Life can toss challenges at those living with Type I diabetes each and every day. However, one Fordham student has launched a new product in hopes of alleviating at least one of those daily difficulties.
Corinne Logan, GSB ’17, officially launched a new startup, called Pumpstash LLC, on Oct. 19. The company makes and markets spandex shorts that have pockets specifically designed to hold an insulin pump. They are meant to hold the apparatus, which delivers a consistent supply of insulin to the wearer, safely and securely during physical activity, which can range or vary from jogging in the park to a high-intensity game of soccer.
For Logan, the budding enterprise is personal: She too has Type I diabetes and has to use an insulin pump.
“In high school, I was playing lacrosse and soccer for a bit as well. And the insulin pump I have doesn’t have a clip or anything like that—and so it’d be always falling out,” Logan said.
Logan and her mother then decided to put a small pocket in the back of the spandex, precisely measured to fit the slightly awkward shape of the pump. It worked beautifully, eliminating the problem of the pump falling out. In fact, the shorts have been useful even outside of athletics.
“I just started wearing them more and more,” said Logan.
The discreet nature of the clothing item was especially helpful for Logan, given that many earlier options for wearing the insulin pump were things like patterned fanny packs.
“[I was a] sixteen-year-old girl, [I was] not about to wear an American flag fanny pack,” said Logan.
It was not until Logan came to Fordham that she realized her product had potential, and that she could have access to the resources that would enable her to get her efforts off the ground. What started as a simple solution to Logan’s problem of playing lacrosse with the pump now had the potential to become a viable business.
During her freshman year, Logan got involved with the Compass Fellowship, a national program that helps socially-conscious undergraduate business students develop their own businesses. She later received help in the venture from the Fordham Foundry, and through a Kickstarter campaign.
Fordham’s chapter of the Compass Fellowship is a community of 15 freshmen fellows and five upperclassmen mentors who aspire to become social entrepreneurs. Each week, the Fellowship meets with a CEO, author or social activist to discuss their entrepreneurial endeavors and provide resources and a support system.
For Logan, the program gave her the platform for taking her high school-era solution to the next level: entrepreneurship.
“I did a little bit of background, and market research as well, on how well this would be received,” she said. “And I was really surprised, everyone was like ‘We’d really like this, we’d really like this!’”
Given Logan’s personal experience with diabetes, she knew the value of the product she had developed and how it would make daily life easier. After discovering that others would like to see the same benefits she saw, Logan knew that developing the product would not only help her make a name in the business world and hopefully earn money, but it would also have a social value.
Such is the aim of the Compass Fellowship. With companies like online glasses retailer Warby Parker gaining steam, so called “social entrepreneurship” seems to be on the rise. The Fellowship hopes to capitalize on the idealism, energies and social awareness of many college students and funnel all of those qualities into financially viable, yet socially responsible businesses.
Now that Pumpstash LLC is launched and the product is available, there is still much more to do.
“I want to get some feedback, see if the shorts are as good as they are, make improvements,” she said. “Right now I only have women and girls and I want to launch a line for men.”
Within the first few days, Logan said she sold around 40 pairs of shorts out of an initial inventory of 300 units. She said she was pleasantly surprised to see that the orders came from around the country.
“Most of my orders, I don’t know them — and they’re from, like, Indiana or Texas, and I don’t know anyone from Indiana or Texas,” she said.
Logan attributed this to the company’s social media marketing, favorable coverage of herself and the product on blogs that serve the national community of those dealing with diabetes.
But, for Logan, a large part of the satisfaction of starting Pumpstash has been helping those with diabetes. It goes beyond giving a person with an insulin pump the freedom to move around without worry — Logan also donates 10 percent of the proceeds from each pair to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.
