I’m left school at 15 with no GCSEs and got into £22k debt – now I’m a millionaire boss

At just 15 years old, Kane Dowell left secondary school with no GCSEs and took a job in his parents’ antiques shop.

Kane, now 37, is dyslexic and had no idea what he wanted to do after he left school.

Born in August, he was always the youngest in the year and he said that, coupled with his Dyslexia, made him feel “not up to scratch” with his peers.

“Dyslexia wasn’t really a thing back then – it wasn’t something people used to speak about as much as they do now and I obviously had learning difficulties,” he said.

“I’m from a very hard working family background, I would have to be dying to have a day off school, but I failed all my GCSES.

“I didn’t get the grades to go to college or university.”

He began working in his parents’ London shop and felt resigned to sticking in the family business forever.

But then by a huge stroke of luck, designer Cath Kidston came into the store one day.

Recognising her, Kane decided to shoot his shot and simply asked her for a job – and she gave him a role as a sales assistant.

“Even my mum couldn’t believe it and said but you’ve got no interest in that sort of thing – and I said yes, but it’s a business that keeps growing.

“I knew that from such a young age, the entrepreneurial part probably just came out of me.

“Cath [Kidston] even says to this day when we meet up that she still admires how I just asked her for a job.”

Kane began his new career learning on his feet. He began with setting up window displays and worked up to going to antiques fairs, supporting directors of the company.

“I was changing window displays over from Christmas Eve to ready for the shop to open on Boxing Day, then before I knew it, I was doing official merchandising and running marketing events,” he said.

Drowning in debt

But despite initially doing well in his career, Kane didn’t know much about how to manage money and quickly got into debt.

“I didn’t really have much knowledge about finances at all, I used to get my wages and just live beyond my means,” he said.

“When I was 20, I’d been at Cath Kidston for four years – but I’d somehow racked up to about £22,000 worth of debt.”

Kane says he hid his debts from his parents and had sleepless nights, sometimes waking up at 3am in deep sweats thinking bailiffs were banging on the door.

“I wasn’t telling my parents because my mum and dad are very hard working and I knew they’d worry,” he said. “It got really bad.”

But one day, his parents saw a letter with a big red stamp on it that said “final notice”.

“I remember my mum and my dad literally sat me down. They were so angry, so upset,” Kane said.

“I decided to just give in and ask them to help me, which they did, and it taught me a massive lesson. I vowed to pay them back every month through my wages and sort my life out.”

After ten years, Kane was mostly out of debt and decided to leave Cath Kidston to join a biscuit gifting business.

Starting a side-hustle

But after a couple of years there, he wasn’t satisfied working for someone else any more and realised his dream was to set up his own business using everything he had learned so far.

“I knew I had the entrepreneurial flair and the drive and the work ethic, but what I didn’t have was the knowledge,” he said.

He decided to start figuring out how to be entrepreneurial and started creating sweet bundles, using what he had learned about biscuits gifts, which he would sell on market stores.

Eventually, he decided to create a side hustle called Ask Mummy and Daddy. 

He said: “My dad came up with that business name. When I was younger, I used to just ask my mum and dad for money to go to a sweet shop because I loved it.”

He started doing it on the weekends, buying sweets from UK suppliers, bagging them and selling them for a profit.

Building a business

Then, Kane was made redundant, he decided to focus all his energy on his side hustle and turn it into a proper business.

He cold-called Selfridges and was invited in by the confectionary manager who loved his business, his ambition and his drive – and ended up negotiating a £15,000 order.

He said: “That was five years ago, and we’re still in Selfridges now with our own concession space.

Kane, now 37, has grown his business into a global sweet company that is turning over £1million in profit a year.

“For me to turn around now and say I have a business that turns over a million pounds is such a proud chapter of my life, I can’t believe it really,” he said.

“We’re stocked in Australia, Hong Kong, New Zealand and across the UK. We’re one of the biggest suppliers to moonpig.com who probably spend about £400,000 a year with us. 

“It’s been incredible. It’s been a long, treacherous journey to get here, but I wouldn’t change it for the world.”

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