Yorkshire born Bethany Wells is an entrepreneur and has been since a very young age. Growing up in a creative home surrounded by art studios and workshops Bethany was able to express and test out her ideas outside of school hours.
"School was a small part of my life because I had so many things going on outside of my school day".
Bethany admits that school lessons were okay but she loved those rainy days when she could set up her bookshop in the classroom. But selling books wasn't enough for Bethany, she was soon creating membership packs and had classmates signing up to other clubs she was putting together. All this at just age seven!
At the age of eleven she decided to step the creativity and business up a level by creating personalized pencil pots, pens and doorplates. Bethany started selling to students and teachers from across the school. During this stage of her young business career Bethany discovered an "obsession" with stationary and branding.
Her business was so important that Bethany chose not to take GCSE's so that she could focus on creating more ideas and developing the business further.
"I figured anyone who needed to be told what to do from a textbook obviously hadn't got enough ideas of their own"
The business Bethany created at eleven continued to be successful and at the age of sixteen she won a business competition run by Price Waterhouse Coopers. The prize was a computerized sewing machine. The prize allowed for further expansion of the business offering products such as embroidered hoodies for all the sports teams, school trips and even customization of school uniforms. Bethany recalls school journeys with up to 40 hoodies in the car becoming a regular occurrence.
Jumping forward a few years Bethany decided that she would add some qualifications to her name so shut down the business, sat exams and was finally accepted at Oxford University to study law. After eight short weeks on the course she quickly realized that the course and a career in law was not for her. She quit and decided to study Architecture for which she received an MA from the Royal College of Arts.
Bethany recalls that after finishing University she worked in a number of design studios, freelancing positions and even tried her hand at wwoofing (organic farming). She experienced financial and emotional ups and downs over the following year as she tried to find a career she truly loved.
"A printed scarf is the thing that gets me through the lows (and there have been plenty). I wrap it around me and believe that I can"
Before long Bethany realized that she needed to return to her roots and start her own business again, a business where self-belief, being non-judgmental and personal expression come as standard.
During a visit to Bath in April she had her "genuis" idea - the irresistible combination of clothes, Twitter and YOU.
TeeTweet was born with the simple objective 'the brand that aims to get everyone wearing their hearts on their sleeves'. Offering personalized tweets printed onto various organic or environmentally friendly products including bags, t-shirts and pillowcases (more below).
Describing the sensation of starting a new business as natural as breathing and feeling that she's been training for 20 years, Bethany obtained her domain name, setup the online shop and started tweeting the world about her idea.
Before long, orders started coming in and Bethany quickly reached an agreement with a printing factory in Yorkshire to fulfill the ever-increasing order book.
The tweets TeeTweets print vary hugely from private tweets to corporate customer tweets. Most recently she's added pillowcases to the range. These were inspired by a Jessie J fan who had been tweeted by the singer herself - the customer wanted to fall asleep each night reminded of the tweet her idol sent her.
Bethany is continuing to expand TeeTweet into new markets; developing a product range with a love/relationship coach, so clients can take home a small piece of inspiration/advice on a pillowcase at the end of the coaching session.
TeeTweet also has plans to expand into the other new areas including, Instagram-TeeTweets and ChariTeeTweets, collaborations with charities developing bespoke TeeTweet products to help them promote their brand. Longer term there are also plans to create artist and designer-led range of TeeTweets.
Personally I love this idea and it's clear from chatting with Bethany that she is truly focused on the future of TeeTweets with carefully thought out plans for the future. That coupled with her creativity means TeeTweets will continue to be a huge success I am sure.
If you would like to wear a special tweet then be sure to head over to www.TeeTweet.co.uk
Zoe