The 2009 StartupNation Home-Based 100 Competition

Celebrating America's most outstanding home-based businesses and the people behind them.

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Most Glamorous 2009 Category Winners

Home Businesses with Glitz and Glam

At age five, some little girls want to be a ballerina; little boys hope to grow up to become a cowboy, perhaps. In their tweens and teens they may want to be movie stars like the kids in High School Musical or Gossip Girl. Fast forward a few years … err, decades… and these starry-eyed children are the pageant organizers, luxury clothing designers and party planners behind this year’s Most Glamorous Home-based Businesses. Whether or not they actually fulfilled their childhood career dreams, one things for sure: These home-based business owners held strong to the glamour industry they loved so much as a child.

Take Marissa Rizzuto, founder of Fashion Boot Camp 101, winner of the 2009 Most Glamorous category of the StartupNation Home-Based 100, who runs workshops for teens to teach them about the fashion industry. Before she started her Philadelphia-area home-based company two years ago, she had been noticing the growing number of teens who were interested in fashion.

“I myself was one of those girls 16 years ago,” she says. “For me it has been fashion all my life.” Her background as a fashion stylist and jewelry designer prompted endless questions from young girls about her industry. Eventually, she took that a step further and launched FBC 101. “I realized that I could take all of this wonderful information I had collected through the years and share it with others.”

Stephvanie Wynn looked at her years in the pageant circuit the same way. She competed and placed at many levels before becoming a regional director. “I saw what great opportunities there were for all of the ladies in the pageant system,” she explains. “And I felt I would be able to make a tremendous positive impact on the ladies I came in contact with as a director.” Naturally, the next step was for Wynn to start her own pageant organization, Black Globe International Pageants, 2009 Runner Up in the Most Glamorous category. Her San Diego home-based company runs state- and country-level pageants for black women. But even more, it works as a platform to help these women improve self-esteem, and teach them educational, PR and entrepreneurial skills and relationship building.

THE RIGHT STUFF
Having the lifelong passion that Rizzuto and Wynn did is an essential component to getting started in the glamour biz. Gordon Patzer, an expert in the image and glamour industry and the author of Looks: Why they Matter More than You Ever Imagined, emphasizes that this be a realistic passion, one that is about both the industry and the business. “Some people are passionate or obsessive [about the glamour biz], but they’re not so excited about business,” he says, adding that the industry tends to see more flaky people than others. Employees may not share the same lifelong or realistic passion. And on the consumer side, you have to be careful of buyers’ unrealistic expectations, says Patzer. For example, “If I buy these clothes or enter this pageant, it’ll change my life.”

While neither Rizzuto nor Wynn advertise their products as “life-changing,” they do hope to have a positive effect on their customers’ lives. And they take extra measures to set themselves apart from the superficial companies and individuals the glamour biz is no stranger too. “Do something that will help others and always be giving, honest and work with tremendous integrity,” Wynn advises. “Treat people how you would want to be treated and your business will grow.” Black Globe plans to give away scholarships and cash payments for education, business developments and even home buying, she says. “Our future is so bright we’re wearing shades!”

Adds Rizzuto, “At the end of the day, [my customers] are getting an education about something they can do in the future—with a little glam in the mix!” Something she could only dream of when she was their age.

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