I started a successful business with no money in the bank by repeating very easy steps

LIV Conlan started her business as a teenager and has learned lots of hard lessons.

The dogged Glasgow-born entrepreneur, 25, was a star pupil, getting an impressive four As and a B in her Highers.

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But she decided against further education and instead focused on making her own way.

Now her successful business sees her stage homes for major property firms.

Liv said: “Nine out of 10 people can’t envisage how to live in a space.

“So most people walk into empty spaces or badly furnished places and it puts them off buying the property.

“When it’s furnished and staged, they can see how they live there. They fall in love with it and they buy on emotion rather than logic.”

She says it’s a good business model for people dipping their toe into starting up by themselves, because there’s no outlay.

Liv said: “It was great when I was coming out of school because I didn’t need any money to start it.

“The client would pay you for the furniture and you would install it.

“They would only rent it for six weeks, which meant after those six weeks you could then put it into another property.

“They would pay you the same money but you own all the stuff so there’s very little cost.

“That’s why it was a great business model for me because I didn’t really have anything to my name to actually start.”

Liv’s firm ThePropertyStagers has now won 13 awards nationally and internationally, and it stages 400 homes across the UK every year.

She now coaches other women to get into the industry and follow her clever business model, which can see budding company owners start up with no capital.

And she had some advice for youngsters coming out of school who may not want to follow the traditional path of going to university.

Liv, mum to 14-month-old son Cash, said: “If you do something that you’re passionate about and you’re good at it, the money will come. And the money can come fast if you’ve got a skill set in something that’s unique.

“Now with social media, you can be directly into people’s DMs and messages and be making sales – it’s not like business used to be where you had to have all this stuff. You can literally start making money tomorrow.

“School’s very much tailored for academic people. And I think it really loses a lot of people with so many creative skills.

“There’s so much money to be made, so much success to be had in social media, content, music, development, editing. There’s honestly so many roles like that out there now if you want a job.”