Teen who started business at 16 wanting to inspire young entrepreneurs

Lucy Rose, 17, from Longtown, began her business just over a year ago when she offered to clean out a local resident’s car.

Since then, Lucy has gained a large client base and valets more than 15 cars a week.

“I looked around in Longtown, and I thought, what do I see the most of? And it was just cars,” said Lucy.

“So, I went and cleaned someone's car around the corner, and I got £20.

“I posted it on Facebook, and I just had fleets of messages which were just too many to deal with.

Lucy Rose (Image: Supplied)“I used the money that I got from my first car to buy some products, because I literally didn't have any.

“And now I've got a shed full of equipment. I've literally got like thousands of pounds worth of stuff and I've done hundreds of cars. It just snowballed massively.”

Lucy now is now set to launch a range of car care products and is bringing out a line of umbrellas - but says she also wants to inspire a new generation of young entrepreneurs.

“A lot of people that are in their 20s and 30s and think that ‘I've left it too long now, I can't do anything’, but it's not the case,” said Lucy.

“I just want to inspire a lot of young people because I didn't do very well academically whatsoever.

“I didn't get a GCSE or anything. I had to fight for college and it just goes to show that you can literally do anything that you want if you want it bad enough.

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“I've struggled a lot with mental health and stuff, so I've had to get past it at such a young age.

“But I would say, you can either look back in five years and wish you did something, or you can look back in five years and look at all the progress that you've made.

“I live by a few sayings, and one of them is: 'winners don't quit, and quitters don't win'. So I like to spread positivity, and I like people to believe in themselves, because at one point, nobody believed in me.”