Hey bootstrappers,

Remember the last difficult conversation you had? 

Perhaps it was with a spouse, colleague, or family member. You might have given some bad news or touched on a sensitive subject for them or you. 

Those awkward, handwringing moments can feel embarrassing (even upsetting), but I bet you didn’t think you could make a business out of them.

And yet this week’s founders saw sensitive topics – think sex education, diversity in design, or when your cofounder fires your brother – as opportunities to grow. 

Speaking up for what you believe in is a rare quality. Building a business out of it is even rarer. Are you up for the challenge?

Chris Roper

Managing Editor

Want to Know How to Build a Viable Business in an Industry that Makes People Flinch? Try Laughter

When your name translates to “flying vagina,” you know you’re going to turn heads. The cofounders of Kohe Lele are leveraging that attention to teach women about their bodies.

Like many women, Kohe Lele cofounder Gioia Lelli knew little of her own body. She’d suffered frequent yeast infections and didn’t know why. When friend and pharmacist Camelia Brande explained things, she realized how powerful this knowledge could be to other women.

Gioia and Camelia teamed up with another friend, Lea Moser, to create an online community around women’s health. Popular workshops and talks on HPV and female cancers followed, and now they’re a growing FemTech brand selling subscription products and services.

“Talking about sex is not always the most open topic. But we provide approachable, fun, and humorous material and still include applicable information and resources without being stuffy. It is medically correct, but we use down-to-earth and approachable language.”

Turning points

1. Not monetizing in the beginning. To encourage greater participation, Kohe Lele started as a free, open, and supportive community offering advice on sexual health.

2. Hosting in-person events on sensitive issues. Inviting female cancer survivors to talk helped allay community fears and reinforce the brand’s positivity message.

3. Partnering with FemTech firms. From pregnancy to menopause, Kohe Lele’s cofounders have helped FemTech brands develop better solutions for women.

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This Founder Built a Socially-Conscious Startup to Showcase the Talent of Designers in Emerging Countries 

When cultures clash, it’s harder to work together. Tobias Schelle hopes to change that by helping designers from emerging countries collaborate with clients from the US and Europe.

After graduating with an MA in Finance, Tobias Schelle thought he’d end up in an investment bank. Instead, he cofounded a design business that made presentation templates. But customers wanted more than templates – they wanted customized designs.

Designers were costly in his native Denmark, so the business wasn’t viable. But when Tobias tested a brief with a talented designer in Indonesia, he realized he could meet customer demand and help people in emerging economies create a better future for themselves.

“Ten years ago, people thought you couldn’t outsource creativity to other countries, only basic tasks like making appointments and sending emails. But the talent in emerging countries was the same. There was just a gap in cultural understanding, and I wanted to bridge it.”

Turning points

1. Offering life-changing benefits. Tobias employs his designers, offering better health insurance, emergency loans, and other benefits that motivate and inspire his team.

2. Changing to a subscription model. Tobias ditched the pay-per-job business model for a subscription service that targets enterprises that need regular designs.

3. Investing in key competencies. To avoid costly mistakes as the business grew, Tobias hired professionals in key departmental roles such as finance and operations.

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Cofounder Crisis: How This Founder Recovered His Business After His Partner Almost Destroyed It

Vetting your cofounder might sound obvious, but if you’re deep in projections and business plans, time is short – and the consequences could be catastrophic.

Disillusioned with his tech job, Gercek Karakus left to join Raklet, an ex-colleague’s SaaS business. Together, they’d grow it into the world’s leading community platform. The colleague would handle the back-end and Gercek would do everything else. At least, that was the plan.

One day, Gercek returned from a client meeting to find his cofounder had fired all the staff, including his brother. The platform had run out of money. Rather than win more clients, Gercek’s cofounder chose to abandon the sinking ship. Gercek, however, took out his bucket.

“There might not have been a lot of action back then, but these days, I have between fifty and sixty prospect calls a month. If we grow at this pace, in three years, we will be making more than a million dollars, four million in ten years, and before you know it, a hundred million.”

Turning points

1. Moving to Turkey to save money. Gercek slashed Raklet’s overheads by leaving San Francisco and setting up in Turkey, buying himself time to save the business.

2. Learning to code the back end. After discovering his cofounder had poorly coded the back end, he learned C-Sharp to reliably maintain the codebase himself.

3. Doing field sales for a year. Few founders spend a year on the road selling their business door-to-door, but Gercek did to stay afloat. Today it’s mostly email marketing.

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