Anna-Marie Ortiz has established a successful business with her company, “Cool Aunt Cleaners.” With her last $2,000 in savings, the 30-year-old launched her business in July 2023. Since then, it has grown from a side gig to a business that is expected to generate over $100,000 in revenue by 2024, enabling her to pay herself over $29,000 annually.
She told CNBC Make It, “In the beginning, I had no idea how it was going to go. But you keep going because you believe in what you’re building.”
“Looking back on the past year, it hasn’t been easy, but it’s been worth it, knowing that we’re heading in the right direction,” she added.
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The entrepreneur grew up in Wichita, Kansas, with four sisters, her mother, and her stepfather, who managed a flooring business.
Her stepfather’s business took off while she was in fourth grade, and the family moved to an 80-acre farm near Kingman, Kansas. She was assigned a lot of duties on the farm, which she believes helped to mold her present path.
She recounted, “I was raised in a very strict household, for sure. I resented that like any teenager would, but looking back at it now, I feel like it had a lot to do with the person that I am today.”
After graduating from high school in 2012, she attended Butler Community College near Wichita for a year on a track scholarship but left after one year because she was unsure of her life’s purpose.
Ortiz took odd jobs in Lawrence, Kansas, including as a waitress at a café when one of her regular clients, a founder of a fintech startup, urged her to collaborate on a project. While working with the startup founder, she gained an “untraditional four-year degree in business,” as she built skills in sales, marketing and project management.
Weary of the issues that accompanied startup initiatives, she went back to Wichita and briefly returned to college in 2018 and 2019, but that didn’t hold.
In 2020, Ortiz and a high school friend planned to create a plant business. However, the store’s opening coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic, and even after switching to online sales, it was unable to make a profit and shut down in early 2021.
After a difficult breakup and a desire to change her life, she relocated to Portland in September 2022, where she continued to work remotely for her fintech startup position.
“I wanted a fresh new start, where I could move to a city where no one knew my name and build something from the ground up,” she said.
This encouraged her to start a side business, and in July 2023, after doing some study, she chose to start a cleaning service.
Compared to her retail store, cleaning was something she could do alone, had no inventory to maintain, and had inexpensive startup costs. Additionally, Ortiz believed that by using her technological and advertising expertise in a field dominated by tiny “mom-and-pop shops,” she could make a name for herself.
With her last $2,000 in cash savings, Ortiz registered her business as a limited liability company and paid for materials, a website, and a professionally designed logo.
She spotted an opportunity to target the numerous young professionals living in tiny condos and chose the brand name “Cool Aunt Cleaners.” “A cool aunt is someone who looks out for their nieces, nephews and friends — and if they find weed under your bed, they’re not going to tell your mom or something,” she said.
Cool Aunt Cleaners specializes in home cleaning, short-term rental property turnovers, and move-out cleanings.
To generate business, Ortiz distributed business cards and posted flyers in specific neighborhoods while avoiding internet advertising to keep expenses down. The company started slowly, earning only $2,595 in its first month but now it has averaged over $10,000 after she decided to pay attention to it full time from November 2023.
Ortiz immediately increased her staff members in the beginning, hiring up to four cleaners to allow her to focus on running the business. Her expenses, however, started to mount. For a while, Ortiz operated the company alone after deciding to reduce her staff.
Presently, the company has 15 to 20 repeat customers, and Ortiz and her team do up to ten cleanings every week. Even though her pay is lower than the $60,000 she made at her last work, Ortiz still likes the independence and flexibility that come with owning her own company to a regular 9–5.
Ortiz has big hopes to make Cool Aunt Cleaners a “seven-figure business” by taking it outside of Portland.
She intends to recruit at least six more staff members by the end of 2025, expedite customer onboarding with new software, and use online ads for the first time in order to accomplish this goal.
She also appreciates the independence and sense of purpose that come with running a small business, even in the face of its difficulties.
She declared, “I want to be the person in my family that creates generational wealth and leaves behind a legacy.”
