The Anvil Has Some News...
The Anvil Has Some News...
An Update On Our Plans For 2022
Happy New Year Everyone!
The Executive Board here at The Anvil wanted to do something a little bit different to start the new year off with. We thought it would be a great time to share an update with you all about where The Anvil is at right now, what we have in store for the coming year, and how you can help make The Anvil the best it can be!
Quick Note Upfront: We want to hear from you! If there are things you think we can do better or ideas you have for how we can improve The Anvil, please let us know! We want to make The Anvil as helpful as possible for you! You can DM us on Instagram or reply directly to this email!
Below is a quick rundown of what’s included in today’s newsletter. Feel free to skip to any section that interests you.
Our (Current) Mission
Where We Are Today
What's Next?
How You Can Help
Our (Current) Mission
Our goals are incredibly ambitious.
We want to change the way students experience entrepreneurship and empower them to do amazing things like developing ideas, launching companies of their own, getting careers at hot startups, and beginning to make their impact on the world.
Put simply, we want to do what Y Combinator does for early-stage founders/startups, but lower the barrier to entrepreneurship even further.
This is not an easy task. It will not happen overnight. It will require some luck. And, it will require hard work from A LOT of people. But, we believe that we can make this happen.
This is only the beginning of a long journey. We sincerely appreciate each and every one of you for being an early part of our story, and we look forward to exploring the next steps in this journey together.
(So now that you know where we hope to go, let's take a look at The Anvil's current status.)
Where We Are Today
Today, The Anvil is the student hub for entrepreneurship. We currently are running 5 main initiatives:
The Boiler: A pre-seed accelerator that provides early-stage startups with the resources they need to succeed and grow.
Charge: An experiential entrepreneurship event created to inspire those who are considering pursuing entrepreneurship, but don't quite know much about what it actually is.
The Forum: A monthly speaker series aimed to discuss anything and everything in the realm of entrepreneurship.
Networking Night: An event that gives students the chance to network with the most innovative startups all over the world.
The Community: A place for people from all disciplines and backgrounds to come together and build projects, ideas, and much more.
Our initiatives are a great way for students to experience the startup world and can provide some support and insights for students interested in founding or joining a startup, and much more. They’re also a great way for our alumni to give back and inspire the next generation of entrepreneurs.
What's Next?
What do we have in mind moving forward? Think next 6-12 months.
We have a lot of plans and ideas for the future. We likely won’t get to all of these, and I hope we get to do many things that aren’t currently listed. But, to give you a sense of where we (hopefully) are headed:
Building Infrastructure. Everyone is at different places in their entrepreneurial careers. We at The Anvil want to make sure that everyone has support no matter which stage they are in. To do that, we need to redevelop our core infrastructure to be able to provide adequate support to all. We are trying to create a clear pipeline for students to easily see where they are at. Reworking our existing initiatives to maximize excitement and growth for future startups. We are the student hub for entrepreneurship at Purdue and we need to make sure that we are the go-to resource for all people interested in pursuing anything and everything entrepreneurship.
Create More Opportunities. To help build out our core infrastructure, we want to create more opportunities to make entrepreneurship more accessible. We started with introducing Charge this past semester to help lower the barrier to entrepreneurship for non-business majors, and the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. We are planning on launching more initiatives into our pipeline to maximize the number of successful startups in the future. Stay tuned for more information as it becomes available on our website and social media.
Expand Available Capital. The Anvil already provides an extensive amount of support to startups that run through The Boiler, but we want to make funding even more accessible to all. We are planning on opening a new pathway for students to gain access to equity-free microgrants for their ventures. In order to support that, we need to grow our resources to help facilitate this microgrant process. Whether this is through partnering with VCs, alumni support, angel investors, or other avenues, our core goal is to help support as many startups as early as possible. Anyone is welcome to donate or sponsor, so please let us know if you are interested in supporting The Anvil and our future plans (there are some benefits that come with it).
Increase Collegiate Level Partnerships. There are many organizations within Purdue that offer many networking opportunities as well as business themed events. Additionally, there are a multitude of universities in the Midwestern Region that have entrepreneurship organizations similar to The Anvil. We want to create a platform for students among the various organizations to help jumpstart the entire networking process at the collegiate level. Our ultimate goal is to be able to host a conference that can bring entrepreneurs together to foster a strong community of visionaries.
Producing Curated Content. We started by sharing success stories across various social media channels, but we felt that these stories never felt incredibly personal or curated for students. So, we plan on creating better content that is relevant to what students want to see from us. In order to curate better content, we need to hear from you on what you would like to see. If you have any ideas or want to get involved, email us (contact@anvilstartups.com) or shoot us a DM on Instagram.
We also have a completely redesigned website to reflect the refinements that we will be making to The Anvil over the course of the semester.
Check it out: anvilstartups.com
How YOU Can Help
We want to make The Anvil the premiere student hub for entrepreneurship in the United States, and in order to achieve that goal, we need YOUR help. Your ideas mean everything to us. As such, if you have any ideas for ways to improve The Anvil, let us know. If you want to get involved as a Contributor, let us know. If there is a founder or investor you are dying to meet, let us know. If there’s any way we can be helpful, let us know.
Email: contact@anvilstartups.com
Instagram: @anvilstartups
Twitter: @anvilstartups