Sometimes you can’t predict where a money making opportunity will come from. A British schoolgirl from Gloucester  has made £48,000 by helping Chinese parents name their babies!

Many Chinese parents are fascinated with Western culture and want to give their children English sounding names. But because of  censorship, they often don’t have access to relevant naming websites. Sixteen year old Beau Jessop was asked for advice whilst travelling in China and hit on the idea of setting up an accessible website which links English names with the Chinese tradition of basing names on the elements.

Site visitors get to pick from a shortlist and pay 60p for the final choice. They then get a certificate detailing information about the name including an example of a famous person who shares it. Over 200,000 Chinese parents have been helped to find names so far.

It’s very easy to focus on the home market because, well, that’s where you are. But there’s a huge world out there. In China alone for example, there are almost £1.4 billion people – over 20 times the population of the UK. Some time spent figuring out what they might want to buy, could deliver huge dividends.