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Interviews

19-Year-Old started of with $40 and turns it into a 6 figure empire.

Chloe Van Putten

April 22, 2021

"I started off with $40 and my dads camrea"

19-year-old, Liv Portillo currently residing in New York, started her business venture when she was 16 years old. According to Liv’s TikTok video, Liv’s one-woman business also known as DBL Jewelry started off as an idea, doodled down on paper and has now become a six-figure worldwide business venture.

Liv’s inspiration behind her jewellery came from Coron her home country, in the Philippines which she refers to as her island on her social media. Here she designed her diamond butterfly necklace in the middle of the ocean where she says the butterflies nearby inspired her, she captured her inspiration on tiktok and quoted “Proceeds are sent to the special needs children”. She managed to turn her idea into a business but also helped raise money for the children in the Philippines to help fix their classrooms. Liv made all the jewellery by hand and started promoting it on social media. Liv built her following to 1.7 million on TikTok and 206.k on Instagram and from here on, her business started to take off.

 Liv like many other young entrepreneurs had to overcome personal obstacles such as people telling her she won’t be successful, telling her she needs to go to college and Liv explains in one of her TikToks people would often say to her “No one is going to buy your ugly shit”.

However, Liv looked past this and told her followers not to listen to haters and to keep following what’s in their hearts. After dedicating time into her business. Liv got the support from famous influencers including @melissacalma and @bretmanrock who took to their Instagram stories promoting her products. Liv also gained support for her business venture from the US news and entertainment website BuzzFeed, who featured her content on their website and social media platforms. In addition to this Shopify, the ever-growing entrepreneurship company also featured Liv on their Instagram page, as did Inc.com and The Tab.  

Since starting her business venture, Forbes featured her in their ‘Next 1000 future billionaires’ piece and Liv took to Instagram to celebrate with all her followers and even made a story highlight of the achievement on her page. This young entrepreneur continues to build her sales in her company and has since built another business providing an entrepreneur course, helping others to increase sales and tackle the art of social media marketing known as ‘Bossology’.

Liv works with her younger sister sometimes and has also inspired her sister to make her own jewellery company, its evident family is important to liv and she often includes them in her viral TikTok videos, she’s particularly close to her grandma and is seen packing orders with her in recent videos as well as making jewellery together. Liv mentions that her grandma has been emotional ever since her husband and 2 kids passed away and in response to this, Liv made her a personalised necklace with their initials on and captured the eye-watering moment for her TikTok.

On the horizon, Liv has planned to open her new lash line ‘Niyari Beauty’. With two businesses and a third one in the line-up, what will this entrepreneur conquer next?

  • Fashion

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