ROCKFORD — Tracie and Glen Burress have turned their solution to a vexing laundry problem into an entrepreneurial adventure. And now they need your help.
In June, the husband-and-wife team won the $5,000 prize for the Stateline FastPitch Competition for local entrepreneurs with sockTABs, a product that’s similar in size to a cuff link and keeps socks together from the hamper to the washer to the dryer so that each one of your socks never loses its “sole” mate.
The Burresses recently found a California company to manufacture their product. Today, four local retailers sell sockTABs and Tracie is in talks with Bed Bath & Beyond and Target to carry the product, too.
Even more exciting, the Burresses have made it to the second round of ABC’s “Shark Tank,” a show that has aspiring entrepreneurs pitch their ideas to a panel of accomplished businesspeople in hopes of winning an investment. To impress the “Shark Tank” judges, the Burresses are counting on Rockford to buy sockTABs so they can demonstrate strong sales volume.
They’ll find out by early December whether their progress is good enough to land them a spot on the show’s seventh season, which would air in the fall of 2015.
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