The 30-year-old’s cleaning business started with her last $2,000

Ortiz grew up in Wichita, Kansas with four sisters, raised by young parents who divorced when she was 3 years old. Her mother later married her stepfather, who ran a flooring business that, although eventually successful, faced financial problems in the early years.

“When I was growing up, money was definitely tight,” Ortiz says. “I’ve been poor all my life.

The family lived paycheck to paycheck, stretching every dollar to cover the basics and often relying on thrift and haggling to get by.

When Ortiz was in the fourth grade, the family moved from Wichita to an 80-acre farm near Kingman, Kansas. The move to rural life brought a period of social isolation as she left her friends and found herself one of the few people of color living near a predominantly white “cow town,” she says.

She had a long list of chores on the farm, whether it was cleaning, pulling weeds, or driving the tractor. On weekends, she often helped her stepfather with his flooring business, laying baseboards and other related tasks.

“I was raised in a very strict household, for sure,” Ortiz says. “I hated it like any teenager, but looking back now I feel like it had a lot to do with the person I am today.”

In 2012, Ortiz graduated from high school and attended Butler Community College near Wichita on a scholarship to study business.

At the time, however, she was unsure of her career path and decided that college “is a really expensive way to figure it out.” She left after a year.

Ortiz then worked various odd jobs in Lawrence, Kansas, including serving at a coffee shop. One of her regular customers, the founder of a fintech startup, invited her to join him on a project.

“Startups are risky businesses, it’s like playing the lottery every day,” he says. “But I was in my early 20s, what else was in store for me?”

Over the next several years, Ortiz worked with the founder on a number of projects that ultimately “fell out,” but in the process earned a “non-traditional four-year degree in business,” building skills in sales, marketing, and project management. .

Tired of the uncertainty that came with startup projects, Ortiz returned to Wichita and briefly re-enrolled in college in 2018 and 2019. But it didn’t last: “I was pretty miserable in school and I was like, ‘What is this? the ultimate goal?’ I can’t see myself working for anyone.”

In 2020, Ortiz decided to open a plant business with a high school friend. Unfortunately, the store launched just before the Covid-19 pandemic, and despite focusing on online sales, struggled to make a profit and closed in early 2021.

Despite the setback, managing the store provided Ortiz with lasting learnings that she was able to apply to her cleaning business. Through the partnership, she also realized “that I had selfish tendencies, I had my vision and I wanted things done my way.”

After going through a difficult breakup and closing her business, Ortiz realized she needed a change in her life. In September 2022, she moved to Portland to continue working on her fintech startup.

“I wanted a fresh start where I could move to a town where no one knew my name and build something from the ground up,” she says.

This prompted her to get serious about her side hustle, and after some research, she decided to open a cleaning service in July 2023. Unlike her retail store, cleaning offered low start-up costs, had no inventory to manage, and was something she could deal with. own. Ortiz also figured she could excel in the space by applying her technical and advertising skills to an industry mostly run by small “mom and pop shops.”

With the last $2,000 in cash, Ortiz saved for supplies, a website, a professionally designed logo, and registered her business as a limited liability company.

She saw an opportunity to target the many young professionals living in smaller apartment buildings and chose the name Cool Teta Cleaners to appeal to a younger clientele. “A great aunt is someone who takes care of her nieces and nephews and friends — and if they find grass under your bed, they don’t tell your mom or anything,” she says.

To get the business off the ground, Ortiz put up flyers and handed out business cards in target neighborhoods. By avoiding online advertising, it also kept costs low.

Things got off to a slow start, and the company made just $2,595 in its first month. But Ortiz stuck with it and decided to focus on Cool Aunt Cleaners full-time starting in November 2023.

Cool Teta Cleaners mainly offers apartment cleaning, moving house cleaning and turnover for short-term rental properties.

Finding the prices was tricky at first: “I quickly learned that just because you’re in a higher-income neighborhood or in a bigger house doesn’t mean you’re making more money,” says Ortiz. “It actually means you’re making less money.”

Despite bringing in less than $5,000 per month at the start, by 2024 the business was bringing in around $10,000 per month on average. He is on track to make over $100,000 by the end of the year.

In the early days, Ortiz quickly expanded her team, employing up to four cleaners so she could focus on running the business. However, between the flat rate for clients and the hourly wages of employees, her costs began to add up when jobs took a long time. Ensuring that each cleaning was done correctly also added unexpected labor costs.

Ortiz decided to downsize her team to the point where she ran the business alone for a while.

After recalibrating in August, she hired a part-time worker using the new pay structure and plans to continue expanding as she can book more cleanings.

Currently, the company has about 15 to 20 repeat clients, and Ortiz and her staff can handle up to 10 cleanings a week. Ortiz doesn’t go to every job, assisting with about two to three cleanups a week.

The business is small but profitable. After expenses, the largest of which are wages for her staff, Ortiz pays herself about $29,000 a year.

Although she will take home less than the $60,000 she earned at her previous job, Ortiz he prefers the freedom and flexibility of running his own business over the traditional 9-to-5. She hopes the financial reward will eventually reflect her hard work in growing the business.

Here’s how Ortiz spent her money in August 2024.

• Payment by credit card: $4,537
• Housing: $1,350 for her share of the rent
• Transportation: $380 for car payment, gas and Uber ride
• Discretionary: $205 for animal and clothing expenses
• Phone: 100 dollars
• Eating out: 77 dollars
• Subscriptions and Memberships: $63 for her gym membership, Amazon Prime, Spotify and Apple Store

After relocating to Portland, Ortiz faced unexpected expenses that led to $14,000 in credit card debt. In August, she used the money she saved over the summer to make a significant down payment, bringing her total credit card debt down to about $5,000.

“When I first moved to the West Coast, it’s the most I ever spent on rent, gas, eggs—everything,” she says. “It’s crazy here.

Her only other debt is an outstanding student loan balance of about $10,000, which is currently in forbearance so payments are suspended. She plans to hold off on payments until her creditor starts “knocking on my door”.

In August, Ortiz paid $1,350 to rent the apartment she shared with her now ex-boyfriend. The couple split the costs when they lived together, with her ex covering the rest of the $3,500 total rent, utilities and some groceries.

Otherwise, Ortiz keeps his expenses minimal, rarely spending on entertainment or travel. He has no health insurance and deducts his car insurance as a business expense.

“I don’t feel good about spending money,” he says. “I feel really good when I’m making money and when I’m saving money.”

Ortiz has ambitious plans to expand Cool Aunt Cleaners beyond Portland and turn it into a “seven-figure business.”

To achieve that goal, it plans to use digital ads for the first time, streamline client onboarding with new software, and hire at least six more employees by the end of 2025, paving the way for expansion into other cities.

And despite the challenges of growing a small business, they value the independence and purpose that comes with it.