Photo Courtesy of Alexis Whitted
Since she’s often found walking around campus with a bare face, hat and comfortable clothes, one may never guess that Morgan Fitzpatrick is the proud owner of MTF Cosmetics, a home-grown and completely homemade makeup business that grew out of her own love of makeup and her entrepreneurial spirit. A junior at George Mason University, Fitzpatrick is putting her business minor to work in unexpected ways.
In late 2016, she began researching and mapping out her business plan, looking up how to make pressed highlighters and sketching her logo. After almost a whole year of hard work, a messy kitchen and tests on friends and herself, MTF Cosmetics was born. The company debuted on August 4, 2017 with four highlighting shades: 18K, Amethyst, Jewels, and Leo.
Though she is still growing and has another job to support this endeavor, the success of the business has pleasantly surprised her, as she has sold over 50 products in just two months so far.
Currently, she expressed that she is “working on a loose powder highlighter, eyeshadow palette and lip gloss” that should be released in the next month or two. In the back of her mind, MTF Cosmetics is moving into the skin-care realm as well, but she knows that will take much longer. She plans to release at least one product per month in order for her business to stay growing.
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Fitzpatrick has big plans for her business, as her ultimate goal is to have her products sold in makeup stores nationwide and even have her own stand-alone store one day. To her, MTF Cosmetics is more than just a means to have fun while making a little money. Selling makeup has turned into a passion of hers and she sees herself doing this long-term. But she knows that that will take lots of hard-work and commitment, saying “I’ll work a 9-5 type of thing to support this, but once this pops off the way I want it to, I’m going to put 100% into it.”
No matter how big she gets, however, she knows that she will stay true to her values which include not testing makeup on animals. Fitzpatrick avoids brands for herself that participate in those practices and she will never participate in such with her own business. She is also trying to make most of her cosmetics vegan.
Fitzpatrick is intent on making her business personal and unique. “I’m not going to make anything that I personally wouldn’t wear,” she says. In marketing her products on social media, she often reaches out to followers and customers, asking them what kind of products they would like to see in the future; she also offers free shipping to all George Mason University students.
Word of mouth between students in her classes, organizations and people who just simply follow her on social media has been vital to her success. Fitzgerald encourages customers to post pictures of them wearing her products, which leads more people to her page. She also collaborates with social media makeup pages to feature her products and give away items from time to time. Fitzgerald knows that all of this will simply lead her closer to her big dreams with this business.
According to Entrepreneur, college is just the right time to start a business. Not only are most students free of extra responsibilities such as a full-time job and a family to support, the free resources offered on campus to help them succeed are treats that they would have to pay big money for in the real world. College students today are also in an unprecedented time in which they have the free or extremely cheap marketing tool of social media right in the palm of their hands. Fitzgerald seems to be taking advantage of all of this, growing her business each and every day.