"I wanted to focus on my business full time."
Amani Zubair may only be 19-years-old but the self-made entrepreneur is making waves and her online jewellery business has now received the backing of Alan Sugar.
She attended Aston University but dropped out as her company began to take off.
Amani admitted that she kept it a secret from her family.
She explained: “I did marketing but I dropped out.
“Everything was online for me [during the pandemic] and I wasn’t a fan.
“I wanted to focus on my business full time.”
Amani, of Moseley, Birmingham, started her firm Tresor when she was 17, raising funds by reselling clothes from charity shops on eBay.
It is an online jewellery business that focuses on the “highest quality jewellery at the most affordable price” and is said to “feel like solid gold but cost a fraction of the price”.
Amani’s products have been described as “chunky, edgy and slightly odd” with bold slogans engraved on their rings, making it a brand that is not scared to stand out.
In August 2020, Amani created a video to promote her products.
On TikTok, the video amassed nearly five million views, her products sold out overnight and she received more than 1,000 orders in a day.
In March 2021, Amani dropped out of university, moved into an office and decided to focus her efforts on building her business.
Now, she employs a small team of five and is selling hundreds of pieces of jewellery a week.
The entrepreneur said:
“I stuck at uni for as long as I could but I dropped out and I didn’t tell my dad.
“And then all this kind of happened and I had to tell him.”
She soon attracted investment from Alan Sugar, leaving her no choice but to tell her father.
Amani needed help to scale up her company and being a fan of Lord Sugar, she decided to contact him for advice.
She did not expect to hear back but was stunned when Lord Sugar got in touch to arrange a call.
The pair began speaking and a few months later, he made her an offer to invest in her business.
Amani continued: “I kind of kept it under wraps. It was such a shock.”
She initially wondered if it might be a prank.
“I was like ‘this isn’t real, this isn’t happening, Lord Sugar is not emailing me’. I’m just 19-year-old Mani from Birmingham.”
Despite the growing success, Amani still lives at home with her family.
She says she gets her entrepreneurial spirit from her mother.
“Growing up my whole life my mum had so many businesses.
“She ran nurseries, a salon, everything. She was someone who I definitely looked up to growing up.”
Although her business continues to grow, Amani is not sure if she wants to move to London just yet.
The entrepreneur told Birmingham Mail: “I love Birmingham, I love my city so much.”
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