So here’s the exception to a number of tired old adages about women in the workplace. The baby registry webiste BabyList was put together by veteran programmer Natalie Gordon during her pregnancy. Then, with the help of a designer, she launched the website just two weeks before her son was born. As some one who has launched a website while decidedly not-pregnant, and even then was only in charge of content, not anything on the backend… lets just say that’s pretty freaking impressive.
Gordon found that most online baby registries, where you can direct family and friends to help you out with baby supplies that you actually need or want, are just offshoots or versions of wedding registries or general wishlist sites, and that they tend to be overwhelming to somebody just looking for onesies, highchairs, and strollers. BabyList is instead deliberately based on social media sites like Pinterest, where items from any site can be compiled in an online list in one place. She told GeekMom about the process of founding the site:
BabyList started out as a fun project two years ago. I was pregnant and had just left a contracting position. I launched it with a Hacker News post two weeks before my son was born. Then with a newborn it was a part-time thing. Everyday I felt successful if I could do one thing to make the site better. Fix one bug. Improve the copy of one page. Pitch to one blogger. Make one feature more intuitive. Then this past Spring, our family moved to San Francisco, we got full-time childcare, and I was able to push the business forward and think bigger.
The company is now four employees big, with aspirations of getting even bigger. If this is what Gordon got up to on maternity leave, I think it stands to achieve them. You can read more about BabyList, including an interview with Gordon, at GeekMom.
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