Merrilee Kick made her fortune creating Buzzballz, the colorful, round, ready to drink cocktails found in all 50 states and 29 countries.
She started the company in 2010 while teaching business law, international business, marketing and computer science at Plano West Senior High. She earned her MBA at Texas Women's University in 2009. Her graduation project was an outline of the company's blueprint. The idea came to her while having a drink by the pool and thinking she should have something not made of glass.
Now Kick is giving TWU 30 million dollars. It's the largest donation in the history of the university.
TWU didn't have a college of business. This changes that. The donation covers the entrepreneurship program, creates an entrepreneur-in-residence program. endowments and a new building, which should be open in a few years.
It will be named the Merrilee Alexander Kick college of Business and Entrepreneurship or the MAK for short. Kick's parents were both teachers. "Education is so important. I think it's the key to success. It's the difference between despair and hope. You have to have that freedom to do the right things and if you have education, you get a lot more choices."
The University is thrilled. "This is the largest gift that Texas Woman's University has ever received, in its entire existence," said Dr. Rama Yelkur, dean of the College of Business. "So it is not only transformational for the College of Business, it's transformational for the university as well."
Let's backtrack to 2010. Kick says it was hard to get a loan. There was doubt from bankers, who warned her that the liquor industry was a man's world.
"I didn't know anything about the liquor industry. I just knew that it made money and I wanted to make some money. I was told by the banker these men would eat them alive. I had to win."
So she proved them wrong. Eventually she took out a home equity line of credit to get started and was given $178,500. She also took out another line of credit on the equity on her house. She repaid all of it back within a year. The company has not carried debt since.
She tried to farm out the manufacturing "but no one would do it for me. They wanted millions and millions of these things and I couldn't cash flow it. I ended up having to do it myself and figure out the equipment and all the engineering. I had to figure out all the laws and compliance."
They started out in a 7,000 square foot warehouse and now have 750,000 square feet and 1000 employees. The company is located in Carrollton.
Kick sold Buzzballz in May to New Orleans based Sazerac for an undisclosed (but extremely large) sum in May. The company owns 450 brands. Kick will stay on as Buzzballz CEO for the next four years to help them through the integration. "I love what I do. I love this company. It's my baby and I want to make sure it ends up in good hands."
Kick was recently named to the 50 over 50 Forbes list of women.
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