Last year, Chisom Okwulehie’s architectural design business, Juntero, brought in $414,000 in revenue.
But it had humble beginnings. When the now 35-year-old launched the company in 2021 with her cybersecurity specialist husband, its first gig was designing an ad for Indeed.com, which paid only $20.
While Juntero’s first sales were mostly one-off graphic design gigs, the company soon attracted bigger projects, like floor plans for small businesses. Okwulehie worked nights and weekends for Juntero while maintaining her full-time position as an architect at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
By the end of 2021, Juntero had garnered $55,000 in revenue. In 2022, the business continued to grow, with revenue increasing to roughly $206,000.
“I didn’t expect to receive many projects as quickly as I did,” Okwulehie tells CNBC Make It.
In 2023, the company worked with about 60 clients and brought in about $414,000 in revenue — all while Okwulehie maintained her full-time job at Port Authority.
After paying the team of contractors and covering taxes and other expenses, Juntero earned nearly $173,000 in profit last year. Okwulehie paid herself a salary of $37,500 and put the rest into savings.
Getting started: ‘I’ve always been a hustler’
In early 2021, Okwulehie had just given birth to her daughter and was looking to secure more income for her family.
“I’ve always been a hustler,” she says.
She figured the extra cash would help cover payments for her and her husband’s duplex in Cliffside Park, New Jersey, as well as a plot of land they own in Upper Nyack, New York, where they plan to eventually build a bigger home for their family.
“My parents always told me that if you’re going to purchase a home and [your spouse] dies, you have to be able to cover the mortgage,” says Okwulehie.
Although she was scared to start a new business in 2021 with all the economic uncertainty from the Covid-19 pandemic, she knew it was time to take the leap. Plus, working from home freed up more…
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