#12 Anna Casalme, Founder of Novelly
Description
Anna Gabriella Casalme is the Founder and CEO of Novelly, an ed-tech startup reimagining civic engagement through their mobile app. Anna believes in the power of stories to spark discussion about social issues, and she has seen the impact first hand through Novelly’s work with middle- and high-school students. With the original plan to go into medicine, Anna studied Human Biology with a focus on design-thinking at Stanford’s d.school. However, she pivoted after her masters program and received a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to launch Novelly! Anna is an incredible speaker and she shares so much about the ed-tech industry, how to build a diversified funding portfolio, and what it means to be a CEO.
Special Feature: Anna’s 5 Favorite Books That Shaped Her 20’s
1) #Girlboss by Sophia Amoruso
Memoir, Womxn in Entrepreneurship
This was a gift from a friend and what a gift it was. I read #Girlboss when I was first starting out in my new role as CEO. I was experiencing severe imposter syndrome and Sophia Amoruso's stories and reflections taught me to look at myself and my decision to start Novelly as an experiment. I had a burning question within me and the entrepreneurial journey is simply an attempt to answer that question: could this idea work? I love this quote from the show The Great: "Most women die with an unsaid better idea in their hearts." I'm no longer preoccupied with failure. I just want to know that I did right by my ideas.
2) I Will Teach You to Be Rich by Ramit Sethi
Personal Finance for Millennials/Gen Z
For a book on personal finance, this book is thankfully a painless read! It not only breaks down topics such as automated finances, retirement savings, index funds, and debt in a millennial-friendly way, but it also walks you through a step-by-step process to manage your personal finances. I read this book the summer before my junior year of college and I revisit it every year or so. I typically get very anxious about anything that has to do with money, but this book managed to get me to open a Roth IRA, which is honestly a miracle.
3) What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20 by Tina Seelig
Memoir, Difficult Transitions
I was fortunate to attend lectures by Tina Seelig while I was a college student. At the time, I wasn't thinking about starting a non-profit or a company at all, but the lessons from her lectures and book have helped prepare me for entrepreneurship. She shares plenty of examples illustrating how we can learn to view problems as opportunities to be creative and rethink what is possible. “What is possible now that wasn't possible before?” During this pandemic, this has become especially relevant not just for entrepreneurs but for everyone.
4) Startup by Doree Shafrir
Fiction, Why Silicon Valley Desperately Needs Diversity
My first love was fiction, so naturally, I need to include a work of fiction. Startup is delightfully incisive, satirical, and critical of Silicon Valley startup culture. It's hard to not be seduced by the high stakes, fast pace, big money, and pitches that promise to change the world, but Startup is a reminder that there is more than one way to "startup." You don't need to be a white male engineer in a hoodie screaming words like "scale" and "disruption" to be an entrepreneur.
5) Braving the Wilderness by Brene Brown
Self-help, Daring to Stand-Alone
Say it with me: Brene Brown's work is everything. In Braving the Wilderness, she explores this paradox: true belonging doesn't come from fitting in. It comes from belonging so deeply to yourself that you can show up fully and feel comfortable standing alone. Over the past couple of years, I have often felt alone, but I noticed that these were moments when I felt like my decisions were still 100% true to who I was as a person: when I moved to Scotland for graduate school, when I traveled solo in East Africa, and when I started Novelly. It's an ongoing process, but I'm learning to embrace this paradox.
Resources
For college students interested in discussing social issues with high-schoolers, please check out Novelly’s open positions: Open Positions
Novelly Website: https://www.novelly.org/
Anna’s Linkedin
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