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Babson Alumna Partners with Babson’s WIN Lab® at ‘For Now’ Retail Pop-Up

For Now

Katherine ReQua MBA ’17 and Kaity Cimo are the co-founders of For Now and retail incubator in Boston’s Seaport District built with both brand and the customer in mind. For Now has partnered with Babson Women Innovating Now (WIN) Lab® to bring four WINners into the For Now space for the holiday season.

For Now is a place where an e-commerce brand’s product can be seen and felt and customer insight can be attained; a place where they can grow, thrive and engage with the community at large without needing to invest a lot of time, resources and capital.

WIN Lab Businesses at For Now

Junipo Shoes

Founded by Van Adraneda MBA ’18, Junipo Shoes produces all natural espadrilles and slippers with cinnamon insoles. “We are relentless in our pursuit to build our business one customer and one shoe pair at a time!  With the love and support of our family and friends, we will bring the very best in quality and customer service to you.  We not only care about our products and customers, but our entire value chain from sourcing the right materials to celebrating our employees.  Every aspect of our business thrives on personal care and attention, providing exceptional footwear with, simply, passion for footwear.  Our cinnamon shoes smell great and will look fantastic on you!”

Aisling Organics Cosmetics

Founded by Krysta Lewis, Aisling Organics Cosmetics provides a full line of clean beauty. “Our CEO Krysta Lewis, was sick for years and discovered her cosmetics were one of the culprits. The products she had been using contained formaldehyde, flame retardants, and heavy metals. Not wanting to use conventional makeup led to searching for an alternative that was nontoxic. After much frustration, she couldn’t find anything that was truly natural and worked as her previous cosmetics did. This lead to the creation of Aisling Organic Cosmetics.”

The Optimist Co

Founded by Devin Donaldson, The Optimist Co. is a line of 100% green products for your home. “We are committed to using ingredients that are kind to the planet, our homes, and our bodies. We believe in trust which inspired us to have complete transparency on our recipes and ingredients, while still having an extremely effective product.”

Ivyees

Founded by Ivy Lawson, Ivyees Jamaican Honey is a fully integrated honey producer that begins the process of farming its own bees in its own hives on the island of Jamaica. From this operation, it produces 3 to 4 distinctive flavor varieties of all-natural organic honey available for sale to select premium organic grocery retailers. Jamaica’s mineral rich bauxite soil permits us to grow unique tropical vegetation that honeybees love to pollinate. Ivyess also produces personal care products with the honey.

About the Women Innovating Now (WIN) Lab at Babson

Created by the Center for Women’s Entrepreneurial Leadership (CWEL) at Babson College, Women Innovating Now (WIN) Lab provides women entrepreneurs in both Boston and Miami with an inspiring community and a rigorous, experiential process that catalyzes innovative thinking and enables them to successfully launch or transform businesses.

Now in its fifth year, WIN Lab has been designated as one of the top two specialty programs for Excellence in Entrepreneurship Education by the United States Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship®; earned BostInno’s designation as one of Boston’s “50 on Fire” innovators and visionaries; and was honored by the prestigious Rosoff Awards for diversity.