CrowdSolve October Newsletter - Issue #2
🎉 We are thrilled to announce that our first CrowdSolve innovator has made it all the way through the first stage in CrowdSolve’s venture development curriculum. Deirdre Horan of Dri Umbrellas flew through the blox challenges, completing the stage in under a month! She is featured this month in the innovator spotlight, below. In addition to making progress on her innovation and getting feedback from mentors, she is also eligible for a $1000 grant from 1000 Gretas! Who will be next?!
Upcoming Events
Virtual Storytelling Workshop with Pop Up Think Tank Thursday, October 27, 12:00pm MT In partnership with Tim Schuster of Popup Think Tank, CrowdSolve is hosting a virtual pop up think tank, exclusive for our community. One of the most important pieces of fundraising, pitching, and marketing is a compelling story. Dial in your message and unlock your potential with this complementary workshop for founders and innovators! You won't want to miss this workshop. Registration is still open, we hope to see you there!
Impact Hustlers: Climate Tech Virtual Founders Summit Tuesday and Wednesday, November 1-2, 2022 Connect with the ClimateTech ecosystem, get inspired & push the conversation forward. Meet 1000+ founders, investors & ecosystem leaders. CrowdSolve will be attending the virtual events during the two-day summit. Join the session, ‘diverting the best talent into climate tech’ to hear from Jack Fritzinger, CrowdSolve’s head of partner development. Hope to see you at some sessions!
Product Updates
We have been busy incorporating your feedback and we’re so excited for you to experience the latest and greatest version of the CrowdSolve platform.
New Challenges - Blox are now grouped together into Challenges to help you organize your ideas and get consolidated feedback from an expert.
Mentor guidelines - our vetted mentors will now be sending you even more meaningful and targeted feedback on your progress.
Intuitive design - with explainer videos and updated flows, we have made it easier to move throughout the platform. Yay!
If there are people or organizations in your network that you think would be an interesting connection, we’d love the intro. You can reach us at hello@crowdsolve.eco.
New Partners
We are proud to partner with Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator (LACI), an organization creating an inclusive green economy for the people of Los Angeles by: unlocking innovation by working with startups to accelerate the commercialization of clean technologies. Check out their site and stay tuned for upcoming dates for their next cohort!
Innovator Spotlight - Dri Umbrellas ☂️
One of the CrowdSolve core values is ‘spirit of celebration.’ We recognize that venture development can be hard, which means celebrating the wins (big or small), and supporting one another along the way, is that much more important. This month, we are highlighting Deirdre Horan and her company, Dri Umbrellas.
Here is her story: Days after watching Garbage Island: An Ocean Full of Plastic, an extremely disturbing documentary on ocean plastic, I walked to the JFK Red Line T Stop in Boston, MA in the pouring rain when my umbrella flipped inside out in a gust of wind. I cringed as I heard one of the ribs crack, knowing the umbrella was now useless. As I threw the umbrella into the nearest trash can, I stopped in my tracks when I saw the tag - "Made from 100% Polyester". Why couldn't these umbrellas be made out of recycled polyester? Recycled polyester...made from ocean plastic? With the train rushing into the station, I stood rooted on the spot, experiencing my own very cliche entrepreneurial "AH-HA!" moment. I would protect our oceans by creating a line of durable, fashionable rain umbrellas from recycled ocean-bound plastic.
The truth is, I had absolutely no idea what I was getting myself into with Dri. It's been a long, exhausting process, with many setbacks, supply chain issues, late nights, early mornings, and a constant "let's throw this at the wall and see what drops immediately to the floor" mentality. But the light at the end of the tunnel -- saving Nemo, Flipper, and ourselves -- keeps me going every day.
Resources
Climate Raise - a newsletter highlighting women and gender non-conforming founders in climate tech. If you are in this category and actively fundraising for your climate venture, you can apply to be highlighted in their newsletter which is sent to investors, climate enthusiasts, and others in their growing community.
Miro User Persona Template- A popular resource from our user personas blox found in the “Identify your User’s Needs” challenge
My Climate Journey Podcast- An excellent listen, deep-dive conversations with science, technology, and climate leaders
CrowdSolve Happenings
We’ve had a busy month! Some highlights include:
We attended our first Climate Week in NYC and had a blast connecting with partners, investors, innovators, and climate enthusiasts who are focused on bringing change to the environment.
At the same time, we had folks attending events at Denver Startup Week. Again developing connections and sharing the CrowdSolve mission.
We launched an updated version of the CrowdSolve product based on feedback from innovators, mentors, investors, and our team of experts.
We launched a crowdfunding WeFunder campaign to close our pre-seed round of funding. Did you know that you can invest in CrowdSolve?!?! Head to our WeFunder page to invest as little as $100 to help us build a badass climate incubator. As a secondary benefit, we are learning all the best practices so that we can share them with you for future crowdfunding raises you might be considering.
CrowdSolve was highlighted by The Fund in their recent founder spotlight series. The Fund is an early investor in CrowdSolve.
We met 30+ new innovators who are developing solutions to combat climate change. Our heroes!