy could see the need for a really good accountant.
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Her father was a musician and her grandmother was a pianist, and they weren't getting getting the help they needed with their finances.
It was watching those around her struggling to manage their money that influenced Lucy to swap a degree in acting for an accountancy apprenticeship when she finished school, studying at the Association of Accounting Technicians.
She was a natural academic but initially she thought about following in her family's footsteps and making a career in the arts.
But choosing an apprenticeship over a university degree also made more sense financially for Lucy at the time, as she could earn money while also getting an education.
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"It meant I didn't have to rack up all the costs of university, which nowadays costs even more than when I would have done it 20 years ago," said Lucy, who now lives in Swansea.
But after completing the apprenticeship, Lucy wasn't quite satisfied that she could make enough difference working for a bigger firm.
So, in 2006, aged just 23, Lucy and her pal Sophie came up with the bright idea to launch their own accountancy service.
The pair had just £100 and one laptop between them at the time and they had no idea if the idea would work.
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Their idea was for an online subscription for accountancy for self-employed people or small business owners, which they called Mazuma.
But fast-forward to today and the company has over 10,000 subscribers and was valued at a whopping £10million in January this year, with a multi-million pound turnover.
The team has also grown from just the two of them to 70-person strong business.
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What is Mazuma?
The company works by allowing small businesses to upload their tax documents either online, via email, or post them to Mazuma and they handle their accountants digitally.
They pay at monthly subscription, which starts from £34 and, and it also gives them access to monthly reports from their accountancy team.
"We don't ask customers to do book-keeping or find software," Lucy said.
"All people have to do is take a photo, send an invoice or go to postbox," she explained. "It's a really low barrier to entry."
But taking the business to its multi-million valuation was no easy feat.
The pair made their £100 savings stretch, using it to travel to business networking events where they hoped to pitch their idea.
"At first we took busses to meetings and networking events and slowly got clients on board - and then when they started paying, we reinvested that money back into the company," Lucy said.
It was an entirely bootstrapped endeavour, meaning the pair had no initial investment in getting the business off the ground.
Things were running smoothly up until 2021, when Lucy suffered a traumatic health event which would impact her life.
'I felt like my body betrayed me'
The fitness fanatic, who was a former British team power lifter, suffered a catastrophic string of arterial blood clots that all landed in her right leg.
The ordeal landed her in hospital for three days, and after she could not walk properly and was put on strong medication to aid her recovery.
"To readjust to a body that had previously been very fit, suddenly I felt like it betrayed me.
"Had any one of those clots landed somewhere else, I probably wouldn't be here," she said.
Just days after the event Lucy was back to working on her start-up, bringing her work laptop to hospital appointments.
It was her love for the business that helped her through her ordeal.
"Mazuma was a positive impact that I could focus on," she said.
The future of Mazuma
Outside of running her business, Lucy is passionate about teaching enterprise skills to children in schools and wants to help the next generation of women become entrepreneurs.
Lucy has also written two books, with her second, Forget the First Million won the Best Short Business Book of the Year 2022 at the Business Book Awards.
But with decades of experience and a profitable company under her belt, what advice would Lucy give to youngsters keen to get their own idea off the ground?
"There's never a perfect time to start. So just get started," she said.
Rags to riches
The Sun has spoken to a number of inspirational business owners who started there business despite facing adversity.
Kieran Witt, who found himself homeless as a teenager, now owns a thriving business worth £5million, which helps other people to buy properties easily.
At 17, he had to leave home after there was no longer any space for him at the three bed council house he shared with his mum and six younger siblings.
Through hard work and government support he managed to climb the corporate ladder and eventually start his own business.
He founded Kotini in 2022. The technology helps estate agents and buyers and sellers to make the purchase and sale of properties easier.
He started the business with a £5,000 grant from a government scheme called innovate UK and he was paid a living wage for one day a week.
Elsewhere, Sun readers also heard the story of renowned business owner Charlie Mullins who grew up on an “absolutely disgusting”, rubbish-strewn council estate and regularly ate just one meal a day.
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However, the London-born tradesman’s made an enormous fortune from Pimlico Plumbers, which he sold for £140million back in 2021.
He now lives the high life, splashing £11m on a penthouse apartment in London and counts signer Tom Jones as a neighbour.
Side hustles in numbers
Based on new research from Finder, an estimated 22.8 million Brits are using side hustles to top up their income.
Among those aged 18-23, 68 percent have a side hustle in 2024.
Those aged 24-42 aren’t far behind, with 65 per cent having an additional source of income.
Side hustles are less popular among older generations, with 40 percent of those aged 43-54 having one.
Whereas 23 percent of people aged 55-73 and just 7 per cent of those aged 74 and over are earning extra cash this way.