CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: How This Nashville Tech Company Challenged a State Regulatory Board and Won.

Project Belle connects beauty professionals and prospective clients, who can schedule appointments directly with cosmetologists, massage therapists, manicurists, hair stylists, fashion stylists, and chiropractors for the place of their choosing.

It’s Uber, but for beauty professionals, as the Nashville Business Journal put it.

But in July, the Tennessee Board of Cosmetology and Barber Examiners sent Lauzon and Project Belle a cease-and-desist letter after receiving a complaint from an established Nashville salon owner.

Lauzon, with the help of a lawyer, Daniel Horwitz, fought back on the grounds that Project Belle isn’t a cosmetology shop, but rather a technology company.

And on Monday, the regulatory board dropped its complaint, allowing the company to continue operating.

It’s an incomplete victory, but a real one.