Opinion
Gordon: Working at Microsoft Was More Prestigious than Amazon in Mid-2000s
“Like, truthfully, getting a job at Microsoft was much more prestigious than getting a job at Amazon at that time in Seattle.”
Insight
Gordon: Software engineers mistakenly assume building new features solves startup problems
“He really describes also, like, a software engineer's mindset and how they get it wrong, where the solution is to build new features, where he really is introducing this, like, new way to build something”
Disclosure
Gordon: Babylist avoided venture capital early because it was making money
“I was absolutely not thinking about raising venture funding. It didn't make sense because the business itself was making money.”
Disclosure
Gordon: Babylist rejected expanding into weddings to focus on new parents
“And the really obvious choice was, like, we should now go into a wedding. We're this tech company. We've created this fantastic baby registry. The technology would apply to wedding registries. Like, that's what we are. We're this tech company. And the other op…”
Insight
Gordon: Physical product logistics is far harder to operate and fix than software
“It's so much harder to do than digital. Like, with code you can fix a bug and things work. With actual physical products, you need many trucks and people to move those products. Like, it's actually so difficult to fix when things are going wrong.”
Assertion Supported
Babylist uniquely lists direct competitors like Target alongside its own retail store
“We do something no one else does, which is when we sell a product and Target sells the product, we're actually going to show Target as a buying option, just like we show BabyList as a buying option.”
Disclosure
Babylist CEO: Direct retail sales generate the largest share of company revenue
“We don't share the split, but the largest part of our revenue is absolutely us actually selling the products we sell as an e-commerce retailer.”
Insight
Babylist hires lack parenting experience because expecting users are clueless too
“And I talk to people, particularly people who are interviewing to be employees here, and they're like, well, I don't have any kids, and I'm like, yeah, neither do our users. Our users don't know what any of this stuff is.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Gordon: Early blogger SEO ranking drove Babylist signups for years
“One of them started to rank for best baby registry in SEO, so in Google, and that was also the steady stream of traffic that drove baby list registries for many years, but particularly in that first year, like a couple every day.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Pinterest promoted pins drove Babylist's 2015 hockey-stick growth
“A really important thing happened in 2015, and that's that Pinterest opened up their platform for advertisers. And so they had the Pinterest promoted pins where you could pay them like any other advertising platform, and they would show your pins more often to…”
Assertion Supported
Babylist generated $250M in actual retail revenue, not GMV, in 2021
“That was like the very first slide was our revenue. And I'd be like, here's our revenue in that year. It was going to be two hundred fifty million dollars. And they'd be like, oh no, you mean this is your GMV, which is your gross merchandise value, like what y…”
Disclosure
Gordon: In 2019, Babylist First Looked Like a Billion-Dollar Business
“In 2019, I was eight years into building the company, and it was the first time I really saw, like, how big this could be. It was the first time I actually thought this could be a billion dollar business.”
Disclosure
Babylist is expanding from a retail registry into a maternal health platform
“So, I think there's this opportunity for us to really be a health platform. When you're having a baby, like, health is the thing you care about, like, much more than the stuff. All of the health and wellness aspects to that time period, yeah, that's definitely…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Gordon: Standard Amazon Orders Had Two Items Versus 100 for Amazon Fresh
“It was like the normal Amazon order had two items, and Amazon Fresh had a hundred items because it was groceries.”
Assertion Supported
Gordon: Most baby registries in 2010 were single-store platforms
“Most baby registries were single store registries, and so you could only add items from Babies R Us, and then you'd have a second registry for Amazon.com.”
Disclosure
Gordon built Babylist working just 45 minutes daily as a new mother
“And I had a goal in those first couple of months, which is, I want to spend 45 minutes a day on this. If I can spend 45 minutes a day on this, like, that's a really good day.”
