‘I dropped out of university, now I make $10,000 a day’

Chloe felt that university wasn’t right for her and dropped out, now she’s laughing all the way to the bank thanks to this one idea.

Chloe Zhu has started her own company. Picture: Chloe Zhu/Facebook

Chloe Zhu was 19 years old and studying a bachelor’s degree at university when she decided that the career path she was heading down just wasn’t for her.

The Sydney resident then decided to drop out, unbeknown to her family for almost a year.

At the time she was studying a degree in finance/computer science, having been a dux student with an ATAR of 99.5. She was also running a private tutoring company teaching English to students for 30 hours a week.

However, things weren’t feeling right during her time at university.

“Despite receiving strong grades in uni, and ranking at the top of NSW for the HSC, I couldn’t help but feel extremely lost with the direction I was going down in my career with my uni degree,” Chloe, now 21, told 7 News.

“When you just finish high school, nothing prepares you to know what career path is the right one for you. You have to choose a degree that often boxes you into a few job options, and then if you switch, you feel like you’re at square zero again.

“So after changing my degree twice and still feeling like I wasn’t in the right place, I knew that university wasn’t quite right for me so I dropped out.”

Chloe Zhu dropped out of university. Picture: Chloe Zhu/Facebook

She had a passion for beauty, however, and had dreamt of launching her own brand. When Covid hit, it proved the perfect time for her to give it a try.

The idea was born out of the pandemic – she had discovered there was a gap in the market for press-on nails at home when she had been trying to get a manicure but beauty salons were closed for long periods of time.

Then she created Glowie, in her bedroom, investing $25,000 of the money she’d made while tutoring.

“I came across press-on nails at the chemist and thought they were a brilliant idea. But while they were great in concept, they did not work for me at all,” she says.

She dreamt of launching her own company. Picture: Chloe Zhu/Facebook

“The sizes were too big and not inclusive, they barely lasted an hour, and they also looked fake when applied.”

“And so, I went back home, got on my laptop, and started furiously researching the product, manufactures, trends …”

It was quite the process.

“It all started in my bedroom during Covid 2021,” she says.

“I shot all the content, built the website, and packed all the orders in the one-bedroom apartment I had moved into at 19.”

She started Glowie during the Covid pandemic. Picture: Chloe Zhu/Facebook

It was an instant hit with Chloe making sales on the first day after a TikTok video of hers went viral prior to the company’s launch. Glowie now makes over six figures in annual revenue.

“It’s definitely surreal,” she says.

“On the days that we release new designs, we usually bring in $10,000 per day and our biggest month to date has been $85,000 in sales in April 2023. Our most recent release of short nails on June 18 did $22,800 in 24 hours, which is our biggest sales stat in 24 hours to date.”

She said it has been “exhausting” and she can’t remember the last time she had a weekend off. But it’s all been worth it.

Australia’s nail salon market is worth a whopping $2 billion, according to industry research company IBISWorld.

Chloe Zhu has started her own company. Picture: Chloe Zhu/Facebook

It comes after a woman revealed she only uses press-on nails from Kmart after contracting a nasty infection from a nail salon that could have required the amputation of her right thumb.

Queensland woman Beth Jozey said she went to a new salon in early 2020 after fears Queensland could go into lockdown.

“So my best friend was sitting next to me and they would use a drill bit on her and then immediately swap it over to me,” she said.

“But I didn’t really think anything of it at the time. I didn’t want to be the kind of person that was like: ‘oh excuse me, can you please wash that’.”

Towards the evening of the next day she noticed her fingers began to “really ache,” and two days later things were much worse.

“I went to pick up a mug of coffee off my mum’s outdoor table and I literally dropped it because the pressure of grabbing the mug on my thumb”.

She developed a high fever and nausea while on the way to the emergency room, where the “severe infection” was confirmed.

“They said that if I had left it any longer to go to the hospital, it would have gotten into my bone, into my bloodstream properly and I would have ended up losing my thumb,” she said.