It is always great to hear of our students’ successes out of school. Year 10 student Chloe Hobbs used her initiative and in February 2018 started her own business from scratch called ‘Chloe’s Mascots’.
Chloe started with two costumes, the Disney characters ‘Elsa and Olaf lookalikes’ and set up her own Facebook page to advertise the mascots.
For a fixed price Chloe and her sisters arrive at children’s birthday parties, christenings and baby showers dressed up as the characters.
The characters interact with the children and lots of photos are taken. Chloe’s favourite part of the parties is when she initially walks into the room…
Chloe stays at the party for around half an hour but it can be longer if parents request it.
Since February 2018 her business has expanded from two Disney lookalike characters to 52 different mascots.
For every party, Chloe and her sisters have attended Chloe carefully covers her outgoings, then invests profits back into the business. Her business attracts clients from all over Cardiff and all her reviews have been 5 stars to date.
Chloe’s latest mascots are lookalike LOL dolls which are proving to be very popular. Chloe has some very busy times during the year, one of the busiest periods was over Christmas when Chloe and her sisters made 16 visits on Christmas Eve alone, with Elf on the Shelf lookalike being a very popular choice.
Over the Christmas period, approximately 60 visits were made. As you can imagine with such a busy schedule there was a lot of planning and organisation involved!
“Setting up the business has given me so many skills, firstly communication, as I reply directly to all queries and potential customers. Secondly, I have to be very organised with planning, recording and documenting all visits, for example, some parties require up to 4 mascots, so I have to ensure I have the workforce available too. Finally, it has furthered my practical mathematical skills as I have to work out my outgoings and incomings to make sure I balance the books! Setting up the business and maintaining it is hard work, but something I find very rewarding, it is not always easy to balance the business and my studies but I am doing my very best.”
If you are interested in hiring a mascot for a child’s birthday then please visit Chloe’s Facebook page where all the information you need is available – ‘Chloe’s Mascots’. As a school, we are very proud of Chloe and of her taking the initiative to set up a successful business at the age of 13!