A woman from Co Armagh has spoken about the "amazing" feeling of her lockdown business going viral on TikTok.
Claudia Costa moved to Northern Ireland from Angola when she was 16, and currently lives in Portadown.
After working a variety of jobs in factories and bars, and not being able to spend much time with her young daughter over the years, when her son was born in 2019, Claudia decided she wanted to set up her own business to get a better work-life balance.
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When her son was just seven months old, she set up Mama Claudia, a business that sells products to help parents with weaning.
"I wanted to be able to spend more time with my kids. My sister back home has a business, so I have a background to it," Claudia told Belfast Live.
"My son was seven months old during lockdown when I began looking around for what I could do, when I came across weaning products. He was weaning too, so it was a really good way to start.
"I started by Googling what to do, learning out how to start a business and trying out lots of different products. My first customer was through Facebook Marketplace. From there, I decided to start up a website.
"My daughter came up with the name, Mama Claudia. By that time, I didn't know anything about TikTok, we were mostly using Instagram. A year and a half ago I found out about TikTok, and that's when our business really started growing - it was very organic."
In just over a year and a half, Claudia has been able to grow her TikTok page to having over 125,000 followers. As well as that, she has been able to build up a strong relationship with the parents who use her products and comment on her videos.
Her TikTok videos focus on showing off her products, but also creating an online community by showing how to use the products, sharing baby food recipes and tips for weaning.
Claudia said: "Through TikTok you can get customers from around the world. It's very helpful and easy to use; it's just brilliant for small businesses who don't have much money to get started.
"I ship my products to places as far as Australia, Canada, and the USA. I'm now even helping larger businesses making TikTok videos due to the expertise I've gained, I can help share their products with a bigger audience.
"It feels really nice to have my own business, it's challenging but amazing. I'm learning and making mistakes as I go along, but I'm still learning and growing each day, which is an amazing feeling."
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