Dulma Altan

is the founder and CEO of Makelane, a private community for female DTC founders and the Masterclass for ambitious women entrepreneurs. "We're on a mission to help millions of women start thriving businesses — from side hustles to moonshots — in every industry, starting with ecommerce,” she says. 

Born in Mongolia and raised in Northern California, Dulma fell in love with startups after studying International Development at Brown University (she even wrote her thesis on social entrepreneurship). After working as an advertising strategist at Google, Dulma founded Potion, an online retailer for clean perfumes. “During that time I’d started a community of women in ecommerce and realized the workshops I was organizing for this group could be turned into an educational platform for women in its own right,” she says. Her vision soon morphed into Makelane, which offers digital workshops providing members with an actionable step-by-step curriculum across various verticals. The online courses are taught by experts from admired brands like Sephora, Casper, and Birchbox and cover everything from breaking into retail to launching and scaling a consumer goods brand. 

In addition to helping female founders thrive, Dulma is also the creator of Startup Stork, a side project encouraging them to celebrate with business showers (think baby shower, but for women kicking off their own entrepreneurial ventures). Startup Stork publishes a weekly newsletter recognizing rising business owners called How She Built This.