It has been 6 months since UP Cycle Design officially launched! Woo woo! A lot has happened since January, and we want to take this week to look back and recap some of the amazing things that have been accomplished. From our humble bennings to the very near future, you can now see all that has happened since UP Cycle Design was founded.
Humble Beginnings (March 2020 - December 2020)
Spring 2020: Entrepreneurial Backgrounds - UP Cycle Design was started with hard work and effort put in by Sierra RyanWallick (left) and Michelle Yatvitskiy (right). A blend of art and design talent with entrepreneurial passion spurred the idea and creation of the company. Read more about UP Cycle Design’s beginning here.
Summer 2020: Participated in Summer Founders Pre-Accelerator, pitched at Demo Day, and won “Most Socially Responsible” Audience Choice Award
Fall 2020:
Became Hen Hatch Semi-Finalists
Won 2nd Place in Horn Entrepreneurship Pitch Party and “Most Creative” Superlative
Partnered with The Warehouse in Wilmington, DE to launch Level UP Cohort 1 (social entrepreneurship curriculum)
Added an amazing intern Jonna Anello to the team!
The First 6 Months (January 2021-June 2021)
January:
Soft-launched UP Cycle Design’s first product with three upcycled cloth sticker designs centered on cause based designs: The Essential Heart sticker that supports COVID recovery efforts, The Black Lives Matter sticker supports the BLM movement, and the Balance of Life sticker that supports a mental health nonprofit.
Launched Level UP Cohort 2
January-February: Added two exceptional interns Todd Petrella (right) and Max Sewell (left) to the team!
March: Make It Happen Challenge - Sierra and Michelle participated in this challenge based around design and problem solving, and took home 2nd place and over $3,000 in funding! Read more about their involvement in the challenge here.
March: Won “Most Motivated” Superlative at Horn Entrepreneurship Pitch Party
April: First Step - Sierra and Michelle won the Innovation Award in a health-related problem-solving challenge, and earned prize money of $1,000! Check out the recap! April: Cohort 2 of Level UP graduated - 50 students have now gone through the social entrepreneurship curriculum Level UP, and the Level UP students and UP Cycle Design launched successful campaigns to aid and assist nonprofit partners! Read about the most recent cohort and their chosen nonprofit here!
April: Launched the month long campaign around Unity to the Moon and Back cloth sticker (the Level UP design made to raise money for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Delaware)
May: Level UP campaign ended successfully with $50 raised for Big Brothers Big Sisters of DE
May: First UP Cycle Design team meeting with all the interns
Over the spring: the UP Cycle Design interns have accomplished so much! Jonna has increased UP Cycle Design’s social media following from 359 to 467, Todd launched the UP Cycled Thread blog that has garnered more than 300 views and 26 blog posts, and Max has helped build the UP Cycle Design business strategy and prepare for upcoming campaigns! The team as a whole went from 1,333 to 2,366 hours dedicated to the project!
To Date:
Several Articles Written - Check out UP Cycle Design’s News page to see several articles written about UP Cycle Design’s achievements. You can find articles by The Horn Program at the University of Delaware and Technical.ly
$11,500 in award money earned from several grants and pitch competitions
$700 in revenue so far, with $119 raised for charity organizations
295lbs of fabric diverted from landfills
Looking Ahead
Summer 2021: Cohort 3 of Level UP, coming soon to The Warehouse in Wilmington, Delaware.
Summer 2021: Filing for LLC status to become an official tax entity (as if we weren’t official already. Tsk, tsk Delaware)
Summer 2021: Adding more interns to the team! So far, a seamstress is being onboarded and a digital art and design intern as well. The UP Cycle Design team keeps getting stronger and stronger!
Summer/Fall 2021: officially launching UP Cycle Design’s Nonprofit Partner Program
Summer/Fall 2021: Manatee campaign - We’ll be directing some of our efforts to manatee conservation in the near future! Stay tuned for super exciting updates, and in the meantime, read the UP Cycled Thread’s blog post about the urgent manatee crisis.
Summer/Fall 2021: Focusing on building our infrastructure (which includes company culture, improving collaboration and teamwork between team members, and adding more team members as well!)
Fall 2021: We want to pitch in Hen Hatch again (fingers crossed that we make it to the final round this time!)
Fall 2021: We want to continue our outreach and partner with University of Delaware RSO’s, startups, and organizations to support our local community!
Don't forget to follow us on Instagram @up.cycle.design and Facebook: UP Cycle Design
Check out our Shop!
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