Founders Spotlight – Winter Innovations

August 5, 2019

Andre Fowlkes

Winter Is Coming: Founder’s Spotlight with Winter Innovations

Lia Winter, Founder and CEO, and Preston Dishner, COO, moved across state this May to take part in the Summer of Acceleration. The two Vols, who both recently graduated with dual graduate degrees (both MBAs and MS’) from UT Knoxville, came to launch Winter Innovations, the namesake of the founder.

Working in research and development for an orthopedics company, Lia was stunned to learn that surgeon technology continued to be difficult, slow, and aggravating. Orthopedic surgeons use whipstitching to create medical sutures for surgery; a practice that is done by hand and involves both a surgeon and at least one assistant. Cue “EasyStitch”, the first product from Winter Innovations, that fixes these problems by creating an easy to use needle and secure, no movement mechanism to hold the suture.

We had an interactive, fun conversation about Lia and Preston’s background, the creation of Winter Innovations, and on their experiences this summer at Start Co. and in the Zeroto510 medical device accelerator.

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Liza: Please tell me a little about yourselves.

Lia: Great, we’ve been trained on this – how to say our name and spell it out. My name is Lia and it’s spelled L-I-A.

Liza: And your last name is Winter!

Lia: And the name of the company! I’m originally from Pittsburgh and I went to the University of Pittsburgh for undergrad and eventually to University of Tennessee at Knoxville for graduate school. I was there for the last two years and just graduated with a dual MBA and Masters in Biomedical Engineering.

Preston: I’m Preston Dishner from Bristol, Tennessee, the opposite end of the state. I attended UT Knoxville and receive my Bachelors in supply chain management and business analytics. I just recently completed by MBA/MS in Business Analytics.

Liza: So tell me how you two got started on Winter Innovations?

Lia: I worked in research and development when we were both working at an orthopedic company. There was a day when I was working in the lab and they sat me down with all these samples and said, “stitch these using whip stitching.” It was really tedious and cumbersome process and I was so surprised to hear that this is how surgeons are actually doing it. So that’s where the idea of the product came. My senior year at Pitt we had to have a senior design project where we thought of an unmet medical need and go through prototyping. So at first, it was just tinkering in the lab and prototype testing but when we got to UT Knox, we created a business case.

Liza: How did you go from the classroom to a medical device accelerator?

Lia: As we were starting to develop the business case, we began competing in pitch competitions. The University of Tennessee has an internal pitch competition called the Boyd Venture Challenge. We won that competition and got some medial publicity from it. So someone reached out to us on LinkedIn and said “Hey I saw you won, I started a medical device company and went through Zeroto510.” We had an initial phone call with him and talked about Zeroto510. And when we were finishing up the MBA program, he said “the really natural next step is Zeroto510.” So, here we are! It seemed like the best thing to do; to be able to pursue this full time and also have the guidance, it’s really helpful.

Preston: It was a hard decision because we both gave up good job opportunities. So it’s different than some people, having had to step away from the industry.

Lia: I had been an intern at Dish Network where Charlie Ergen is the CEO, and the name donor of my scholarship, so there was a personal connection. After my internship, they offered me a full time job and I actually reached out to him and asked “what would you do?” And he said “Sometimes you only have one shot at the brass ring, so it’s now or never.”

Liza: What’s the one thing that surprised you about Start Co?

Preston: Coming in, we were told Start Co. has all these connections and access to resources. Hearing it and seeing it are two different things. Each person says “Oh I know this surgeon, or this contact at this device company.” And when the Start Co. team does reach out to contacts, even with an email, everyone is so willing to engage and interact and hear what we have to say and offer advice, help, and assistance.

Liza: Winter Innovations is one of our women led startups this summer. What has your experience been like in the accelerator?

Lia: Most of the people we meet from the medical device world are men, I have not met anyone non-male yet. The women we have met, who usually come from the consulting or regulatory world, are all so impressive and experienced, and it’s really nice to see. I’m also a part of Upstart and it’s kinda funny – this is just something I did, I didn’t set out to be a woman founder. But I love that there is a support system for that, because looking around, there definitely aren’t as many women.

My mom called me the other day, she travels a lot for work and she was going through an airport in Minnesota and she said “I saw this billboard about Memphis and women founders and she said ‘you’re of those!’” But yeah, Memphis has one of the highest demographics of female founders.

Liza: From the beginning, your pitch game has been strong. What’s been your biggest challenge this summer?

Lia: I think it’s prioritizing. We’re constantly going to sessions and learn about regulatory, budgeting, creating marketing materials, and it’s sometimes overwhelming to say, “There’s not enough hours in the day, how do I prioritize?” And having more conversations with mentors has helped, we start with, “What’s our strategy?” It’s also 24/7. When does it stop? Never. That’s the Start Co. motto – Never. Stop.

Liza: What is it like transitioning to the startup schedule? How has it been finding your balance?

Preston: It can be a little much but it was also good and exciting in the sense that there are so many things going on. We’re here to further our business and this is what we need to be doing. And it may be a lot but it’s what we signed up for so let’s go. Let’s go out and network and figure it out. The other stuff, it’ll all get done at some point.

Lia: I think if we could survive our first week here… having to move into a new place during the first week of the accelerator – we can do anything! Networking is kind of like taking a break, because you’re not at a desk and you’re with the cohort and team. You’re still working, it’s all about the business, but it can be fun and it’s not desk work.

Liza: Startups have such a deep culture with its own language. I know you both have MBAs but can you talk about the transition from engineering world to startups?

Lia: Going from engineering to business is actually removing a lot of the medical jargon. Some of the feedback we’ve gotten is you have to explain your technology in lay terms so that anyone can understand it. That’s what the transition or challenge is – knowing your audience, knowing who you’re speaking to and being able to plug and play based on if you’re speaking with a physician or another position.

Liza: It’s the day after Demo Day, where are you and what are you doing?

Lia: I want to give the NFL answer of “We’re going to Disney!” Really though, we’re planning on inviting family members, as well as, mentors who have helped us along the way to Demo Day. So I think a lot of it will be debriefing, seeing what type of feedback we get, and talking about the journey that we’ve had over the summer.

Liza: Are you excited for Demo Day or is it a nerve thing?

Lia: We’ve had good experience with pitch competitions so I think it’s more excitement. We have this really interesting transition where the first pitch competition that we did together, everything was absolutely nerves, we were up all night practicing. And now there’s a level of comfort, it’s fun getting up there and sharing what we do. And even in the first few weeks of being here our pitch has changed so much already. It’s amazing to see how it’s evolved every day.