Contestant's Case to Win

RealKidz is a life style apparel company for kidz. We design and manufacture in the United States clothing for plus-size and hard to fit girls. We sell our clothing through our network of style consultants who hold home fashion shows for families with girls ages 5-12. In addition to our fashionable, high quality, clothing, we provide an awesome business opportunity to supplement incomes or create a whole new income stream for families. Once our apparel line is established, we will launch the RealKidz® Family Network to support families in incorporating healthy lifestyle choices into their lives.

About Founder, Merrill Guerra:
I am the founder, CEO and visionary of RealKidz, a life style apparel company for kidz™ that boosts children’s self esteem by providing clothing that is trendy, age-appropriate, great-fitting and high quality, RealKidz will also provide customers and their families a range of support through the RealKidz® Family Network due out later this year. I am also proud to be mother of an 11 year old daughter and an 8 year old son. Having graduated from Stanford University, and after many years in the workplace and then as a stay at home mom, I attended the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan where I received my MBA in 2008. I actually launched my new company RealKidz, while I was completing my MBA degree. I was recognized as “MBA Entrepreneur of the Year for 2008” by the Zell Lurie Institute for Entrepreneurial Studies at the University of Michigan. The inspiration for creating RealKidz arose from my experience as a mother, specifically relating to the difficulties I had finding age-appropriate, well-fitting clothing for my young daughter. When I first investigated the marketplace for the RealKidz business model, I found that many children (and their parents) had the same unmet need that I had encountered in my own experience as a mother. As a first time entrepreneur, founding and operating a company based in Ypsilanti Michigan, I and my company have not only survived and met significant milestones in developing the company in extremely challenging economic circumstances, but we are now poised for significant growth and success. I have assembled an outstanding management team at RealKidz, am in the process of designing and launching the company’s exciting second line of clothing, and have developed the core of the sales consultant network critical to the execution of RealKidz’ direct sales model. In one of the most challenging financing environments for startup entrepreneurial companies, I successfully completed my first round of angel funding in November, 2008. RealKidz has caught the attention of the press. We have been featured in a series of 8 articles in the Detroit Free Press throughout 2008. I and my company have also been the subject of a June 30, 2008 BusinessWeek article. The Wall Street Journal recently interviewed me for a story scheduled to be printed in the next month or so. Throughout all of the time and energy consuming demands associated with founding and running RealKidz, I have remained an active and involved mother, supporting my daughter at her track meets and band concerts and enthusiastically participating at my son’s elementary school. I am excited to see what happens over this next very critical year as we move toward completing our next round of funding and hitting cash flow positive.