When Anayah Curtis launched her candy business, Sweeties, at age 15, she became the youngest vendor on the Sargasso delivery app.

A year later, Miss Curtis’s online shop is still going strong, selling at least 50 different kinds of gummies, fizzies, sours, caramels and sweet clusters.

“I first started it as my personal project at Somersfield Academy,” Miss Curtis said.

All students in Somersfield’s M5 are required to do a personal project of their choosing.

It was Ms Curtis’s mother who inspired her to sell sweets.

“I was really excited about the idea of starting my own business,” Miss Curtis said. “It was something that I had never really thought about before. That really got me into thinking about entrepreneurship and maybe doing business in the future.”

It did not hurt that she and her younger sister, A’bbee, 8, both love candy.

Before starting Sweeties, Miss Curtis researched entrepreneurship and business plans.

“Crafting the business plan helped me get my head around how I should promote the business and market it,” she said.

But it still proved to be one of her biggest learning curves.

She took inspiration from other candy stores she found on Instagram.

“I looked at what they were doing and what kind of captions they were writing and how they pictured their products in their photos,” Miss Curtis said. “Then I tried to mimic that as closely as possible. I tried to post new products that we have, or things that I think will be popular.”

When she started Sweeties, she really did not know what she was getting into.

“If I could do the whole thing over again, I would take a little more time to do more research on how to market properly, so that from the beginning I would know exactly how to catch the attention of people,” she said.

Ms Curtis imports the candy from warehouses overseas and then packages it for clients, sticking her own Sweeties logo on the bags.

At home, the products are stored in airtight containers. The air conditioning has to run constantly in the house, even in the winter, to keep the candy from getting sticky.

“Sometimes it gets pretty cold in the house,” Miss Curtis said.

After getting a good grade on her school project, she kept going with it.

“Sometimes teachers ask me to sell the candy at events at school,” she said. “For example, I sold the candy at the community project fair at Somersfield. I wanted to sell it on our sports day, but I was not allowed to do so, because the event was held at the National Stadium.”

To run Sweeties, she has had to develop a strong sense of responsibility.

“It is about learning how to stay committed to what you say you are going to do,” she said. “You have to stay up to date with what people are liking, so it takes a lot of work outside your normal life.”

She tries to keep the price of her candy down, but it is sometimes based on weight. Prices can range from $3 a bag to $20 depending on the item.

The pandemic threw Miss Curtis a curveball last year.

“We had to close Sweeties last October, because we had Covid-19 and no one else could run the store,” she said. “That lost the attention of the customers who were ordering. I think I should have kept posting on social media to keep the momentum going.”

At the moment, they reinvest any profits back into the business.

Ms Curtis readily admitted that she and her sister sometimes consume the products.

“Sometimes the candy melts on the way to Bermuda,” she said. “I cannot exactly sell that to people, so we put it in the fridge and eat it ourselves.”

Miss Curtis is not sure yet what she wants to do as a career, but plans on taking business courses when she reaches university in another year.

See Sweeties on the Sargasso app, on Instagram under @sweetiesbda or on Facebook @Sweeties, or e-mail sweetiesbda@gmail.com.