Get Your Weekly Digest

Receive the best podcast summaries and insights delivered to your inbox every week.

We respect your privacy. Unsubscribe anytime.

How I Built This with Guy Raz

Babylist: Natalie Gordon. How a new mom used nap time to build a $500M business.

with Natalie Gordon

Published November 3, 2025
Visit Podcast Website

About This Episode

Software engineer Natalie Gordon describes how her overwhelming experience creating a traditional big-box baby registry while pregnant led her to build BabyList, a universal registry that lets parents combine products from any retailer with practical services like dog walking or diaper subscriptions. She explains how she bootstrapped the company while caring for a newborn, then gradually scaled it through affiliate revenue, an accelerator, seed funding, and later a major shift into holding inventory and operating as an e-commerce retailer. Throughout, she reflects on hiring and management challenges, learning to become a CEO, and keeping BabyList focused on serving expecting and new parents rather than expanding into adjacent categories like weddings.

Topics Covered

Entrepreneurship Product development Marketing and customer education Hiring philosophy Leadership and management Inventory management Customer service Venture capital Extended travel Problem-first invention

Disclaimer: We provide independent summaries of podcasts and are not affiliated with or endorsed in any way by any podcast or creator. All podcast names and content are the property of their respective owners. The views and opinions expressed within the podcasts belong solely to the original hosts and guests and do not reflect the views or positions of Summapod.

Quick Takeaways

  • Natalie Gordon turned her own stressful and confusing baby registry experience into BabyList, a universal registry that lets parents combine items from any retailer with practical services and cash-like gifts.
  • Her first startup, a language exchange site called Languajero, had users but no business model, and that failure plus reading "The Lean Startup" shaped how she approached BabyList as a minimum viable product.
  • In BabyList's earliest days, she coded the product, did all customer support, and iterated directly from user emails, often shipping changes the same day.
  • The company initially relied on affiliate revenue from a few large retailers, then took the risky step of holding inventory and becoming a retailer itself to reduce dependency and control its destiny.
  • Natalie struggled with hiring and people management, eventually working with a coach to develop basic management and feedback skills and transition from founder to CEO.
  • Pinterest ads in 2015 were a major growth inflection point, turning BabyList from slowly viral organic growth into a business with hockey-stick user acquisition.
  • During COVID, she feared the loss of in-person baby showers would hurt the business, but online gifting surged as friends and family sought ways to support expecting parents remotely.
  • A later funding round forced BabyList to "grow up" financially, aligning with investors on realistic growth and expanding into health-related services like helping parents access covered breast pumps.

Podcast Notes

Preview of BabyList's move into e-commerce and operational complexity

CFO Jocelyn's critical view on entering e-commerce

Jocelyn presented a list of reasons why e-commerce would be difficult for BabyList[3:03]
• She highlighted challenges like collecting sales tax in every state, handling returns, and managing discontinued products
Natalie reflects that the team was naive about the logistics side of becoming a retailer[2:30]

Introduction and overview of BabyList and Natalie Gordon

Host introduces the show and the central story

How I Built This is described as a show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and their stories[2:44]
Guy Raz introduces Natalie Gordon and BabyList as an alternative to big-box baby registries[2:58]
• A bad experience in a big-box baby store led Natalie to create BabyList, which became one of the most popular baby registries in the U.S.

Problem space: New parents and overwhelming baby products

Guy Raz lists examples of baby products (changing tables, car seats, cribs, etc.) and notes how endless the list feels[3:10]
He frames core questions for new parents: what do they actually need, which products are worth it, and where do they start[3:17]

Natalie's initial context and BabyList's growth summary

In 2008, Natalie was pregnant with her first child, living in Vancouver, and working as a software engineer[3:32]
Baby stores felt overwhelming with too many brands and shelves, and registries were locked to specific retailers[3:41]
• Traditional registries did not allow mixing and matching from different stores
Natalie built a registry that could include everything from products to practical help like diaper services and dog walking[4:02]
BabyList is highlighted as being built while Natalie was living the experience of new parenthood and coding during nap times[4:10]
Since launch, BabyList has grown to handle nearly 100 million gifts, with estimated annual sales over half a billion dollars[4:36]

Natalie's early life, education, and work at Amazon

Background and joining Amazon

Natalie grew up in Ontario, Canada and studied math and computer science in college[4:46]
She joined Amazon in the early 2000s, around 2004, at a pivotal time for the company[4:47]

Working on Amazon Fresh

Natalie describes being part of the founding team for Amazon Fresh[4:58]
• Amazon Fresh orders averaged around 100 items because they were groceries, compared to two items for typical Amazon orders
She recalls there being many complex problems to solve in building the grocery service[5:12]

Amazon's status in mid-2000s Seattle

Guy notes that in 2004-2006, Amazon was not yet the ubiquitous giant it is today; many people still mainly ordered books[5:16]
Natalie says culturally Amazon already had many traits it is known for, but in Seattle getting a Microsoft job was considered more prestigious at that time[5:58]

Leaving Amazon, extended travel, and first startup Languajero

Decision to leave Amazon and travel

Natalie promised herself when she took the Amazon job that she would eventually take time to see the world[6:22]
• She had gone from high school to college to work without meaningful breaks, including not taking summers off
She left Amazon motivated by a desire to travel in Latin America and learn Spanish[6:40]

Living in Latin America

Natalie and her then-boyfriend August spent about a year and a half traveling and living abroad[6:50]
• They lived in Havana (Cuba), Medellín (Colombia), and Oaxaca (Mexico)
They got married at the very end of the trip in early 2010[7:17]

Digital detox in Havana and desire to build something

Natalie says she did not originally think of herself as an entrepreneur during the trip[7:19]
In Havana, limited internet access created a "digital detox" where she focused on learning Spanish and exploring the city[7:55]
• She walked to the University of Havana daily, explored, and made friends
This period sparked excitement about building something and exposed a skills gap she felt: not knowing how to build an end-to-end app or website herself[8:27]

Identifying the idea for Languajero

During her travels, she got the most benefit from practicing Spanish with native speakers who wanted to learn English[8:59]
• They did "intercambios" where they spoke 20 minutes in Spanish and 20 minutes in English, correcting each other
She envisioned an online place where you could click a button and practice with a native speaker for Spanish-English exchange[9:27]
The platform was called Languajero[9:39]

Building and launching Languajero

Natalie and August started coding the website during their trip and launched it while living in Oaxaca[10:01]
The model focused on peer-to-peer learning where users could see who was online and initiate conversations based on interests[10:17]
Natalie notes the biggest problem was that Languajero had no real business model[10:37]
• In its best month, it only made $40, which makes her hesitant to even call it a startup rather than a project

User reception and living off savings

They promoted Languajero through podcasts and Facebook language-learning communities in a grassroots way[11:15]
The site attracted thousands of users with some power users who loved it, but revenue remained minimal[11:28]
Natalie lived off savings accumulated from Amazon while in Latin America, which was cheaper than Seattle[11:44]

Return to Canada, difficult consulting work, and pregnancy

Moving to Vancouver and early pregnancy period

After the trip, Natalie and August decided to move back to Canada and settled in Vancouver, a new city for her[12:12]
She began doing contract work for a Bay Area startup while pregnant with her first son[12:20]
She describes this time as "pretty crappy": they lived in a slanted house and discovered bed bugs right after she learned she was pregnant[12:34]

Unfulfilling Facebook spam consulting job

Natalie says she hated her consulting work, which involved writing code that spammed Facebook to make a product go viral[13:10]
• She notes it was during the Farmville era when Facebook had opened its API and many apps were spamming feeds
She felt miserable and disconnected, compounding the challenges of pregnancy and an unfamiliar city[13:28]

Discovering Lean Startup and conceiving BabyList

Impact of reading "The Lean Startup"

Natalie read Eric Ries's "The Lean Startup" and found it massively influential[14:34]
• She felt the book could have been titled "Natalie, Here's Everything You Did Wrong with Languajero"
The book described how software engineers often mis-apply their mindset by just building features instead of validating ideas[14:52]
Natalie decided she wanted another chance to build something using Lean Startup principles as her "Bible"[15:02]

Bad Babies R Us registry experience

Her sister-in-law and best friend told her she needed to create a baby registry and suggested using Babies R Us[15:53]
At Babies R Us she was given a scan gun and confronted with thousands of items, which felt overwhelming[16:13]
• She recalls facing "hundreds" of bottles and nipples and not knowing which to choose
She felt pressure because money was tight and she wanted to avoid mistakes, but could not afford a consultant to guide her[16:56]
Natalie walked out without adding a single item to her registry and left the store in tears[17:18]

Defining what she wanted in a baby registry

Natalie felt she knew exactly the kind of baby registry she would want to use[17:35]
She wanted a registry that looked modern and cool rather than pink-and-blue with giraffes, which she found embarrassing to send to friends[18:25]
She wanted true cross-retailer functionality instead of single-store registries[18:40]
• At the time, parents often had a Babies R Us registry plus a separate Amazon.com registry
Existing universal wishlists didn't allow asking for non-product support like services or help[18:57]
Natalie wanted the ability to request practical help such as dog walking or contributions to a cloth diaper service[19:29]
• She mentions adopting a dog, Pasa, in Mexico and imagining registry items like "someone walks her every morning" as meaningful gifts
• She was very interested in cloth diapering and envisioned friends covering specific months of a $60/month diaper service
Initially she viewed the idea as a potentially nice side hustle that might eventually generate passive income[19:50]

Building and launching the BabyList MVP

Natalie quits consulting and commits to building BabyList

Natalie quit her consulting job and thought she could build BabyList in one week, but it took about a month to launch an MVP[22:21]
She was intentional about making it a true minimum viable product[22:56]

Design and early team

Natalie acknowledged she could not do visual design herself, so she sought a designer via an online forum[23:28]
She received one serious response from Lindsay, a design student in the Philippines, and partnered with her on the first version[23:37]

Working pace and early distribution plan

Natalie estimates she worked about 10 hours per day on BabyList during this period[23:44]
She identified distribution as the hardest problem and forced herself to do uncomfortable outreach[24:08]
• She sat in a coffee shop and would not allow herself to leave until she had emailed 10 bloggers about her upcoming launch
For each blogger, she created a sample registry tailored to their preferences so they could see how BabyList expressed their style[24:34]
• Examples included an EcoMom site registry filled with green products and a DesignMom registry with MoMA products

Launch on Hacker News and technical model

BabyList launched in early February 2011, a few weeks before her son was born[25:11]
Natalie posted on Hacker News with the title "I'm a pregnant hacker, please review my side project" linking to BabyList[25:01]
BabyList did not need permission from retailers; if an item was on a website, the BabyList button could add it to a registry[26:01]
• Gift givers would reserve the item on BabyList, then click through to the retailer's site (e.g., Target) to purchase as normal
Natalie began applying to affiliate programs so BabyList could earn a percentage of referred sales as its initial business model[26:47]
Five of the ten bloggers she had contacted wrote about BabyList, and one article ranked for "best baby registry" on Google[27:03]
• That SEO placement drove a steady trickle of new registries for many years, especially the first year

Caring for a newborn while growing early BabyList traction

Challenging first year of motherhood

Natalie wanted to stay home with her son Max for up to a year while August attended university in Vancouver[27:53]
She describes that time as isolating and lonely, with winter weather, few friends, and a baby who constantly needed to be held[28:15]

BabyList as structure and creative outlet

Natalie set a goal of spending 45 minutes per day on BabyList, and considered it a good day if she met that target[28:47]
She could close the office door, fix a couple of user-reported bugs, answer several support emails, and do outreach within those 45 minutes[29:14]
In its second month, BabyList made $140, far exceeding Languajero's best month of $40[29:48]
• Although small in absolute terms, the revenue came from only about 10 registries, making the growth potential obvious to her

From side hustle to full-time focus and moving to San Francisco

Expanding work time with childcare

As revenue grew, Natalie used some of BabyList's earnings to pay a babysitter and work from a coffee shop for three-hour blocks[36:33]
• She started with two days a week of three-hour sessions, then increased to three days a week

Hitting $3,000/month and setting a threshold

By BabyList's first anniversary in early 2012, monthly revenue reached about $3,000, with low operating costs[37:02]
Natalie and August had agreed on a "magic" threshold that if BabyList made $3,000/month after a year, she would go full-time on it instead of taking a job[38:00]
• She notes this number did not come from a spreadsheet or reflect their living expenses; it symbolized that the business was truly working

Move to the Bay Area and going full-time

The family visited friends in the Bay Area, loved San Francisco, and moved there when Max was one[38:42]
Natalie went full-time on BabyList in San Francisco and did not feel the move was particularly risky because it was still just her[38:54]
• She reasoned that if it failed, she could shut it down quietly as she had with Languajero and find a software job, using BabyList as a portfolio project
Once full-time, she found it challenging to know what actions would drive growth beyond customer support from her living room[39:46]

Joining an accelerator and raising a seed round

Participating in 500 Startups

Natalie joined the 500 Startups accelerator, which invested $50,000 for a percentage of BabyList[40:29]
She commuted daily from San Francisco to Mountain View while still doing all customer support herself[40:54]
She recalls feeling like one of the only solo founders in the cohort, surrounded by teams with multiple co-founders[41:23]
• The program seemed structured around companies having three to five founders, which made it overwhelming to keep up as a solo founder

First hires and emotional responsibility

The influx of $50,000 made it clear she needed to hire additional people for the first time[41:55]
She found it more daunting to take on responsibility for employees than to go full-time herself[42:03]

Decision to raise external capital

Natalie wrestled with whether to raise money, appreciating the autonomy of bootstrapping but seeing funding as a way to build a "real" business[42:19]
She decided to raise a seed round partly because she believed it would accelerate her learning, even if it added complexity to her role[42:59]
She admits she didn't know if she could raise money and felt investors were doing her a favor by investing[43:20]
• At that time she did not have confidence to claim BabyList would become a $100 million company

Pitching BabyList and closing a $600k seed round

Her pitch deck included a very simple but central slide: "pregnant women need a lot of stuff"[44:08]
She highlighted BabyList's strong traction and user engagement in the pitch[44:01]
At demo day she pitched for five minutes, and follow-up interest from investors led to raising a $600,000 seed round[44:34]
With the seed money, she hired about five people, including an iOS engineer and BabyList's first marketer, while continuing to handle customer support herself[44:53]

Hiring challenges and learning to manage people

Early missteps in hiring and equity

Natalie found it hard to define roles, evaluate candidates, and convince them to join a tiny startup[45:42]
She brought on a generalist contractor during the accelerator who she hoped would join full-time[45:59]
The contractor saw herself more as a co-founder and was unhappy with the equity in Natalie's offer, ultimately deciding not to join[46:14]
• Natalie was devastated, cried in a stairwell, and spent the following week doing only customer support to re-center herself on users

Difficulty evaluating and managing hires

Natalie notes that hiring is especially hard because you're recruiting people to do things better than you can, in areas where you may lack expertise[47:23]
She recalls the agony of firing her first employee in a coworking space with little privacy[47:55]
• She had never managed anyone before, yet now had to manage and sometimes fire as a CEO

Working with a coach to become a better leader

Natalie felt she was a terrible manager for the first few years and eventually hired a coach[48:25]
The coach interviewed people around her and produced a seven-page document outlining her strengths and weaknesses[48:32]
• The first half of the document listed ways she was "truly great," and the second half listed areas she needed to improve
One explicit coaching goal was for Natalie to be able to give quick feedback in the moment without being emotionally charged[49:13]
Through weekly sessions and basic management tools, she believes she transitioned into being a pretty good people manager and leader[49:34]

Marketing struggles and breakthrough via Pinterest

Organic growth and slow virality

In the early years, BabyList grew as the team improved the product and launched an iPhone app, but marketing remained a challenge until 2015[49:59]
Guy and Natalie describe BabyList as "slowly viral": about 30 women might see a registry at a shower, and a couple might use it the next year when they became pregnant[50:55]

Leveraging Pinterest as a paid growth channel

Pinterest was growing rapidly among BabyList's core demographic of women of childbearing age, and BabyList was already spreading organically there[51:39]
In 2015 Pinterest opened its advertising platform, enabling promoted pins[52:00]
Once BabyList gained access, they invested in promoted pins and saw many people sign up, with monetization lagging until those users' registries went live months later[51:55]
This marked a hockey-stick growth moment as BabyList finally found an effective paid acquisition channel[52:28]

Second child and relying on the team

In 2015, the same year as the Pinterest breakthrough, Natalie had her second child, Ben[53:08]
She appreciated having a team capable of running the business while she took a couple of months off[53:17]
Her deep immersion in baby products by then also helped her generate new ideas for BabyList during her own parenting experience[53:57]

Strategic focus on expecting parents vs expanding into weddings

Evaluating expansion into wedding registries

As BabyList grew, the team considered what to do next, and expanding the technology to wedding registries seemed like an obvious path[54:16]
They had built strong tech for universal baby registries, which could theoretically apply to weddings[54:02]

Choosing to stay focused on new and expecting parents

Ultimately, Natalie decided not to pursue weddings and instead focus entirely on expecting and new parents[58:12]
She concluded that the most valuable thing BabyList had created was trust and engagement with parents during the baby phase, and everything new should serve them more deeply[58:08]

Building content and shifting toward being a retailer

Launching product guides and educational content

Around 2016, BabyList hired an intern whose first job was to create initial content for the site[57:10]
She surveyed users about their most loved products and created guides like "best stroller," "best car seats," and especially "best bottles"[57:38]
At the time, Google search results for these categories were mostly slideshows, so BabyList's guides filled a gap and began ranking well[58:08]
Natalie sees this as the beginning of BabyList becoming a company for "things expecting parents and new parents" beyond just the registry[58:12]

Limitations and risks of an affiliate-only model

By the end of 2016, BabyList had around 20 employees and was growing at roughly 80% annually[58:36]
Almost all revenue came from affiliate fees from a handful of retailers, which Natalie saw as risky[58:42]
• She worried that if any key retailer relationship changed, BabyList might not be able to make payroll

Lean test of becoming a retailer and operational pain

To test whether anyone would buy directly from BabyList, Natalie went to Buy Buy Baby, purchased inventory, and stored it in the office[59:44]
They began listing "buy from BabyList" as a purchase option on registries alongside external retailers[59:45]
Natalie says they were naive about logistics; Jocelyn, who would become CFO, presented a long list of reasons why e-commerce was hard[1:00:27]
• Challenges included multi-state sales tax collection, returns processing, and managing discontinued products, all outside their tech skill set
Early on, many brands refused to sell to BabyList because they lacked a physical store, so Natalie personally called CEOs asking them to take a chance on the company[1:01:05]
Their first warehouse was literally their office, with bassinets stacked between desks up to the ceiling[1:01:00]
She contrasts the ease of fixing code with the difficulty of managing physical products, which require trucks and people to move and correct mistakes[1:01:30]

Strategic rationale for taking on inventory

The main motivation for becoming a retailer was to reduce dependency on external affiliates and control BabyList's own destiny[1:02:13]
Over time, as retailer relationships evolved and the company grew, direct e-commerce became the core of BabyList's business model[1:01:56]

Maintaining universality while selling products directly

Natalie emphasizes that BabyList must remain universal: when both BabyList and Target sell an item, both appear as buying options[1:03:35]
She notes that users love seeing multiple purchase options, which is central to why they use BabyList[1:03:35]
While she does not share the exact revenue split, she states that the largest portion of BabyList's revenue now comes from products it sells as an e-commerce retailer[1:04:28]

COVID-19 impact on registries and business growth

Initial fears and early pandemic downturn

By the time COVID hit, Natalie had been running BabyList for nine years and considered herself an expert on registries and baby showers[1:05:13]
She feared that without in-person baby showers-which involve gatherings and vulnerable populations-demand for registries might collapse[1:05:26]
In March 2020, all of BabyList's metrics plummeted, and the company implemented a hiring freeze[1:06:10]

Shift to online gifting and unexpected growth

Contrary to her fears, behavior shifted as people moved gifting online and became more generous toward friends having babies during the pandemic[1:07:10]
All gifts were now bought online, and BabyList's business ended up growing more than expected that year[1:07:08]

Later-stage funding and maturing as a business

Raising a large round over Zoom

Around 2021, BabyList raised approximately $40 million in a new funding round[1:07:30]
Natalie again felt unsure if she could raise the money but believed it was the right time and an important inflection point[1:08:00]
Because of COVID, all investor meetings were held over Zoom, without in-person contact[1:07:13]
She structured her pitch so the very first slide showed revenue, projecting $250 million for that year[1:08:04]
• Investors initially assumed $250 million referred to gross merchandise value, and were surprised to learn it was actual revenue, prompting them to bring partners into the conversation
Although she encountered some rejection, Norwest Venture Partners ultimately led the round[1:08:44]

Discipline, alignment, and avoiding over-raising

Natalie says she has seen companies raise too much money based on wishful thinking about future growth[1:09:00]
She felt aligned with Norwest's realistic expectations for BabyList's growth trajectory[1:09:44]
The round forced BabyList to "grow up" by becoming more serious about finances and consistently delivering on stated plans[1:09:44]

Future vision for BabyList and reflections on luck versus hard work

Expanding services and focus on health

Natalie articulates a vision of BabyList helping "make families better families," including helping grandparents and keeping families connected[1:09:44]
In 2019, eight years into building the company, she first saw how big BabyList could be and began to believe it could become a billion-dollar business[1:10:46]
From 2020 to 2022, BabyList expanded into offerings like BabyList Health, which helps parents obtain breast pumps for free through insurance or Medicaid[1:09:44]
She sees a major opportunity for BabyList to be a health platform, since health matters even more than products when having a baby[1:09:44]

Assessing luck and grind in BabyList's success

Natalie attributes the convergence of her skills, timing, personal pregnancy, and the initial idea to "total luck"[1:11:06]
She distinguishes that from the sustained hard work required to transform from founder into CEO[1:10:49]
She emphasizes that developing leadership and management capabilities took grit and effort rather than luck[1:10:49]

Closing note about the BabyList team

Guy mentions that the BabyList website shows photos of the executive team, and hovering over each reveals what they looked like as babies[1:09:54]

Lessons Learned

Actionable insights and wisdom you can apply to your business, career, and personal life.

1

Solving a problem you are personally experiencing can lead to a powerful product, because you deeply understand the pain points and what a better solution should feel like.

Reflection Questions:

  • • What frustrating experience in your own life or work do you understand so well that you could design a better solution for it?
  • • How could you document your current pain points in detail so that they guide the requirements of a future product or process?
  • • What is one concrete step you could take this week to prototype or test an idea that addresses a problem you are living with right now?
2

Starting with a true minimum viable product and iterating quickly with real user feedback is more effective than overbuilding features in isolation.

Reflection Questions:

  • • Where in your current projects are you over-designing instead of shipping a simple version to test with real users?
  • • How might your roadmap change if you committed to releasing a small, testable version within the next 30 days and iterating based on feedback?
  • • What specific mechanism (e.g., support emails, surveys, interviews) can you put in place this week to capture and act on user feedback rapidly?
3

Consistent, focused progress-even in small daily blocks of time-can compound into meaningful traction, especially when you are balancing multiple responsibilities.

Reflection Questions:

  • • If you only had 45-60 minutes a day for your most important project, what high-impact tasks would you prioritize in that window?
  • • How could you restructure your day to protect a small, non-negotiable block of time for deep work on your highest-leverage goal?
  • • What metrics or milestones could you track weekly to see the cumulative effect of these small, consistent efforts?
4

Hiring and management are distinct skills from building a product, and investing in developing those skills is essential if you want to scale beyond a solo operation.

Reflection Questions:

  • • Which parts of hiring and managing people feel most uncomfortable or unfamiliar to you right now, and why?
  • • How might seeking coaching, mentorship, or structured feedback help you become more effective at giving clear expectations and feedback?
  • • What is one people-management behavior you could practice in your next week (e.g., timely feedback, clearer role definitions) to better support your team?
5

Strategic focus-choosing what not to do, such as declining adjacent markets-can strengthen your core value proposition and deepen your relationship with your primary customers.

Reflection Questions:

  • • What tempting opportunities or adjacent markets are currently distracting you from serving your core customer exceptionally well?
  • • How would your product or service improve if you focused all new initiatives on better serving a single, clearly defined user segment?
  • • What is one area you could explicitly decide to stop pursuing for the next 12 months to free up resources for your highest-priority focus?
6

Relying heavily on a single revenue source or partner can be dangerous; building more control over your business model, even if operationally harder, can reduce long-term risk.

Reflection Questions:

  • • Where in your current work or business are you overly dependent on one platform, client, or partner for revenue or distribution?
  • • How could diversifying your revenue streams or owning more of your value chain change your risk profile over the next few years?
  • • What is one concrete step you can take in the next quarter to reduce dependence on a single external relationship or channel?

Episode Summary - Notes by Logan

Babylist: Natalie Gordon. How a new mom used nap time to build a $500M business.
0:00 0:00