Jessica Burks' home is full of opportunities. Packaged slime(黏土) in a variety of colors and pleasant smells lines one wall of living room, and, in the designated "slime room" workspace in the back, bottles of fragrance oil are arranged in rows, next to glue and an industrial-size kitchen mixer.
But it's not the amount of slime in Burks' house that shocks people, she said. It's that her 15-year-old daughter, Samantha Zumwalt, is in charge of their enterprise. The mother-daughter team run Samantha's Slime Shop at home and the demand for their products helps them earn six figures a year. Samantha's slime, offered in a rainbow of colors and a range of textures(质地), is in high demand. Since she started her business, she's made more than 24,000 sales on Etsy. The customers are generally young — between 9 and 12 years old, Burks said, though some adults and teens buy slime, too. Some customers buy Samantha's slime because they say playing with it is calming. Others want it because it gives them something to do with their hands.
Last year, Nichole Jacklyne, a social media blogger, who reviews slime and provides DIY lessons for hundreds of thousands of followers, reviewed Samantha's product in a video. After Jacklyne's video, orders poured into Samantha's shop, Burks said.
However, Samantha's mom was initially resistant to the girl's slime ambitions. It took months for Samantha to convince her mom to buy the key materials to make slime. "I told her no for months," Burks said. Finally, Burks gave in. She had been laid off from her job as an accountant, and the two dove into the slime business. Now, Burks is proud of Samantha for running the business so well, "I hope she can meet all of her business goals — whether that's still running the slime enterprise, or buying another business out, or starting a new business," she said. "Whatever her dreams are… is where I want her to be."
