Natalie Gordon

BABYLIST HITS $750M REVENUE IN 2025 - UP 45% YOY ▶ CNBC CHANGEMAKER 2026 - NATALIE GORDON ▶ END THE BABY TAX - 30 BRANDS, ONE WASHINGTON POST AD ▶ NEARLY 100 MILLION GIFTS DELIVERED THROUGH BABYLIST ▶ BABYLIST HEALTH: $50M VERTICAL SERVING MEDICAID FAMILIES ▶ FEATURED: HOW I BUILT THIS WITH GUY RAZ - NOV 2025 ▶ 9 MILLION FAMILIES INFLUENCED BY BABYLIST ANNUALLY ▶ BABYLIST MONEY LAUNCHED 2026 ▶ BABYLIST HITS $750M REVENUE IN 2025 - UP 45% YOY ▶ CNBC CHANGEMAKER 2026 - NATALIE GORDON ▶ END THE BABY TAX - 30 BRANDS, ONE WASHINGTON POST AD ▶ NEARLY 100 MILLION GIFTS DELIVERED THROUGH BABYLIST ▶ BABYLIST HEALTH: $50M VERTICAL SERVING MEDICAID FAMILIES ▶ FEATURED: HOW I BUILT THIS WITH GUY RAZ - NOV 2025 ▶ 9 MILLION FAMILIES INFLUENCED BY BABYLIST ANNUALLY ▶ BABYLIST MONEY LAUNCHED 2026 ▶

The Story

Nap Time Engineering

In the bottle aisle at Babies R Us in 2010, Natalie Gordon was standing with tears on her face. She was pregnant, overwhelmed, and staring at roughly a thousand bottle options with zero guidance and a registry system that wouldn't let her add products from any other store. A software engineer trained at Amazon on the team that launched Amazon Fresh, she had the one skill that mattered: she could build what she needed.

So she did. During her newborn son Max's nap times in early 2011, she coded the first version of Babylist - a universal registry that could pull in products from any retailer, any service, any website. She launched an MVP in about 30 days. Her first two months generated $140 in revenue. She considered that promising.

This is not a story about a rocket ship. It's a story about a person who set a quiet revenue threshold - $3,000 per month - and waited until Babylist crossed it before going all-in. Patience was the strategy. Trust was the product. Both took time to compound.

Gordon pitched ten bloggers personally, writing customized demo registries for each. Five replied. One of those placements eventually ranked on Google, and organic search became Babylist's first real distribution channel. No press release. No launch event. Just one ranking article and a category with no incumbent worth trusting.

She answered every customer support email herself. Not as a chore but as a research method. Each message was a product brief from a user she genuinely understood, because she was the user. She recruited early hires without children specifically to maintain that outsider perspective on a customer she was gradually aging out of.

Before Babylist, there was Lenguajero.com - a peer-to-peer Spanish-English language learning platform that peaked at $40 a month in revenue. She shut it down, took a year-plus backpacking through Latin America with her husband August, and came back with a different framework for building. The failure was tuition. The methodology she internalized - ship fast, treat users as the business, iterate from feedback - became Babylist's operating system.

Fast Facts

Role CEO & Founder, Babylist

Founded 2011

Education B.Math, Computer Science - University of Waterloo (2004)

Before Software Engineer, Amazon (2004-2008) - Amazon Fresh team

Origin Canada

Based Berkeley, California

Company Emeryville, California

Funding $50.65M raised; Series C ($40M, 2021)

Recognition CNBC Changemaker 2026, Inc. Best Workplaces 2024, Aspen Institute fellow

By The Numbers

What $140 in Month One Becomes

Annual Revenue (2025)

$750M+

Up 45% year-over-year. Profitable. Without chasing growth at the expense of the business.

Gifts Delivered

~100M

Nearly 100 million gifts have moved through the Babylist platform since 2011.

Annual Reach

Families influenced per year through registry, ecommerce, and editorial content.

Health Vertical Revenue

$50M

Insurance-covered breast pumps including Medicaid - launched just two years ago.

Medicaid Newborns Served

40%

Of Medicaid-enrolled newborns now have access through Babylist Health. Target: 80% by 2027.

Total Funding Raised

$50.6M

With a $40M Series C from Norwest Venture Partners in November 2021. Built profitability first.

2025 Campaign

End The Baby Tax

When tariffs threatened to raise prices on essential baby products by up to 145% in early 2025, Gordon did not issue a press release. She took out a full-page ad in the Washington Post. Then she put the message in Times Square. Then she built a coalition of 30 baby brands - UPPAbaby, Ergobaby, Nanit, Frida, Owlet, Munchkin - all united behind a single phrase she coined: Baby Tax.

The campaign launched a first-of-its-kind registry feature called "Open to Secondhand," normalizing pre-loved gifting as a cost-saving tool. It proved that a retail brand with enough audience trust can lead a policy fight without losing its community. The Shorty Awards took note.

Canadian-born. University of Waterloo CS grad.

Amazon Fresh engineer before founding Babylist.

Backpacked Latin America for a year before startup #2.

First startup peaked at $40/month. She calls it essential tuition.

Hired a professional management coach as company scaled.

First warehouse: office space stacked with bassinets.

Career Arc

A Longer Runway Than It Looks

Gordon's path to Babylist is not the straight-line founder narrative. It includes four years at Amazon, a failed language-learning startup, a year-plus backpacking through Latin America, and a maternity leave that doubled as a product sprint.

Each phase left something useful. Amazon gave her engineering discipline and the exposure to scale that comes from working on a product like Fresh. Lenguajero taught her to validate fast and kill what doesn't work. The backpacking gave her time to think. The nap times gave her code.

By the time she went all-in on Babylist, she was not a first-time founder. She was a second-time founder who had already learned the expensive lessons.

2004

Graduated University of Waterloo with a degree in Mathematics and Computer Science

2004-2008

Software Development Engineer at Amazon; part of the team that launched Amazon Fresh

2008-2010

Extended backpacking through Latin America with husband August

2009-2010

Co-founded Lenguajero.com - a peer-to-peer language learning platform. Peak revenue: $40/month. Shut it down.

2011

Founded Babylist while pregnant with son Max. Coded the MVP during nap times. Launched in ~30 days. First two months: $140 in revenue.

2012

Hit $3,000/month - her self-imposed threshold to go full-time on Babylist

2015-2017

Pinterest partnership accelerates growth; expanded into content and direct-to-consumer inventory fulfillment

2021

Raised $40M Series C from Norwest Venture Partners

2023

Launched Babylist Health vertical for insurance-covered breast pumps; serves Medicaid families

2025

Led "End the Baby Tax" campaign. Featured on How I Built This. Revenues surpass $500M.

2026

Named CNBC Changemaker. Revenues hit $750M+. Launches Babylist Money and Birth with Babylist podcast.

What She Built

Beyond the Registry

Babylist started as a registry. It is now a multi-channel platform that includes first-party ecommerce, editorial content ranking for nearly every "best baby bottle" query on Google, a health vertical, physical showrooms, a financial product, and a podcast.

The content flywheel is the engine. Each article that ranks on Google generates trust. That trust drives registry creation. Each registry touches 30-40 gift givers. Each gift giver becomes a potential future registry creator. Nine million people per year enter this loop.

The health vertical is different in kind. When Gordon secured licenses to operate Babylist Health, she entered territory most consumer brands avoid: insurance billing, Medicaid reimbursement, medical compliance. The business is now a $50 million annual operation. The human case is starker: 40% of Medicaid-enrolled newborns now have access to breast pumps through Babylist. Gordon's target is 80% by 2027.

Verified Achievements

Built Babylist to $750M+ annual revenue with under $51M in outside funding
Named 2026 CNBC Changemaker among 50 women leading innovation
Nearly 100 million gifts delivered through the platform
Babylist Health: $50M business in under 2 years
Serves 40% of Medicaid-enrolled newborns in the United States
Led 30-brand coalition in national tariff advocacy campaign
1.2 million registries created in 2020 alone
Launched Babylist Money and Birth with Babylist podcast (2026)
Second NYC physical showroom announced for summer 2026
Aspen Institute fellow; 2024 Inc. Best Workplaces honoree
Featured on How I Built This with Guy Raz (November 2025)
Revenue grew 45% year-over-year in 2025

In Her Words

What She Says About Building

"Our biggest asset is the trust and engagement of this audience."

- On Babylist's competitive moat

"I was actually kind of terrible at fundraising."

- On the early years of Babylist

"Putting that thing that you've been working on out there into the world is such a test of vulnerability. People are kind. It's only the very first step in a journey."

- On the fear of launching

"There are so many parts of having a baby that are truly universal."

- On expanding Babylist Health to Medicaid families

"Users are the business."

- Core operating philosophy

"I was our core user. I was writing every single line of code."

- On Babylist's earliest days

Watch

Natalie Gordon on 10 Years as CEO

In this Girlboss Radio session, Gordon covers the lessons that came from a decade of running Babylist - on management, hiring, identity, and knowing when to evolve as a leader.

The Details

Things Worth Knowing

She's Canadian. Born and raised. University of Waterloo degree. The engineering rigor comes with the territory - Waterloo's CS program sends graduates straight to Amazon, Google, and Microsoft. Gordon went to Amazon.

The backpacking year matters. Before founding Babylist, Gordon and her husband August spent over a year traveling through Latin America. The startup that came before - Lenguajero - came out of that trip. So did the clarity to shut it down.

She found her first designer in a forum. Not a recruiter. Not a network connection. A forum post asking for help. She hired a management coach as the company scaled. She treats leadership as a craft with deliberate practice.

The $40/month startup was real tuition. Lenguajero peaked at $40 a month in revenue. Gordon credits that failure with teaching her the Lean Startup methodology - ship fast, validate with real users, don't build what no one needs.

First warehouse: bassinets in office space. Before logistics operations, before fulfillment centers, there was a regular office stacked with bassinets. She figured out the operations the hard way - which is often the only way they actually hold.

She recruits people without kids on purpose. As she aged out of being her own core user, she intentionally hired team members without children to maintain fresh eyes on the customer experience. She calls it staying honest about the product.

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