Five Questions: Rachel Anderson

Springfield-native Rachel Anderson joined The eFactory in January as an entrepreneurial specialist after the organization received a $140,000 grant last fall to fund a new staff position. The former University of Missouri student body president and daughter of CoxHealth Vice President Jim Anderson moved back to the Queen City about a year ago, in between stints in Los Angeles and New York. As co-founder of the Alumni Spaces Web platform for alumni associations, she now helps fellow entrepreneurs get their ideas off the ground. Anderson is developing branding and marketing strategies, as well as funding and mentorship programs, for The eFactory even as she and her Alumni Spaces partners get assistance from a N.Y.-based business accelerator.

Coming Home
“I went to school in Columbia and lived there for a while. Then, I was living in Los Angeles. I moved back to Springfield about a year ago. I also have a tech startup of my own that I started when I was out in L.A. When I moved back, I was working from home for (an) executive search firm and doing my tech startup on the side. Everyone I met was like, ‘You’ve got to go check out The eFactory. You have to talk to Brian Kincaid and see how to get plugged in with entrepreneurship in Springfield.’ So, I did, and we kind of developed a relationship. I had attended and then presented at 1 Million Cups, and I tried to take advantage of as many opportunities as I could. Then, I saw the press release and heard from some people that it had received some grant money and were funding this position. I applied after that.”

Alumni Spaces
“We are basically a website platform for national alumni associations. We give all of their local chapters an external-facing website. Also, we funnel all of that data and analytics back to the national association, so they have real-time reporting of what’s going on at the chapter level [such as] how many events are taking place. …The local chapters like it because they’ll have their own websites and are getting the word out and raising money for their chapters, and the national associations like it because they’re able to maintain brand consistency, push content out when they need to and save staff time. We built the products for the University of Missouri Alumni Association (and) University of North Carolina is another client.”

Juggling Jobs
“I can’t tell you hours per week. I sort of live and breath it as anyone knows when you have a company. That’s one of the reasons why The eFactory was appealing to me, too. I get to work in an environment where other entrepreneurs help advance programming and do things that will be beneficial to them and the community. But they also very much support that I have a company. … We ran into an accelerator in New York. My two partners, Nick and Andrew, live in New York, and they are participating in the accelerator, so that is allowing them to work full time on Alumni Spaces. … With that, you get a $40,000 investment. We are going through a four-month intensive program through their accelerator. … We have telecommuting down, so I’ve been able to be a part of it. And through emails, I’ve been able to see the progression.”    

Starting Up
“As the title suggests, I do a little bit of everything. … I have three focus areas. One is marketing and branding for The eFactory. Second, we are wanting to start a mentorship program. And third, we sort of have the incubator model and are looking at adding a seed fund and doing an accelerator, as well. … I guess the last tier is additional programming – bringing in speakers for a speaker series for clients or community members.”

What’s Next?
“We’ll be working on a bigger branding initiative for The eFactory, so we can better communicate our service offerings. We want to make sure we are getting that out there, so, get a new website. That sort of thing. From there, that’s when you’ll see the mentorship program develop. We’ve already had some people sign on. … Programming-wise, we will probably start something like our speaker series. Then, we’ll work on our accelerator and seed fund.”[[In-content Ad]]