The university years offer exciting opportunities for students to explore new ideas that sometimes lead them down unexpected paths.
Little did Lia Winter (Knoxville ’19) know that one such idea would prompt her to launch her own business and help more than a thousand orthopedic reconstruction patients and counting.
Winter’s entrepreneurial journey began while majoring in biomedical engineering at the University of Pittsburgh. When she created the prototype for an innovative new kind of orthopedic suturing needle as part of her program capstone course, she wasn’t thinking about launching a business. “I just thought it was a senior project,” she recalls with a laugh. She called her device the EasyWhip.
Idea Inspiration
Her interest in orthopedic medicine began when she witnessed her mother experience two anterior cruciate ligament operations and extensive recovery time because of complications with the stitching in the first surgery. Seeing an opportunity to improve patient outcomes, Winter developed the idea for EasyWhip, a two-part detachable needle that would allow surgeons to repair and reconstruct tendons and ligaments more securely and efficiently.
After completing her bachelor’s degree in 2017, Winter enrolled in UT Knoxville’s M.S.-MBA dual-degree business administration and biomedical engineering program and continued to develop improved iterations of EasyWhip. With the encouragement of advisors at the Anderson Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation in the Haslam College of Business, she became CEO and founder of Winter Innovations.
“Being involved with the Anderson Center was one of the best ways for me to practically apply what I was learning in the classroom,” she says. “So many people have ideas that could become a business, but so few actually take the steps to start one. I had some incredible people at the Anderson Center who encouraged me, one step at a time.”
Winning Pitch
Over her two years at UT Knoxville, she entered several business pitch competitions hosted by the Anderson Center, winning a total of $30,000 in startup funding. Along the way, the center helped her hone her business plan and take steps to protect her intellectual property. During the last semester of her graduate program, she began entering pitch competitions outside of UT, and as her wins continued, her confidence grew.
After completing her graduate degree in 2019, Winter went on to participate in numerous business accelerator programs that encouraged her to think beyond winning pitch contests to securing investors and grants, obtaining clearance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and setting up manufacturing. She relished each new challenge along the way.
“One of the really rewarding things about starting a company is that you’re not doing the same thing every day,” she says. “In every year and phase, it changes.”
Going to Market
EasyWhip received FDA clearance in 2021. After about six months of focusing on manufacturing and sales, Winter Innovations introduced the device into the market, and it was used in surgery for the first time in 2022. To date, it has been used in more than 1,000 surgical cases. Winter has had the opportunity to be present for many of these procedures and receive feedback about EasyWhip from surgeons in real time.
“That’s always the proudest moment, when I see EasyWhip in the hands of a surgeon in the operating room, and they utter the value propositions I’ve been pitching since those early pitch competitions,” she says. “They say, ‘Wow, that really made the surgery faster,’ and, ‘This is a strong repair. The patient will be walking again in no time.’ It makes me so proud to know that all of the hard work has been worth it.”
Since launching EasyWhip into the market, Winter Innovations has continued to grow. In 2024 the Knoxville-based company expanded its team, hiring two new fulltime employees who are also UT Knoxville grads. Winter Innovations also introduced the StitchStand, a reusable instrument that holds tissue in place during suturing. The company has won some grants that are helping to fund sales and marketing for the new product and to grow the EasyWhip line with new sizes and versions that will allow it to be used in a wider range of cases.
Mentoring Others
Throughout her entrepreneurial journey, Winter has maintained close ties with the Anderson Center. Since 2020, she has been active in the center’s Startup Coach program, offering accountability, tailored strategy advice and networking help for the next generation of entrepreneurs.
“I love coaching on strategy and the big picture but also about operations and the exact steps you have to take,” she says. “That really resonates with students, when we can get very granular. Those were all things that the Anderson Center taught me when I was in the earliest stages of the business, along with the one-on-one mentoring to help me put it all into practice.”
For Winter, the learning goes both ways. She’s impressed with how many of her mentees focus from day one on building a strong team culture, and they help her stay current on the ever-shifting landscape of new marketing tactics. In addition, she loves being exposed to what’s trending in fields outside of medical technology.
“It’s great to see the breadth of ideas coming out of the Anderson Center, and it’s really rewarding when my experiences and journey can inspire new entrepreneurs and steer them in the right direction for starting their businesses.”
