A MAN who started with just £400 and worked four jobs at once is now set to rake in millions.
Ashley Hainsworth, 36, was a student at Huddersfield University when he started an e-commerce business as a project to sell mattresses.
Ashley created Bed Kingdom in 2011 and had no office, no stock and barely any profits – but things soon began moving in the right direction.
The fledgling retailer took off and never looked back with its first year of trading seeing sales of around £250,000.
Now, Bed Kingdom is now on track to reach around a whopping £20m a year in turnover.
But it was not always easy for Ashley on his journey from rags to riches.
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And the self-made businessman revealed how he had to put in hours of graft to get to where he is today.
The entrepreneur recalls holding down four part-time jobs as he put his heart into running the business from his parents' home in Liversedge, Yorkshire.
Ashley worked in Lloyds bar in Huddersfield, at the Showcase cinema in Birstall, the chicken counter at Morrisons and the Black Bull pub in Liversedge – all while trying to get his business noticed.
At one point, there were 150 mattresses crammed into his mum's front room.
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But the bed and furniture retailer has since gone from strength to strength over the years.
Bed Kingdom now employs 28 people and has experienced significant growth in recent years.
It was even included in this year's Sunday Times Top 100 list of fast-growing businesses in the UK.
A significant share of the profits comes from the launch of Bed Kingdom's sustainable wooden bed brand, Noomi – launched in 2021.
With plans for further expansion, Bed Kingdom has a target turnover of £17 million for the current financial year – up from just £2m five years ago.
The number of employees at the company has almost tripled since 2021, when it employed just ten people.
It's a long way from 2011 when he founded the business with a £400 investment.
Despite his success, Ashley has stayed modest and credits the hard work of staff and his mum Janet who dealt with the company's bookkeeping from the beginning and is still an employee.
And he says his business brain is probably inherited from his dad Mike who worked as a theatrical agent working with clubs, cruise ships and casinos.
Ashley isn't your stereotypical managing director as he doesn't go for big flash cars.
He drives a Tesla as it's a sensible vehicle from a taxes point of view and says: "When you have built a company from nothing you don't like wasting money."
Levon Hall, marketing director at Bed Kingdom, said: "As a team, we worked incredibly hard during the pandemic to maintain high stock levels and keep our next-day delivery commitment to customers. This turned out to be the difference between thriving and surviving.
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"The business has invested heavily in marketing, professional development, and recruitment. I'm a great example of this as I began my journey with Bed Kingdom as an apprentice and now lead all our marketing efforts.
"We are grateful for all the support we receive from our customers and partners, and we're already working hard to implement our strategic plans for further growth."
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