Sitting on a fortune!
SOFA BOSS WHO NEVER WENT TO HIGH SCHOOL IS SET TO BECOME A MILLIONAIRE AT 25
AN entrepreneur who never went to high school is on her way to making her first million after launching a sofa business.
Mum-of-three Maddison Santamaria started company, Love My Sofa, 10 months ago while on maternity leave.
Her success comes despite her ‘unconventional upbringing’ and never being sent to high school by her parents. Maddison, 25, was instead told by her mum to learn from books from WH Smith.
She left her parents’ home at 18 to start a new life with her nowhusband Fabian, with whom she started a family.
Maddison, who has two-yearold twins Selena and Valentina and a one-year-old daughter Pandora, said her children are her inspiration to succeed.
She has spoken about her story to show others success isn’t defined by your upbringing.
Maddison, who lives in Manchester city centre, said: “You can’t be a victim of circumstances.
“If you sit there and you think ‘I can’t do this because I’ve got no mum and dad,’ ‘I’ve got no help with the kids,’ ‘I’ve got no money,’ your life will never change.
“Nobody is going to knock on your door and change your life – you’ve got to do that yourself. That’s what I did.”
At 18, Maddison found work as a waitress and did GCSEs at college.
She wed Fabian when she was 20, and a year later their twin daughters came along. She returned to work, on department store beauty counters, before discovering eight months later she was pregnant again. On maternity leave she came up with the idea for Love My Sofa, when she couldn’t find the design of plush velvet sofa she wanted.
“I wanted to design my own sofa and couldn’t find anywhere in Manchester that could do that for me,” Maddison said. “I realised there was a gap in the market.”
Maddison took her designs to a manufacturer, who agreed to build the sofa. She said she then had her ‘light-bulb moment’ after coming up with the idea of creating mini versions of the sofa for her kids.
“I put the image on my Facebook page and everyone went mad for it,” she said.
Maddison now has a base in Middleton with a team of 16. She is planning to open a second warehouse and a showroom in Macclesfield. Her designs have caught the attention of celebrities including TV stars Billie Faiers, Chantelle Connelly and Jodie Marsh.