Louise Murray was getting ready to start university when her life was suddenly taken down a different path, when her brother, Martyn Hett, was tragically killed in the Manchester Arena attack in 2017.
As she and her family came to terms with his loss, she decided not to progress with her studies and had to forge another way in life.
But now she gets up every day “excited to do life” and in a bold move that would make her brother proud, she has quit her former job to focus on her growing crochet business.
The 25-year-old has been crocheting as a hobby since she was eight years old, and over the past two years she has set up a business, Hooked by Lou, to sell her creations.
After deciding not to go to university, she moved into full-time work, and eventually took on a job in marketing and PR.
She didn’t enjoy it but she was inspired by her brother Martyn’s example of how he lived his life “fearlessly” and with great passion.
Louise said: “Driving into work, sometimes I’d think about how he lived his life before. He would have told me to quit my job and just do what I want to do.
“He always did exactly what he wanted to do and didn’t follow the social norm. I think he would have been my biggest cheerleader.”
During the COVID-19 lockdown, she was put on furlough, which gave her the time to sell some of her crochet creations on Instagram to friends.
Then friends of friends started getting in touch with requests and soon strangers were sending her messages with queries about her products, so Louise decided to set up the business.
After lockdown finished, she quit her job and tried to run her enterprise full time but she found she wasn’t earning enough and so decided to get a part-time job to support her as well.
Until recently, she ran the business from her spare room in her flat and last year she earned just over £10,000, taking home just over £5,000 in profit.
This year, Louise has earned more than £6,000 with some of her income going towards setting up her new base, in a studio business unit.
She was pleased to take in £3,482 in March alone, which allowed her to take home £1,500 and pay off her tax from the previous year.
Her new studio HQ is at the Broadstone Mill Shopping Outlet, in Stockport, and she also works part time in a shop in the retail complex.
She said in the future she would like to hire people to help her and to organise professional photoshoots to showcase her work.
But for now she is very busy with her personal life, as she is doing the final preparations to get married next weekend.
Asked what she would say to another young entrepreneur starting a business, she said: “Don’t expect everything to all come into fruition at once, because that’s not how it works.
“You have to stay up late, get things done, work every single day, never have a holiday. It is proper hard work.
“You have to maybe sacrifice social activities so that you can get more work done and put everything you have into it to make it successful. You have to take it really seriously because otherwise you’re not going to make any money.”
Reflecting on her brother’s inspiring example, Louise said: “He never really did what everyone thought he should do. He was completely unapologetically him. That’s quite an inspiration.”
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