Earlier this year, Royal High School Bath students took part in the Atherton Award; a pioneering new award for girls' schools in the UK to celebrate girls who show initiative or entrepreneurial thinking in a STEM discipline.

The winner receives a certificate and trophy as well as £500 to put towards developing their business and a mentoring session from someone in Amber Atherton’s company. The winner this year is Kay from Year 11.

In Kay’s own words from her entry:

I have started a squishy toy business on Instagram and since 2020 and had sold my products in many consignment stores. My business has a revenue of more than £2500 and net profit of roughly £2000. I have more than 500 orders shipped to Hong Kong, UK, USA, Taiwan, Singapore, Mainland China and Thailand and have over 400 reviews. 

This year, I manufactured my own branded squishy. I worked it out from designing the look of the squishy to the packaging and finding the factory to produce it. 

I acknowledged the importance of being a risk-taker and not to be afraid of calculated risk. When I first decided to manufacture it, I was worried about people not liking my design or people might not buy from me. I used to think that I might not be able to sell even 100 of them, should I continue? Luckily, I decided to take this forward and turns out I have sold more than 200 of them in just 2 months.

Amber Atherton said: 

“Today I am delighted to recognize Kay Yuen as this year’s Atherton Award winner for launching a product that she has sold across Hong Kong, UK, USA, Taiwan, Singapore, Mainland China and Thailand. In selling over 500 products, she has 400 reviews and has made over £2,000 in profit.

With this start-up capital and in our mentoring sessions, I’m excited to see Kay develop her business further, refining her offerings to achieve even more income.

Congratulations Kay, and congratulations to everyone who entered. RHS Bath girls have entrepreneurial spirit in bucket loads and I can't wait to watch, and maybe one day invest, in the incredible businesses you might build!”

Well done to Kay and we hope this inspires others to develop their ideas, to take risks and perhaps to enter this competition next year.