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17yr old entrepreneur ditched university to make lip balm

Last month, Rose Dyson watched as her school friends packed their bags and left Barnsley, South Yorkshire, for the country's top universities, including Oxford, Cambridge and Durham.

At one point, having secured straight A star and A grades at her GCSEs, it looked like Rose would follow suit. But in August, the 17-year-old achieved two C grades and a D in her A levels.

She wasn't disappointed, though: earlier in the week, she had been recognised by Transferwise as one of their '20 under 20' – Britain’s 20 most promising young entrepreneurs – and awarded a top prize of £10,000 to invest in her business.

On top of full-time studies, Rose has been running ethical beauty product business Pura Cosmetics, which she founded when she was 15. The idea came from local enterprise competition, 'I Know I Can' Big Challenge, in which school-age children were given £25 and told to design and create a product, then see if they could sell it.

Have you thought about an alternative to university? Do you run your own business? Share your success stories here...

Reply 1

Andrew97

Entertainment Forum Helper, Debate & Current Affairs Helper

I think it’s a very hit and miss thing, can work out beautifully for some, but can go tits up for others.

Reply 2

username4262886

Original post by Andrew97

I think it’s a very hit and miss thing, can work out beautifully for some, but can go tits up for others.

Same for uni tbh.

Reply 3

DrMikeHuntHertz

You have two choices in life, become an NPC or go your own way.

Reply 4

Just my opinion

Bloody good on her , hooray for capitalism 😁👍

Reply 5

ThomH97

Good on her, hopefully she does well, we all need lib balm in the winter.

I do hope it wasn't the money that made her bomb (relatively to her GCSEs) in her A Levels though.