Resident of Greendale Izabelle Villafuerte, founder of Cosmetics Empresaria, won the Peg Ann/David Gruber Project Pitch It $10,000 cash this week on Project it.
Villafuerte and her father make wooden cosmetic brushes. She started this business due to a lack of variety in the cosmetics market when it comes to makeup brush aesthetics. The brush designs are tied to Villafuerte’s past as a Latina woman. The most popular design resembles a bolero toy. The brushes are also vegan and cruelty-free.
“I’m here today because I want to learn how to scale this (business) because it’s still just me and my dad in my garage,” Villafuerte said. “I really want to expand our reach to Milwaukee and Wisconsin because our biggest customer base is (currently) in California.”
Villafuerte hopes to market his brushes and is looking to invest in advertising, as all of his sales have been by word of mouth on social media.
Resident of Milwaukee Judge Jared, founder of Book directly, won the American Family/We Energies prize of $1,500.
BookLive offers training and software to help musicians earn a living by playing.
“I wanted to pursue a career in music and so I did what everyone told me to do – take lessons, get a degree in music and I was trying really hard and it all ended up in auditions,” he said. said Judge.
As Judge auditioned, he faced a series of rejections. He asked professors at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s Lubar School of Business what he needed to do to succeed. After learning some business basics, Judge then launched his own alliance, which grew into a six-figure a year business.
To help his peers in the music industry, Judge also began sharing his new business knowledge.
At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, BookLive pivoted to also allow “virtual serenades”, a feature that allowed users to send friends and family a live recording of their favorite song performed by a local artist.
“The problem was not finding enough work to earn a living. The problem then became that I was too busy,” he said. “I needed a manager to manage me while I was managing these other gigs. I couldn’t afford it, but I wondered if an app could do that? »
Over 1,000 musicians currently use BookLive and they have collectively earned over $2 million. One of the challenges the company faces is making the platform mobile-friendly. Judge hopes to hire a mobile app developer to take BookLive to the next level.
Brian Fox won the Jendusa/UWM Lubar Entrepreneurship Center $5,000 prize.
Fox, a resident of Eldorado (in Fond du Lac County), founded his company fisherman armor after being vandalized at his own marina. His neighbor had his boat stolen, which caused Fox to start thinking about ways to increase security.
He invented a fully digital boat alarm for tournament type fishing boats and has a patent pending. If a boat using the Angler Armor alarm leaves a defined geofence area, the boat owner will receive real-time tracking notifications on their phone.
“My brother, who is a bass fishing enthusiast, asked me, ‘Could I take this alarm idea and turn it into something for a bass boat? because there’s nothing like it on the market,” Fox said.
He told the Pitch It project tycoons that only 1 in 10 stolen fishing boats are recovered and the price of a fully rigged fishing boat can approach $100,000. Fox’s product has caught the attention of professional anglers, who he hopes can become influencers in the marketing of the alarm.
Project Pitch It airs Saturdays at 10:35 p.m. and Sundays at 11:30 a.m. in Milwaukee and southeast Wisconsin on WISN-TV Channel 12. BizTimes Milwaukee is a Project Pitch It media partner.