35-year-old’s first gig paid $20—now her side hustle brings in $414,000 a year: ‘I spend 5 to 10 hours’ a week on it

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.

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…