I grew up dirt poor but earn £7.5ka MONTH from my hustle
A WOMAN has revealed she earns as much as £7,500 a month from a side job she set up just a year ago.
Anna-Maria Ortiz started her part-time job in July 2023, using the £1,554 she had in her savings.
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The 30-year-old company Cool Aunt Cleaners is a professional cleaning service that mainly focuses on young professionals.
Before Anna-Maria started her business, she was used to living paycheck to paycheck and said she had been poor all her life.
“Growing up, I feel like I learned the value of a dollar by watching my parents struggle.”
After struggling during her childhood, Anna-Maria decided to move to Portland, Oregon, with the vision of building a seven-figure business.
Read more side hustle stories
She made a ten-year plan for herself with the goal of using the money from her business to help her family.
After moving to a girls’ home, Anna-Maria realized that not everyone grew up with a stay-at-home mom who was always there to do the chores. That’s why she decided to start a cleaning company to help people who were going through hard times. with household chores.
What attracted Anna-Maria to start a cleaning business was the fact that since she could do all the cleaning work herself, the costs would be low.
She set up a website, bought some cleaning supplies and then had magnets made for her car to promote her business.
For the first few months, Anna-Maria was moonlighting at her business while still working at a tech startup.
“I did this outside of work hours and on weekends, I did all the cleaning myself.
“It’s very physically demanding work,” she said.
However, she soon started earning £7,500 a month, without offering any kind of promotion or advertising.
She now has a slew of employees working for her, doing everything from clearing moves to handling short-term rentals.
“I really enjoy seeing the final results and getting the customer’s reactions,” she said.
Anna-Maria shares details about her successful business online, and many of her videos have gone viral.
How to start your own business
Dragon’s Den star Theo Paphitis revealed his tips for aspiring entrepreneurs:
- One of the biggest obstacles aspiring business owners and entrepreneurs face is a lack of confidence. You have to believe in your idea – in fact, be the one to bore your friends to death about it.
- Never be afraid to make decisions. Once you have an idea, the confidence to make decisions is crucial to starting and maintaining a business.
- If you don’t take calculated risks, you stand still. If a decision turns out to be wrong, identify it quickly and deal with it if possible. If that doesn’t work, find someone else who can.
- It’s okay to not get it right the first time. My experience making bad decisions helped me develop my self-confidence, which made me who I am today.
- Never underestimate the power of social media, and remember that the Internet has leveled the playing field for small businesses.
- Don’t forget to dream. A machine can’t do that!
“I think it’s really important and empowering for other people to see that people who don’t come from money have a big dream and make things happen.”
Anna-Maria’s long-term goal for the company is to expand its operations into other US states.
“I want to be the person in my family who creates generational wealth and leaves a legacy,” she said.
She added that she hopes her nieces and nephews will follow in her footsteps and become entrepreneurs.
