Bella Lin, 17, is the founder of GuineaLoft, a company that sells products for small pets, including guinea pig cages, bedding, food feeders and water bottles. In 2024, GuineaLoft has brought in an average of $71,000 per month in revenue so far. That’s more than double compared to last year, when the company brought in $34,000 a month.
I have always wanted to be self-employed.
I’m really lucky to run a company like GuineaLoft
where, you know, these are small pets.
Like, this is my passion. I’ve had these pets forever.
I love caring for them.
I love seeing customer reviews and just making the
best possible product for them.
I’ve actually met a good deal of other young
entrepreneurs, but in my immediate friends circle, no
one that I know does it.
To them, I’m kind of just the guinea pig girl.
My name is Bella Lin.
I’m 17 years old, and my Amazon side hustle brought in
$409,000 in 2023.
I always knew that I wanted to be an entrepreneur.
Even from a young age in elementary school, I was
always doing various kinds of startups.
I had a small hand knitting business.
I did the lemonade stand that all kids do, and I had a
slime business in middle school.
I was always trying out different ways to bring in
little amounts of money.
The idea for GuineaLoft definitely came from first
hand experience.
So I would say I’m a veteran guinea pig owner.
I’ve had them for six coming on seven years.
And you know, when I had guinea pigs for the first
time, I started off just as any other guinea pig owner
would. I had the store bought cages, and with these
cages, issues start to arise I think every
guinea pig owner goes through.
I decided, hey, this doesn’t work anymore.
Let me build something by myself.
So before I even started thinking about GuineaLoft, I
was doing DIY versions of cages in my backyard.
I was using materials like crates and bricks and other
plastic trays and just trying to mesh together this DIY
thing. But then the issue that arose was just that it
was an ordeal to clean it.
It just wasn’t a sustainable idea.
And then from there, I felt that I had pretty much
exhausted every other option.
So I started to draw up in my notebook designs of what
I wanted the ideal guinea pig cage to look like.
And that’s kind of how I arrived at version one of the
guinea loft cage.
When I first launched GuineaLoft, the reception was
not at all what I expected.
I wasn’t sure if customers were going to take the
plunge and try our cage because it was so new, so I
didn’t put any marketing into the first 100 units.
I thought that our product was just going to get
buried.
When I saw that the first 100 units sold out on
Amazon, I just knew at that time I had to go all in
to this.
Some of GuineaLoft’s most important expenses.
We have employees on payroll.
We have to pay the supply chain workers and then we
have to purchase raw materials.
We also purchase things for manufacturing.
There are shipping expenses.
There are also fees from Amazon.
Another thing is marketing.
All of GuineaLoft’s profits are currently being
reinvested back into the company.
I decided not to pay myself a cut of GuineaLoft’s
earnings so far, because I’m really lucky to be in a
position where that’s not something that I need to
worry about.
I’m lucky to have parents who, you know, they make
enough to provide for me.
I was thinking, if I can take these few thousand
dollars and work on more R&D, I think that that’s more
worth it than paying myself something that I don’t
really need.
I’m pretty anxious, you know, hitting $1 million is
going to be huge.
I feel that we’re going to hit that before two years.
Juggling being in high school and also doing
GuineaLoft is definitely a lot of time because even
when I was in school, I’m easily doing 20 to 25 hours
a week working on this.
I definitely was thinking about possibly taking a gap
year to work on GuineaLoft, but ultimately
I decided not to do that and to enter and then
graduate in the class of 2028.
I think a big part of that was because I’m really
excited for the pool of opportunities and resources
that I’m going to get in college, and if I’m working
on my business simultaneously, I can kind of bring that
into the college space and see what ways it can help
me grow or what mentors that I might meet there.
I’m sure you all love dogs and cats, but what about
the small pets of the world?
Are all pets really created equal?
At just $65, they GuineaLoft is a refreshing solution.
You can finally see your piggy.
I actually put that towards purchasing our first
acrylic laser cutter.
We had issues a few months ago where our products were
consistently out of stock, and we weren’t really
estimating the shipping cycles correctly.
So that’s definitely aided a lot in number one, our
stock issues.
And then another thing is that all of these new cages
that I said got released recently, it’s all thanks to
the acrylic laser cutter that we were able to test
multiple versions and then get that V1 out.
Some of the biggest challenges that I would say I
faced in my time running GuineaLoft is, first of all,
coordination with the team in China.
There is a big barrier between us: time, distance,
sometimes even language.
All of our communication is in Chinese.
My parents are immigrants, so I have good working
proficiency in Chinese.
I would say that that’s the extent of his help.
He’s not really inside the operations of GuineaLoft.
My mom actually isn’t really involved at all.
Another challenge that I’ve run into is just the
developing of products and creating new versions, new
iterations. So, for example, our hamster cage, we went
through at least five iterations of it.
And then when we listed it, to be completely honest
with you, it got bad reviews.
They’re saying, oh no, they’re escaping.
Or maybe it’s too small for a few hamsters.
And for us, maybe we don’t have that same experience.
You know, we’re testing with about 4 or 5 hamsters in
China, and maybe our hamsters don’t escape.
So definitely recognising the differences in people’s
pets and just tweaking it to make the best possible
product for the customer.
I think that with a lot of parents, when kids are
younger and they express an interest in startups with
something trivial, it’s very easy to sort of shut that
down as something, you know, oh, maybe that’s just
kids. It’s not going to be serious.
With my dad, he always treated me as an adult.
He never made fun of my passions.
I’m really glad that he never brushed that off,
because look at where we are now with the piggies.
I 100% plan on running GuineaLoft while I’m in
college, and hopefully if it lasts the next four years,
out of college as well.
In the next five years, I’m looking at expanding into
a fuller range of products.
So for pretty much all small pets and then we want
compatible accessories for every pet.
We’re also looking at food for each pet, fun things
for enrichment in their cage.
And then of course, opening in person stores is a
really big dream of mine.
The ultimate goal that I have for GuineaLoft is just
to be the recognised small pet brand.
- Run a company
- Definition: To manage or be in charge of a company.
- Example: “I’d love to run a company one day.”
2. Try out
- Definition: To test something to see if it works or if you like it.
- Example: “It’s important to try out different activities to see what you like and don’t like.”
3. Draw up
- Definition: To prepare a plan, agreement, or other document in detail.
- Example: “I need to draw up a business plan before I get started.”
4. Go all in
- Definition: To commit oneself completely to a course of action.
- Example: “Some people like to hedge their bets to be safe… I prefer to go all in.”
5. Reinvest back
- Definition: To put money that you have earned back into the business to help it grow.
- Example: “It’s definitely important to reinvest profits back into the company in things like marketing, product development and stuff like that.”
6. Take the plunge
- Definition: To commit to a course of action that is difficult or risky.
- Example: “Starting your own business can be scary.. it’s so hard for people to take the plunge!”
7. Brushed off
- Definition: To dismiss or ignore something or someone.
- Example: “I had a few setbacks in my business but I tried to just brush them off as best as I could and get on with the next task.”
8. Entrepreneur
- Definition: A person who organises and operates a business or businesses, taking on greater than normal financial risks in order to do so.
- Example: “I think many kids now would like to be entrepreneurs.”
9. Side hustle
- Definition: A job or occupation that brings in extra money beyond one’s regular job.
- Example: “My mate has a full time job during the week and works on his side hustle on the weekend.”
10. First-hand experience
- Definition: Direct, personal experience.
- Example: “I think first-hand experience is so valuable because you really learn so much more from it.”
11. Sustainable
- Definition: Able to be maintained at a certain rate or level without depleting resources or causing harm.
- Example: “You have to run your business in a sustainable way if you want to be successful.”
- What do you think of Bella’s business and the fact that she did this at 17 years old?
- Do you think that entrepreneurs are born or can it be learned?
- Who is the most impressive business person or entrepreneur that you know?
- If you could make any business, what would it be?
- What kind of qualities do you think entrepreneurs need?
