Nearly three years ago, siblings Maddy and Dylan Jarvis invested a few hundred dollars of their personal savings into a quirky business idea.
Now Candy Claws, their press-on nail brand, is about to hit $20 million in sales.
It’s a milestone most Australians who start side hustles never hit.
A 2024 report revealed that among the 55 percent of Australians looking to launch a small business or side hustle by 2030, a majority were driven by the prospect of improved earnings.
But Maddy, 26, just wanted a way out of her dull corporate job when she and Dylan started Candy Claws.
“It was my first corporate job out of uni, and I was really young,” she told 9news.com.au.
“I’d always wanted to do my own thing, so I was like, ‘I’m just going to start it now and see how it goes.'”
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The idea for a press-on nail business struck her in the aisles of her local chemist.
Like many young Aussies, Maddy couldn’t afford to get her nails done at a salon every few weeks in a cost-of-living crisis.
But the press-ons available at her local shopping centre looked cheap, felt flimsy and fell off within a few hours.
“I was like, what if you could create press-ons that looked and felt like a salon manicure, and lasted weeks rather than days?” she said.
Dylan, 30, was totally on board with the idea.
The siblings immediately began researching manufacturers and combined several hundred dollars from their savings to fund the initial production of Candy Claws nails.
Orders started coming in soon after.
At that point, Maddy had left her corporate role, so she arranged for all the stock to be sent to her home, where she packed thousands of orders in her living room.
”I couldn’t even get through my front door some days when we just got a stock order in,” she laughed, but the inconvenience quickly paid off.
As soon as the first batch of nails sold out, she and Dylan invested all their earnings into paying for the next batch.
Within the first month, Candy Claws had made $6000 in sales.
By the end of the first year, it had hit $1 million.
Currently, the business is nearing the $20 million threshold, has relocated to a proper warehouse and office, and both Maddy and Dylan are now dedicated to it full-time.
The brand has further expanded to New Zealand and the UK, with intentions to enter the US market in the future – optimistically, once the import tariffs imposed by the Trump administration are removed.
So what made it work when so many side hustles fail?
According to Maddy, it was hard work, careful money moves, and investing in social media advertising.
“We couldn’t really afford to hire content creators at the start,” she said.
“So I just embraced the fact that I would have to be the one to present the brand on camera [and] we quickly realized that’s what people enjoyed,” Maddy stated.
Now they have more than 70,000 Instagram followers.
Founder-forward brands can do extremely well on social media, where small business and entrepreneurial content has been booming of late.
Press-on nails have also enjoyed a massive spike in popularity recently, both online and in Aussie shopping carts.
More than 2.6 million TikTok videos and 6.5 million Instagram posts are tagged #pressonnails, reflecting a shift towards more cost-effective beauty options amid the cost of living crisis.
Many Aussies have been forced to cut back on luxuries like gel or acrylic manicures to prioritise essentials, making press-ons a popular alternative.
“It’s the cost-saving element, but also the time-saving element,” Maddy said.
Candy Claws’ biggest customer groups are Aussie mums who don’t have the time or money to get a manicure and pensioners who can no longer afford trips to the salon.
And with the cost of living crisis showing no signs of easing, it looks like Candy Claws’ business will be booming for some time to come.
