From bedroom to £750,000: 16-year-old teen skips college, turns towel idea into a lucrative business

A 16-year-old entrepreneur from Maldon, Essex, has turned a bedroom-started towel brand into a business generating more than £750,000 (approximately ₹94,927,500) in annual revenue after deciding to skip college following his GCSEs. Harrison Nott says his company, CoolTowel, has recorded around 80,000 sales this year through TikTok Shop and Shopify, according to the Manchester Evening News.

Nott began developing CoolTowel at 13 after struggling to find a cooling towel he liked during hot weather. He launched the business in 2023 from his bedroom, starting with 100 towels in a box — and sold them all.

The company sells reusable cooling towels that work through evaporation. Users wet the towel, wring it out and snap it to activate a cooling effect, making the product popular during Britain’s summer heatwaves.

Heatwave fuels sales

Demand rose sharply during recent UK heatwaves. According to the Manchester Evening News, Nott says the business generated £100,000 (approximately ₹1,26,57,000) in revenue in a single night after selling out its stock, prompting him to introduce pre-orders.

“Seeing thousands of CoolTowel orders come through in one day is something I’ll never take for granted,” he wrote in an Instagram post. “Thank you to everyone supporting the journey. This is only the beginning.”

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He later says CoolTowel sold £600,000 (approximately ₹75,942,000) worth of stock in one week, pushing annual revenue beyond £750,000 (approximately ₹94,927,500) . By the age of 15, the business had already turned over more than £100,000 (approximately ₹1,26,57,000) in a year and delivered more than 30,000 orders.

Pitch win & celebrity backing

A major boost came when Nott won the Alibaba.com CoCreate Pitch competition, beating 15,000 entrepreneurs worldwide and securing a £150,000 (approximately ₹18,985,500) prize, as per the Manchester Evening News.

Former England footballer Rio Ferdinand was among those impressed by his pitch and later invested in the business. The win gave the teenager both funding and visibility, helping CoolTowel scale beyond its early social media sales.

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Growth is not profit

Despite the headline revenue, Nott says CoolTowel has not yet turned a profit. He cites advertising spend, affiliate commissions, stock shortages and other operating costs as pressures on margins.

He also says TikTok Shop’s handling of pre-orders and copycat sellers allegedly using his face in advertisements affected the company’s ability to fully capitalise on the summer demand.