How an online community is helping people turn their dreams into businesses
From Wall Street to cyberspace, the dream of an entrepreneur is to turn an idea into a business.
For Cynthia Winning, her goal was personal. She wanted to help her sister.
"I was looking for an immune product that would help her," said Winning. "She had contracted an autoimmune disorder that was destroying her organs.
Through research, she found an amino-acid-based product and compounded it. However, helping her sister wasn't enough.
"I needed to commercialize that product but I didn't know how," Winning said.
Looking for help, she joined an online community for entrepreneurs called the CoFounders Lab.
"There are 650,000 registered users from all around the world," said company co-chairman Steve Lehman.
The CoFounders Lab is similar to Match.com, except for starting businesses.
"You can find people to network with," Lehman said. "You can find people to help you along the way with your journey. You can find a co-founder. The resources of CoFounders Lab really make it easy for someone coming in with no business knowledge on how to start, grow or find a business."
Although the website is free to join, Winning wanted more and became a premier member for around $30 a month.
Lehman said his first piece of advice for anyone looking for capital is to know your business.
"I'm a big advocate of the 10,000-hour rule," he said. "If you have 10,000 hours in your area of expertise your chances of exceeding with that business increase exponentially."
Next, Lehman recommends entrepreneurs build a community and vet their products.
"Search by skills," he said. "You need someone for marketing, engineering — need someone who can design an app."
The website helps by inviting real investors for pitch sessions every few weeks — something Winning took full advantage of. Within months she found seven figures worth of funding, began production and now sells her product, Vymune, on Amazon.
After her experience, Winning believes that the best asset a business can have is other entrepreneurs — people who helped her box up her dream and sell it.
