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A TEENAGE David Attenborough superfan is making £60,000 a year selling weird and rare insects from his parents’ home.
Cameron Reardon, 19, stocks more than a hundred different species at one time and attracts buyers from across Europe.
The budding entrepeneur has always had a passion for insects and grew up watching legendary broadcaster Attenborough’s programmes.
He began importing insects while studying at college and soon realised he had found a gap in the market after making money flogging them on Facebook.
He now devotes all his time to the thriving business — raking in up to £5,000 a month.
Cameron also offers services such as birthday parties, education workshops and ‘fear classes’ — aimed at helping people overcome their phobias of insects.
He stocks a wide variety of creepy crawlies, including venomous spiders, scorpions, millipedes, crabs, bird-eating spiders and giant land snails.
Cameron stores the products at the end of his parents’ garden in Llanelli, Wales — but kept them in the house when he started out.
He said: ‘I used to keep stick insects as a pet when I was younger.
‘They used to lay hundreds of eggs, which I then used to sell on Facebook. There’s loads of groups.
‘Then, when I started college, I had an enterprise talk as part of my induction. That’s when I realised I was already making money and could make a business from it.
‘I used to keep everything in my bedroom at the start. My mother hated it.
‘There’s five bedrooms upstairs — for some reason they always went straight for hers if they got out!’
The business really took off after Cameron won a local bursary of £5,000, beating other young entrepeneurs to the prize.
This money allowed him to buy a chalet for the end of his parents’ garden, where he now operates as Bug Box UK.
He said: ‘I moved into that and, about a month later, we started shipping.’
‘Stock changes from season to season, but right now we have around a hundred different species — the bird-eating spiders are really popular.
‘It can be quite seasonal — some months we are just scraping by — but, with all the educational stuff, I think it’s a rough salary of £60,000 a year. That sounds about right.’
All orders come in via a website, which Cameron then prepares and sends off using a ‘live animal’ delivery method through Royal Mail.
The business is currently online only — although there are plans for a shop and further expansion.
Cameron, who has a younger brother, added: ‘I’d love to expand the business. The main plan we are looking at is to franchise out to the States.
‘The market out there is colossal — everyone out there has a pet tarantula! They love it.’
You can find out more about Bug Box UK right here.
