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Ayden Perez, Stefanie Perez, Scarlett Perez, and Anthony Perez.
When it comes to making a business pitch, River Oaks entrepreneur Anthony Perez is money — literally.
The Texas State Guard veteran and owner of That Eye Place nabbed the $3,000 first prize in last month’s Fort Worth Hispanic Chamber of Commerce Business Pitch Competition.
“The core speech is not written and more from memory on what I feel the audience is reacting to best,” said Perez, who delivered the pitch to an audience of about 60.
“Our pitch has been refined over a year or so with the help of my wife and her professors at [Tarrant County College],” he added.
The same pitch earned a $10,000 TCC Everyday Entrepreneur Venture Fund award in May.
That Eye Place mission statement promises straightforward pricing and high-quality lenses, without confusing sales gimmicks that lead to overpricing.
“I believe we won because everyone could relate to what we are trying to change in eye care,” Perez said. “Knowing a company can exist with affordable pricing and no waiting speaks to people now.”
Programs like the pitch competition, and a current weekly training program exclusively for Spanish-speaking business owners, can benefit FWHCC members, president and chief executive Anetta Landeros said.
“[Participants] are saying ‘I want to learn, I want to invest in myself, and I want to do this for my family’s economic prosperity,’” Landeros said in recent Take This Down podcast.
The chamber's pitch competition began in 2020 during the pandemic as a means to provide avenues of encouragement for startups, Landeros said.
"We recognize that after an economic downturn there is a spur of entrepreneurship so the pitch competition was our intentional effort to build a platform for those new entrepreneurs to speak their dreams into existence with a supportive audience," Landeros said.
Anthony Perez making his pitch to judges.
The first competition was virtual, but the last two have been in-person and "have really helped the contestants feel welcomed and connected to our family of entrepreneurs."
The pitch competition is a two-part event. This year, 10 contestants pitched during the first round. Three finalists were selected. StyleSmart Virtual Assistants, a time management platform for beauty professionals, placed second and won $2,000. Finishing third was Juan Acosta’s Big Dawgs Hot Dog Co. Acosta won $2,000 — $1,000 for third place, plus $1,000 as the “Community Choice” winner. The extra $1,000 was raised from the audience, which had the opportunity to purchase and cast votes for their favorite pitch.
Perez said the grants allow him to purchase inventory and equipment. The TCC grant also earned Perez a one-year mentorship from Sheryle Gillihan, CEO of CauseLabs.
That Eye Place opened in April 2021 at Ridgmar Mall and moved to its current location a year ago.
A nationally-certified optician for 20 years, Perez started consulting with optometrists after losing his job of 13 years in 2020 because of the pandemic.
He soon grew tired of “doctors who weren't hitting their profit-margin goals, either by being new or not having the time to spend seeking out better deals.”
By April 2021, Perez opened his first shop in Ridgmar Mall, “to test that our price model could sustain a mall with 12 tenants and low foot traffic. When our lease was up, we moved to River Oaks.”
Now he counts most of City Hall among TEP clientele, he said.
Among success stories, Perez discovered a customer’s prescription was actually the son’s prescription, but the optometrist was demanding that the patient return to the eye doctor to correct their mistake.
“I was able to use our virtual vision test to reaffirm his prescription, have it signed by an ophthalmologist remotely,” said Perez, “and cut his glasses all in the same hour.”
Long term plans for That Eye Place call for additional locations in renovated buildings, within the community, that have gone unoccupied for extended periods.
“Bring more skilled job options closer to where people live,” Perez said.