Sisters are doing it for themselves in world of business

But she was not the first to take the leap and run her own business. The youngest, Ellie, who is 22, has been running Beauty By Ellie-Rose for two-and-a-half years.

Even when she was training at Hull College, she always knew what she wanted to do.

“I just wanted to have my own business doing beauty – I didn’t want to go into another salon and work for anyone else,” she said.

However, her career did not begin as soon as she completed her course.

“While I was still at college, I was looking at rooms in town to rent but I couldn’t find anything,” she said. “I thought I might as well get the travelling out of my system.

“I wanted to go and live in Australia. I bought one-way flights and went in September and didn’t come back until the start of May.”

However, she did eventually return and, by mid-May 2010, was trading from a room in a salon owned by her boyfriend’s family. Just over two years on, things are going well and there is plenty of opportunity to expand the business.

“I’m thinking of one of my friends from college helping me out until Christmas,” said Ellie.

“I can see how I like it, because I’m used to working on my own.”

Recently, the opportunities to find more work have been boosted by her sister Amy, 24, who has begun trading as Bows Hair, offering hairstyling for brides and their attendants.

Amy has started exhibiting at wedding fairs and her younger sister is going with her, offering the full beauty package to brides-to-be with a friendly, family touch.

“The interest I have had so far has been brilliant,” said Amy. “I’ve known there’s a gap in the market and that’s why I wanted to go in this direction.

“The wedding fairs have proved I was right. I’ve only done a couple, but in those two I’ve got about a dozen bookings.”

Because weddings tend to be seasonal and mostly take place at weekends, Amy is still offering hairdressing to her existing clients and has just moved into a new salon in Cottingham.

In the long term, however, she hopes to make more of her wedding services.

“I would love to be able to see a future in the wedding hair, where I could take staff on,” she said.

“There’s only so many weddings I can do, especially in the summer. I would like to have somebody else so we could cover more than one wedding a day.”

Sara-Jane, meanwhile, has gone in a completely different direction – but has been inspired by her younger sisters’ success and by her husband, Adam Jackson, who set up web design company Nailed It with Matt Barratt in April 2011.

Spending so much time working that he was unable to go out and find new business, Mr Jackson persuaded his wife to leave her job with a training organisation.

Along with former colleague Beci Tyrrell, Mrs Jackson set up Nailed It Web Services in July to complement her husband’s services, promoting the business and finding new work.

“We both left the same company as it was going downhill due to the financial climate,” she said.

“It seemed like the right time – we could plan it rather than being forced into it.”

Since then, the team has taken on an apprentice, 17-year-old Jack Foster, who is hoping to find a career in design.

Having dealt with funding for apprenticeships and NVQs at Hull College in a previous job, Mrs Jackson knew she wanted to take someone on – and knew how to access the necessary funding.

In just a few months, the twin businesses have already moved into new offices.

Mrs Jackson is looking at taking on another apprentice and in the long term hopes to create a national agency.

With such clear talent as entrepreneurs, it is surprising that the sisters’ father has been in the same job since he was 16.

His daughters say their ambitions make him nervous, but both he and their mother are proud of what their children have achieved.

Helping to go independent

Nailed it Design deals with clients of all sizes, but has seen a trend for sole traders establishing their own businesses and looking for help in setting up their websites.

Sara-Jane Jackson believes the state of the economy will lead to more and more people setting up on their own in the coming years. “A lot of people have been made redundant or left jobs because of the financial climate,” she said.

“The amount of people we have seen who have set up a business and been quite successful – it’s definitely going to be the new thing.”