A 16-year-old entrepreneur from Maldon, Essex, has built a towel brand that now generates more than £750,000 in annual revenue. He chose to skip college after completing his GCSEs to focus on the business.
He started working on the product at age 13 because he could not find a cooling towel he liked for hot weather. The towels cool through evaporation; users wet, wring and snap them to activate the effect.
CoolTowel launched in 2023 from his bedroom with an initial batch of 100 towels, all of which sold quickly. Sales now flow through TikTok Shop and Shopify, with about 80,000 units sold this year.
Heatwaves in the United Kingdom drove a sharp rise in demand. Nott reports that a single night of sales produced £100,000 in revenue, prompting him to add pre-orders. The rapid sell-out highlighted the product’s seasonal appeal. That night’s haul translates to roughly ₹1,26,57,000, and Nott later thanked supporters on Instagram, writing, “Thank you to everyone supporting the journey. This is only the beginning.”
In one week the company moved roughly £600,000 worth of stock, pushing annual turnover beyond that amount. By the time he was 15, the business had already recorded a six-figure sum in a year. It also fulfilled more than 30,000 orders. The week’s sales equal about ₹75,942,000, reinforcing the momentum that lifted annual revenue past the £750,000 mark (≈ ₹94,927,500).
Nott won the Alibaba.com CoCreate Pitch competition, beating 15,000 entrepreneurs worldwide and earning a £150,000 prize. Former England footballer Rio Ferdinand was among the judges and later invested in the business, giving it further visibility. The prize is valued at roughly ₹18,985,500, and the win provided both funding and high-profile exposure that helped CoolTowel expand beyond its early social-media-driven sales.
Despite headline revenue, CoolTowel has not yet turned a profit, according to the founder. He cites advertising spend, affiliate commissions, stock shortages and other operating costs as pressure on margins.
TikTok Shop’s handling of pre-orders and alleged copycat ads that used his face have further hampered the company’s ability to capture summer demand. The founder thanked supporters in an Instagram post. The entrepreneur wrote, “Seeing thousands of CoolTowel orders come through in one day is something I’ll never take for granted.”