"I've always been keenly interested in women in business," said the author of the upcoming book, WE-Women Entrepreneurs.
Collins-Williams believes these are exciting times for women who want to start their own companies. "The Internet has removed many of the barriers that kept women out of business for years," she said.
Women tend to go into business for different reasons than men, she said, adding that women, despite all our strides, are still mired in the traditional roles of wife, mother, sister and daughter. "Those roles still pull at us." Women tend to start, and end, businesses in connection with life events that happen within those roles; births of children, illness/death of parents, children leaving the nest, husband losing a job, retiring or dying.
Darilea Dingel-Fehr of Terril is one of those women entrepreneurs who got her start because of one of those many roles that women play: mother. She has owned several businesses since graduating from college, including a graphic arts business and a chain of children's clothing stores. It was when she was earning a degree in surgical assistance that she came up for the idea for Mock Medical.
"I suddenly found myself as a single mother while I was a student in the surgical program," Dingel-Fehr said. Part of the training for surgical assistance includes spending many hours in the lab, practicing with the instruments that are used in surgery. Closing the clamps and doing other procedures required by assistants in surgery takes manual dexterity and lots of practice. "After I put the kids to bed at night, I wanted to be practicing my lab techniques, and I thought, 'wouldn't it be wonderful to bring the lab to me.'" But those lab instruments are expensive. No student, let alone a single mother, can afford to buy a duplicate set of instruments just for practice. So she came up with the idea of simulated instruments.
First of all, Dingel-Fehr had to figure out why the "real" instruments are so expensive. "It's because they're made of stainless steel," she said, "and they are very, very sharp." From there, she experimented with materials to come up with a substitute that looks and feels like the real thing.
"It was trial and error; I have no degree in metal making. I started in plastic with glass additives and went from there." When Dingel-Fehr was done with development and ready to launch, she received financial assistance from the state in late 2013 that helped her business get off the ground. "By the time you get to that stage, you are depleted," she said. "The Demonstration Fund award really helped me roll out our marketing and sales efforts."
Today, Mock Medical provides kits of "mock" surgical instruments, sets of instruments that look and feel like the real thing - the same weight, balance and hand-feel of medical grade instruments have. The company's main marketing strategy is both simple and effective. It sells healthcare educators on the value of the instrument kits to their classroom curriculum, and also sells the kits much the same as regular course textbooks are sold - through the college's bookstore. Online sales are also available and popular.
Gregg Barcus, the IICorp's Commercialization Director, was impressed with the company when he first traveled to Terril to meet Dingel-Fehr in late 2014. "Dari's entrepreneurial instincts and skills were amazing, from identifying a market opportunity based on her own experiences to developing a solution and designing and executing a strategic plan to success. Just as important, she has an entrepreneurial vision of how her company can grow from its current successful base into additional markets. She's just impressive."
For more information about how to connect with many sources of financial assistance for business development, click here. For more information about Mock Medical, visit the company's website.
