Atlantic Canadian entrepreneurs are often advised to aim for global sales. In assembling a new team of international advisers, Vendeve founder and CEO Katelyn Bourgoin is doing just that.

Vendeve is a women-only site that allows members to swap and buy business skills.

“We believe in building our company in Halifax, but we need world-renowned people on our advisory board,” said Bourgoin from the Vendeve space at Volta, Halifax’s startup house.

Bourgoin was assisted in finding Vendeve’s new advisers by Vicki Saunders, a serial entrepreneur and founder of the SheEO accelerator program for female entrepreneurs.

As well as Saunders, Vendeve’s new advisers include Betty DeVita, president of MasterCard Canada and Lally Rementilla, the former chief financial officer of Lavalife.

Others include Peter Comstock, founder of Nederlandsche Betaal & Wissel Maatschappij, a European currency exchange tech startup, and Kelsey Ramsden, who has twice been named Profit magazine’s top female entrepreneur.

Related: Vendeve, Addo Join the Mill

Bourgoin is hoping Vendeve’s profile will also be boosted by the company’s participation in the Mill Startup Accelerator in Las Vegas. The three-month initiative helps young companies focus on developing exceptional customer service.

“The Mill offers the opportunity to make connections outside the region and the chance to meet potential investors,” Bourgoin said before she left for Nevada.

Bourgoin founded Vendeve last year after her experience building marketing company RedRiot convinced her that women would value a site on which they could build relationships and swap skills.

She was right. Vendeve, then named Swapskis, attracted 1,800 members in 16 countries in just five months.

Bourgoin intended Vendeve to be the site where new female entrepreneurs could swap skills and purchase female-curated digital learning content like e-books and e-courses.

But she initially struggled to convince some advisers and investors, particularly men, that the concept would work. That mattered because most venture capitalists are men. Female founders attract just four per cent of venture capital funding.

“One of the difficulties some female founders encounter is trying to sell male investors on female-focused products that men can’t really relate to,” said Bourgoin.

She did more market research and listened to investor feedback, deciding to extend the business idea beyond the concept of swapping skills.

“After attending regional programs for entrepreneurs such as the Next Phase and Starting Lean, we expanded our idea to work for female entrepreneurs at all stages of business,” she said.

“For instance, new entrepreneurs who want copyrighting services can swap a skill with a relevant provider. Entrepreneurs with cash flow can pay for the service or purchase content that explains how to do it yourself.”

She said Vendeve is the world’s only site that allows female entrepreneurs to swap skills, buy them or purchase digital learning content.

The company is engaged in a $500,000 financing round and has raised $360,000.

“Fundraising is new to me and a bigger undertaking than I expected,” Bourgoin said.

“No one will give you money until you’ve proven you can build the product and get traction.

“But we’ve been helped by my PR background, which has allowed me to tell our story.”

Bourgoin quotes Forbes magazine, which highlighted the growth of women in business by calling entrepreneurship “the new women’s movement.”

“In fact, entrepreneurship is the new economy,” Bourgoin said.

“By 2020, more than 50 per cent of North Americans will freelance; 33 per cent of Americans already have a side income.”

Bourgoin founded RedRiot at 25 after studying public relations at Nova Scotia Community College. The Lunenburg native landed high-profile clients like Target and Holiday Inn.

“I had a pile of student debt and no high-paying jobs on the horizon, so I went freelance. I paired up with other freelancers who had the skills I needed.

“We’re already growing faster than marketplaces like Etsy or oDesk (now known as Upwork) did in their genesis. We’d like to become the eHarmony of service marketplaces.”