CharismaQ, a startup co-founded by Milwaukee media personality Katrina Cravy, is closing its doors amid business headwinds.
The company’s co-founder and CEO Terri Herrmann announced the news on LinkedIn earlier this month and noted that Cravy exited the company last year. Operations will wind down at the end of January, Herrmann wrote.
CharismaQ provided online communication coaching for professionals in industries including insurance and legal. Its customers included West Bend Mutual, Rite Hite, Reinhart Boerner Van Deuren sc and Educators Credit Union, among others.
Although the company had early success in landing a $1 million investment from West Bend Mutual, CharismaQ ultimately failed to get enough client renewals and additional investment needed to scale the business, Herrmann told the Milwaukee Business Journal and Wisconsin Inno.
CharismaQ was looking to raise an additional $2-3 million in venture capital, Herrmann said. Although investors were “intrigued,” they questioned whether the business could scale, she said. Meanwhile, clients were “behaving like they are in recession” and declining to renew, she said.
Herrmann and Cravy co-founded CharismaQ in 2020 and it was based in Germantown. Cravy, who was a news anchor and talk-show host with Milwaukee Fox network affiliate WITI-TV (Channel 6) until 2016, left the company last summer.
"I decided to leave CharismaQ as a full-time employee in August to explore new opportunities," Cravy said in an emailed response to the Milwaukee Business Journal's questions.
Cravy said she is now director of communications for Hartford Union High School.
“When it was good it was good, but the grind wasn’t aligned with the vision of where Katrina was in her season of life,” Herrmann said. “It’s hard. We obviously parted ways with no friction.”
Herrmann is now serving as head of business development for Forj, a Milwaukee-area company that makes software for professional and membership organizations. She also has more entrepreneurial ambitions, she said.
“I feel like I’ve gotten bitten by the startup bug,” Herrmann said. “I don’t think I can ignore that fire for too long.”
CharismaQ isn’t the only Milwaukee-area startup to recently fold. The locally based short-term rental startup Frontdesk filed for an alternative to bankruptcy earlier this month after laying off most of its workforce.
