CO.STARTERS Core
Build a Business That Works
Starting a business can feel overwhelming. CO.STARTERS Core helps you move from ideas and assumptions to real insights about your customers, your market, and how your business can work in the real world.
In this 12-week cohort-based program, entrepreneurs work through a structured process designed to help them test their ideas, talk with customers, refine their business model, and build a stronger foundation to go out in the world and grow their business. Each week focuses on a key part of building a business, from understanding yourself as a founder to validating your customer, developing the right solution, and understanding the financial realities of launching a business.
Participants will engage in hands-on exercises, group discussions, and real-world customer discovery work between sessions. Along the way, you’ll connect with other founders, hear from guest entrepreneurs, and gain practical insights you can apply immediately.
The program concludes with a celebration and pitch competition, where participants share what they’ve built and learned throughout the cohort.
What You’ll Explore During the Program
Over the course of 12 weeks, participants will explore topics including:
- Knowing yourself as a founder
- Understanding your customer
- Conducting meaningful customer discovery interviews
- Finding the right solution to customer problems
- Building strong relationships with customers
- Developing key building blocks of your business
- Creating systems and operational structures
- Understanding costs and pricing
- Financial modeling and the true cost of launching a business
- Planning for sustainable growth
Participants will also spend significant time talking with real customers, gathering feedback, and refining their ideas between sessions.
About the Facilitators
Erin Srebinski is the Director of Entrepreneurship at 20Fathoms, where she spends most of her time helping entrepreneurs turn messy ideas into real, working businesses. She leads programs and initiatives that support founders across Northern Michigan, connecting them with the tools and people they need to move forward. With a background in human-centered design, customer experience, and startup education, Erin is passionate about helping founders get out of their heads and into the real world.
Lisa Carbonell serves as an Entrepreneur in Residence at 20Fathoms. In this role she is excited to connect with local founders and help them turn chaos into cadence. She is a Certified Scrum Master and Organizational Coach specializing in cultivating authenticity, transparency, accountability, and continuous learning using an Agile framework. She helps individuals and teams achieve their vision, mission, and goals. With a master’s education in Applied Behavioral Science and Organizational Development from the Leadership Institute of Seattle, she blends empathy and expertise, enabling teams to discover, promote, build, and launch their dreams.