ETSU College Students Provide Marketing Support For Medical Device Start-Up Company

From East Tennessee State University:

JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. – Continuing to engage with community startups and businesses,
the East Tennessee State University College of Business and Technology announced the completion of several marketing projects with Winter Innovations, an East Tennessee-based medical device startup company.

Winter Innovations developed an industry-first surgical suture with a specialized
patent-protected needle design that dramatically simplifies and standardizes suturing
and enables techniques not possible with conventional surgical needles. Its primary
application is for orthopedic procedures to repair torn ligaments and tendons, like
the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL), Achilles tendon and biceps tendon.

The ETSU College of Business and Technology continues to engage with businesses and
industries across the region. In the past, these have included clients including non-profits,
local government, entertainment and arts, cybersecurity, industrial manufacturing,
commercial services, hospitality, agricultural equipment and chemicals.

As part of this process, the college typically assigns student teams to work with
and resolve specific business needs. Sonu Mirchandani, coordinator and director of
the entrepreneurship program said, “The college has been engaging with businesses
and startups in this region for several years. But our engagement with Winter Innovations
underscores the consultative client service model used by ETSU’s College of Business
and Technology.

As part of the Winter Innovations engagement, our students researched the surgical
industry and spent time with the company’s co-founders to better understand the product,
its use in a clinical environment, the business model and the customer value proposition.
That put us in an excellent position to scope out the problem in responding to their
go-to-market requirements."

CEO and co-founder of Winter Innovations, Lia Winter, identified several go-to-market
requirements and said, “We were looking for specific assistance to support our marketing
outreach and enhance product collateral for use with media relations. In our initial
brainstorming meeting, we discussed the needs for several projects. Our expectations
were far exceeded when we had teams assigned to all of our initiatives. Student teams
drafted a press release in anticipation of our first 510(k) FDA clearance, optimized
search engine strategy, led development for account marketing and created a total-cost-of-ownership
infographic that showcased annual operating room savings attributed to the use of
our product.”

COO and Winter Innovations co-founder, Preston Dishner said, “During the semester,
we engaged with the student teams every week in meetings where they shared progress
updates, tracked scope of work, and created a schedule for deliverables. They did
a deep dive into our product and client environment, which is not an easy task for
a device used in orthopedic surgery. For the total cost of ownership analysis, students
had to quantify how using our device to facilitate easier and faster stitching can
result in cost savings for the surgeon and hospital.

“The marketing projects completed by our ETSU student teams were of extremely high
quality. We truly felt like they were an extension of our team, which allowed us to
focus energy on other facets of the business, like ramping up production.”

This press release was produced by East Tennessee State University. The views expressed are the author's own.