CLEVELAND — Sherlie Montalvo is a business owner in Northeast Ohio. She started her business, Exclusive Housekeeping Service, this year.
“We specialize in post-construction cleaning, post-renovation. We also do residential and commercial,” Montalvo said.
As a mother of six, Montalvo was ready for a change.
“I’m also an insurance agent. I work for insurance. I did medical assistance but with the COVID it was just hard. It was hard being a mom of six kids. I had to start something and do something for myself and my family that I basically didn’t have to work when they tell me to work,” she said.
Montalvo is one of nearly a 100,000 new business filings in the state of Ohio this year, filing her business in February.
“In the month of April we broke 20,000 for the first time in our state’s history. We’ve never seen more than 20,000 businesses form in one month. We saw that in April and that trend continues because we announced recently in the month of May we were over 20,000,” said Secretary of State Frank LaRose.
Last year, during the height of the pandemic 171,000 new businesses were filed in the state.
“We thought that the new business formations would drop. I remember asking who would be so courageous to go out and start a business with all of this uncertainty? The answer is Ohio entrepreneurs are,” LaRose said.
LaRose said these are good signs for the economy in the state.
“Listen, we are shattering records for new business formation. What that means to me fundamentally is that Ohioans are optimistic about the trajectory of our state. They recognize that the way that you can create wealth for yourself and your family, do something really useful and transformative for your community. Maybe put some of your neighbors to work in a well paying job is starting a business in Ohio’s free market economy,” he said.
Montalvo is proud to be part of the entrepreneurs setting records.
“The other half of people actually starting something because they don’t want have to wait on somebody to tell them, ‘oh we’re closed or oh, you know, you have to work on holidays, you have to do this. Now I’m like I work for myself. I’m able to go ahead and if I have a family emergency I can run away because I know that I have some other workers that are there,” she said.
Keep in mind the state said a business filing does not guarantee the company will begin operations or create jobs.
If you’d like to learn more about Montavlo’s business you can reach her by email: exclusivehousekeepingservices@gmail.com.
