CLASS WORK TO BUSINESS: FROM SUSTAINABILITY TO ENTREPRENEURSHIP!

By Natalie Poston

We met in 2019 during our MBA program at Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business at a time in our lives when everyone around us was having babies. As we started to explore parenthood ourselves, it was obvious that the traditional model of baby and toddler gear ownership was outdated. Buying new gear for every baby can be wasteful - there’s already too much gear in circulation and oftentimes it can’t be donated which means gear ends up in a landfill. We knew renting could not only be a more sustainable solution, but it could reduce the stress parents feel about cost, reliability, storage, and choosing gear their child will like.

After meeting at Georgetown, we had a course called Lean Startup together - this is where we built the business plan for JoyLet. Then we used every other class we could to work on the business - from sustainability to entrepreneurship.

Once we had a solid business plan we participated in several Georgetown startup pitch competitions to introduce our business more broadly. Taking home the top prize in these competitions helped us get all the funding we needed to get JoyLet off of the ground last fall.

Since then, JoyLet has been renting musthave gear like bassinets, swings, loungers, strollers and developmental toys to families with babies and toddlers. We both left prestigious careers this spring to pursue this venture full-time in April because we feel strongly that renting baby gear can solve parents' biggest problems and it is better for the planet. Ironically, many of our peers in business school were trying to pivot into the careers we had, but we found ourselves being drawn to solve this problem instead.

We offer white-glove delivery services in Washington DC and ship lightweight gear nationally. Parents tell us they love the flexibility of renting - it can be difficult for parents to know if a particular piece of gear will work for their baby before actually trying it. With JoyLet, if a piece of gear doesn’t work, they can just swap it for a new item. We also hear too many stories about how expensive baby and toddler gear collects dust and creates clutter after the child quickly grows out of it. With JoyLet, storage is no longer a concern. We’re on a mission to solve parents’ problems by bringing them more joy and less stress when it comes to preparing their home for a new baby

Alli Cavasino

Alli Cavasino is Co-Founder and CEO of Joylet where she focuses on strategy, operations, and finance. Alli is a strategic corporate finance professional with 10 years of experience leading M&A transactions, evaluating new product/market opportunities, and developing capital deployment strategies for public and private companies. She has spent the last 5 years working for the world’s largest equipment rental company where she focused on strategy and mergers and acquisitions.

Alli will graduate with an MBA from Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business in Fall 2022 with a certificate in sustainable business and holds a BS in Business Administration from American University.

Natalie Poston

Natalie Poston is the Co-Founder and COO of JoyLet. Previously she spent more than two years at StepStone Group (formerly known as Greenspring Associates) on the investment team conducting diligence for venture investments in early and growth-stage startups and venture funds on a primary and second basis. Prior to pursuing her MBA, Natalie consulted for Fortune 500 companies including Starbucks, Hershey’s, P&G, Unilever, State Farm, and Kimberly Clark on integrated marketing and public relations

Natalie holds an MBA with a certificate in sustainable business from Georgetown McDonough School of Business and a BA in Advertising with a specialization in Public Relations from Michigan State University.

Robbin Jorgensen Founder & CEO Women Igniting Change

Poston Co-Founder of JoyLet