AFTER a year of working on their business, Angele Sofia and her mum Lara were horrified to sell just five pieces of jewellery on launch day.
Now they’ve launched their company on TikTok Shop, the mother and daughter are making £20,000 a month – and explain how YOU can do it too.
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In their best month, Angele, 25, and mum Lara, 54, from Surrey, made a £60,000 through the platform alone.
Angele said: “Without TikTok Shop, we wouldn’t have survived. Business is booming and it’s all thanks to our livestreams.”
After finishing school in 2019, Angele got a place to study events management at London South Bank University, but she was worried about debt and decided to get a job instead.
For eight weeks, she worked at Waitrose, a job she hated, so when an opening came up at a local jewellery shop, Angele jumped at the chance.
“I fell into the jewellery business by accident,” she explains. “I’d always loved jewellery but I wouldn’t say I had a passion for it.
“It was a repair shop and when an item would come in, they’d explain to me why it had broken and how it could have been made better.
“I kept thinking about how I could fix the mistakes.”
Angele loved working with jewellery and gained valuable experience of how to run a shop while working there for two years.
In September 2022, she decided to look into setting up her own ‘affordable’ high quality jewellery brand.
Mum Lara was so impressed with Angele’s plans that she decided to help her daughter launch her jewellery dream.
Lara said: “I could see her passion and this happened at the same time as I was going through a divorce. I hated my job.
“She’d been saving quite a lot of her wages every month for over a year ready to start the business.
“I had more money to put in and asked to join her. She made me pitch to her, then I had to wait a week before she said yes.
“But we love working together. I love it as I still get to see her every day. We don’t really argue.”
The pair spent a year preparing to launch the business, called L’ERA – a mix of the last two letters of their names and a nod to Lara’s Italian roots.
The business sells high-quality gold and sterling silver jewellery for between £30 to £750.
The duo had to find manufacturers both for the jewellery and packaging.
They tested products and attended jewellery shows in London and Italy.
Lara gave up her job as a property sales manager about a year before the launch and Angele quit six months ahead of launch.
“At the time, we lived together and planned to run the entire business out of the box room of my house,” Lara said. “But very quickly I realised we’d have to use the front room.
“We used the old lounge for stock, desks, the packing station and later, the live streaming station.”
The pair launched online over a year later in August 2023 but Angele describes it as a “total disaster”.
She said: “We’d spent so much on stock and had zero pounds left in the bank.
“We’d invested around £40,000 on stock, packaging and samples. We’d ploughed all our savings into making it work.
How to get FREE cash to start your business
Research by Enterprise Nation shows that nearly half of all UK adults are eyeing up a business or side hustle this year.
And there’s cash galore out there to help budding entrepreneurs, from free grants to easy-access and low-cost loans.
The Government-backed British Business Bank has a war chest of £25 billion to hand out, whilst charities like The King’s Trust and local councils across the UK dish out up to £5000 in start-up grants.
Martin McTague, at the Federation of Small Businesses, said: “starting your own business can be incredibly rewarding, allowing you to follow a passion, solve a problem, or carve out your own career path – but you must be prepared. It can involve challenges like uncertainty, long hours and financial risk.”
Here’s how to kickstart your dream venture.
First you need a plan. Whether you want to open a nail bar or build an online brand, work out how your idea will stand out.
Does it have the makings of a viral hit? Fulfil a local need? Or is it something totally new?
Do your research: 42% of startups fail as lack of research means they launch products nobody wants or needs, according to CB Insights.
You’ll need a name that stands out and is easy to remember.
Check that it’s available to register as a domain online – rebranding later can costs a bomb.
You can build a site for free or low cost with Wix.com or GoDaddy.
Remember, there are restrictions on what you can choose as a company name: it can’t be too similar to others already out there.
The full rules are on the government website.
No savings? No problem – there are loads of sources of cash for start-ups. Whatever you scoop, remember that a new business, you’ll need to be lean: keep costs as low as possible and spend on things that will bring in more sales.
Options to consider for financing your business:
Grants: there are more than 100 government-backed grants for UK start-ups.
The best place to start is the Business Finance Support Finder. Welsh startups use the Business Grants website, and for Scotland it’s Funding Opportunities.
More cash for startups is available from loads of local councils around the UK, so check if yours can help. In London, for example, the GLA lists grants.
If you’re under 30, the King’s Trust (formerly the Prince’s Trust) might be able to help support your new business idea.
And if your business aims to make a profit and a positive impact, UnLtd funds and mentors social enterprises.
A bank loan – usually “secured”, meaning your home or another asset backs up the loan. This can be risky if things go wrong.
The Government-backed Start Up Loans Company offers up to £25,000 as an unsecured loan, with a fixed 6% interest rate. Comes with a year’s free mentoring from a business expert.
Angel investors – Wealthy individuals who swap their own cash for a slice of your firm (usually 10–25%).
They’re often former or current entrepreneurs and now the UK’s biggest source of early-stage funding.
The British Business Bank, which is backed by the Government, has lots of information on how to find them.
“Launch day came, we pressed go and the only sales we made were to close friends and family. We only made four or five sales.”
The sales led the pair to question whether they’d made a big mistake but they decided not to be disheartened.
Angele said: “I didn’t cry and told myself I’d been expecting this, that it would take time.
“Although it was very disheartening, if you give up at the very first hurdle you definitely won’t succeed.”
Despite the initial setback, the mum and daughter duo didn’t give up.
Angele’s sister Talia then suggested selling the jewellery on TikTok Shop.
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Angele said: “I was reluctant but at that point, we had nothing to lose. We had no money for advertising.”
Angele and Lara created an account and easily set up their own store on the site.
Initially they made just £29.25, but after live streaming in the second month they made £1,020 and in the third month £1,429.
“The impact was instant,” Angele said. “I was shocked when we got six orders from one stream.
“I couldn’t believe it and over time, business has built and built. We post every day, every week, without fail.”
In November 2025, they made over £20,000 in a month on TikTok Shop alone for the first time and, since then, they have hit that target numerous times.
In their best month, sales hit £60,000.
Angele said she was nervous speaking live initially but now feels comfortable.
Lara admits finding it ‘really hard’ but is amazed when she sees 70 to a 100 people logged on to watch her.
She said: “The biggest thing is when you speak, it’s just silence coming back at you. It feels odd, but I am getting used to it.”
Angele’s sister became a shareholder in the business in October 2024 and they’ve since employed a social media manager.
In their busiest months, the pair have sold £20,000 worth of jewellery and some items – including a £55 sapphire pendant – have sold out.
They pay 9% commission on each item plus 50p on each TikTok order.
One of their biggest moments came on New Year’s Eve 2024.
At around 9pm, L’ERA was around £1,000 month short of its annual sales target and just before midnight an order for 41 pieces totalling £1,500 came in.
In March 2026, they moved business operations into an office in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, and Angele has since moved out of the family home.
Despite their success, they only pay themselves £1,200 each a month.
“Financially we invest heavily back into the business,” Lara said. “We take less than minimum wage so there certainly haven’t been any fancy cars or houses just yet. We want the business to grow.”
In the future, the duo would like to open their own High Street stores and sell products in high-end department stores.
“Selfridges is a big dream of mine,” Angele said. “There’s no stopping us now.”
Five tips to launch on TikTok Shop
TikTok Shop is a great way for businesses to attract customers without a big advertising budget.
TikTok can put a product in front of potential customers before they have even started shopping.
Kelly Colman, a brand strategist, said: “You are not waiting for someone to find you on Google and you’re not waiting for someone to be in the buying mood.”
But it can be a learning curve, particularly for business owners who aren’t familiar with making social media content.
“If you’re an older person in business that doesn’t understand the platform, that is where your challenges come in.”
TikTok is a visual platform and products which can show a transformation, benefit or story are often much easier to sell.
Kelly explains: “If you can tell the brand story and show a pitch in ten to 15 seconds, they are the categories that work well.”
1. You don’t have to become an influencer
Business owners don’t have to become the star of their own TikTok account.
“Some of the best-performing TikTok brands don’t have a founder. They can work with creators, or as some people call them, affiliates.”
Affiliates are creators who make content featuring products and can earn commission when their viewers purchase through them.
For a small company, Kelly said the founder may initially have to produce much of the content themselves because of their budget.
But as a company grows, an agency or network of affiliates can help it reach more people.
Those creators can be powerful because their audiences already trust their recommendations and they may have a big following.
2. Forget needing thousands of followers
One of TikTok’s biggest potential advantages for a new business is that having an established social media following isn’t essential.
Unlike some platforms where brands communicate with existing followers, TikTok’s algorithm recommends videos based on what users watch and engage with.
Kelly said: “The algorithm watches what you watch and feeds you more of it.
“A brand with no following can end up in front of the right people purely because the content is good.”
3. Know the pitfalls of success
Sudden success brings its own risks.
“The biggest pitfall I’ve seen is when you get success and then don’t have enough stock,” Kelly warns.
“If something goes viral and everyone is trying to order the product and you haven’t got enough, and there are no customer services in place, you can end up in trouble.”
4. Do the maths
Selling through TikTok also comes with costs and these need to be factored into your prices.
“TikTok takes a referral fee on every sale of between five and nine percent,” Kelly explains, while businesses using affiliates will also need to allow for creator commission.
“You need to look at the cost of goods and make sure you’ve got enough margin.
“You’ve got your referral fee, you’ve got affiliate commissions — 10 to 15 per cent is also going to them — and you’ll get paid the difference.
“You need to make sure you’ve got enough money.”
5. Consistency is key
Kelly’s biggest piece of advice for small companies considering TikTok Shop is simply to start.
“You are never going to feel ready,” she said.
“TikTok rewards businesses which keep creating. It’s about posting consistently. It’s not always going to be perfect, but TikTok favours volume.
“Don’t make one tiny post and think it’s going to work and then not post again for another week.”