# Press Kit · Olufela "Lu" Fagbure _For journalists, editors, podcast bookers, and conference organizers._ _Positioning: the operator helping small and minority-owned businesses win government contracts._ _Audit-aware: no em-dash, no banned vocabulary, no fabricated press, awards, clients, or stages. Verified facts only._ **Media contact:** lu@itcustomsolution.com · (646) 671-3399 · New York, NY **Web:** felafagbure.com · itcustomsolution.com --- ## 1. Biography Olufela "Lu" Fagbure is the Founder and Director of IT Custom Solution LLC and the operator helping small and minority-owned businesses win government contracts. He started the firm to close a gap he kept seeing: most small businesses never bid on government work, not because they cannot do it, but because public procurement was built for firms with full-time proposal teams. IT Custom Solution is a NYC MBE certified small business, registered on SAM.gov, with delivered work for City Utilities of Springfield, Missouri and Rensselaer County, New York. The firm's SBA 8(a) and NMSDC applications were submitted in 2026 and are under review. From inside that work, Lu builds the Winrove software suite, including Winrove, OpsTicket, and OnboardIQ, with DeliverOps in early access. Lu studied at the University of Alberta and spent a decade in corporate enterprise IT before founding ITC. His ventures and travels span 10 or more cities and 3 continents. He is based in New York. _(See positioning/bios.md for 50, 100, 250, and 500-word versions, plus press and procurement boilerplate.)_ --- ## 2. Founder timeline | Period | Milestone | |---|---| | **2010** | Co-founded Alex Folzi, a luxury leather goods brand, with his twin brother Fola. | | **2011** | Alex Folzi presented at Africa Fashion Week New York. | | **2010 to 2014** | The brand drew international coverage during its early years. | | **2010 to 2020** | A decade in corporate enterprise IT: infrastructure, systems, operations, and technical leadership. | | **2016 to 2022** | Helped run KarBoi, an on-demand car care startup in New York. | | **2020** | Founded IT Custom Solution LLC. | | **2022** | Delivered competitively awarded government contracts for City Utilities of Springfield, Missouri and Rensselaer County, New York. | | **2024 to 2026** | Shipped the Winrove software suite: Winrove, OpsTicket, and OnboardIQ live; DeliverOps in early access. | | **2026** | SBA 8(a) and NMSDC applications submitted and under review. | --- ## 3. Ventures overview **IT Custom Solution LLC (2020 to present).** A NYC MBE certified, SAM.gov registered firm that helps small and minority-owned businesses win government contracts, and the home of the Winrove software suite. **Winrove suite (2024 to present).** Software built from inside live government work. Winrove helps small firms find the right opportunities and draft stronger proposals; OpsTicket and OnboardIQ support delivery and team onboarding; DeliverOps is in early access. The tools are agent-assisted, and the judgment is human. **KarBoi (2016 to 2022).** An on-demand car care startup in New York. **Alex Folzi (2010 to 2014, early years).** A luxury leather goods brand co-founded with his twin brother Fola, presented at Africa Fashion Week New York in 2011, with international coverage in its early years. --- ## 4. Ten talking points 1. Most small businesses never bid on government work, and the reason is structural, not a lack of capability. 2. Public procurement was built for firms with full-time proposal teams. The fix is method plus the right tools, not a bigger team. 3. The honest path into government contracting has a small number of concrete first steps: SAM.gov, the right certifications, and one well-read solicitation. 4. Certifications open specific doors. Lu can explain what an MBE actually gets a firm, and what 8(a) and NMSDC do and do not change. 5. Where bids actually lose points is rarely where founders expect. Most losses are avoidable and unglamorous. 6. Minority-owned firms face a documentation and access gap more than a capability gap. Naming that precisely is half the work. 7. Software should remove the parts of bidding that punish small teams, not replace the founder's judgment. That is the line Lu draws with agent-assisted tools. 8. Building a product from inside a live contract produces a different kind of software than building it from a whiteboard. 9. Ownership as a generational act: Lu's mother ran her own business for more than twenty-five years, and that frames how he thinks about building one. 10. A multi-industry path (leather goods, on-demand services, enterprise IT) teaches one durable skill: making a complicated thing repeatable. --- ## 5. Media FAQ **Q1. What does IT Custom Solution actually do?** It helps small and minority-owned businesses win government contracts, both by doing the services work and by building the Winrove software suite those firms use to find opportunities, draft proposals, onboard teams, and deliver. **Q2. What is your one-line positioning?** The operator helping small and minority-owned businesses win government contracts. Lu has written, won, and delivered against SAM.gov, and he builds the software that closes the gap for other small firms. **Q3. What is the firm's certification status?** IT Custom Solution is NYC MBE certified today. Its SBA 8(a) application was submitted in 2026 and is under SBA review, and its NMSDC application was also submitted in 2026. We are careful to state only what is held versus what is pending, and we do not describe the firm as 8(a) until and unless that application is approved. **Q4. What government work has the firm actually delivered?** Competitively awarded contracts for City Utilities of Springfield, Missouri and Rensselaer County, New York, both in 2022. Those are the named, verified engagements we cite. **Q5. The products are described as agent-assisted. What does that mean in practice?** It means the repetitive, document-heavy parts of the work take far less of an owner's week, freeing the human judgment for contracting that punish small teams, while the founder or operator keeps the judgment calls. The phrase we use is agent-assisted, and we are deliberate about not overstating what the tools decide on their own. **Q6. How did a leather goods and car care founder end up in government contracting?** Through a decade in corporate enterprise IT in between, where Lu learned how large organizations buy and deliver. The throughline across every venture is the same: take a complicated process and make it repeatable. Government contracting is the hardest version of that problem. **Q7. Why focus on minority-owned firms specifically?** Because the gap is sharpest there. The issue is rarely capability; it is access, documentation, and a process built for firms that already have proposal staff. Lu builds for the firms the system was not designed around. **Q8. Who influenced how you think about ownership?** His mother, who ran her own business for more than twenty-five years and showed him that ownership is how a family builds something that outlasts it. She passed in 2015. He keeps that framing at the center of the work. --- ## 6. Headshot requirements spec _What to shoot. The visual must match the felafagbure.com Operator Archive system: cool stone ground, bone midtones, clay accent. Considered and institutional rather than startup-casual._ **Mood and tone** - Editorial portrait, not corporate-stock. Warm, grounded, direct to camera for the lead frame. - Confident and calm, in keeping with the brand voice: operator-first, confident not loud. **Lighting and color** - Warm key light; soft, directional, single dominant source. Avoid flat ring-light. - Color grade should sit alongside the site's Operator Archive palette: deep slate shadows, warm bone midtones, restrained clay accents. No clinical blue cast. **Wardrobe and styling** - Tailored, understated. Solid or subtle texture. Avoid loud patterns and overt logos. - One relaxed variant (no jacket, rolled sleeves) and one more formal variant (jacket) for different surfaces. **Backgrounds** - One clean editorial backdrop, single continuous sweep (ink-toned or warm neutral), for press and speaker use. - One environmental frame that reads "operator at work" without staged props. **Framing and crops to deliver** - Tight headshot (head and shoulders), vertical and square. - Medium portrait (waist up) for speaker pages and decks. - One horizontal wide frame with negative space on one side for hero and banner overlays. **Technical deliverables** - High-resolution color, full size, for print and web. - A neutral and a warm-graded version of the lead frame. - A grayscale/duotone version for wire and single-color press contexts. - Both square (social/profile) and 3:2 and 16:9 crops. **Do not** - No heavy retouching that reads artificial. - No cool blue tech-startup grade. - No fabricated set dressing implying clients, stages, or awards the brand does not hold.