Some breaking news this morning: Two months after leaving Rent the Runway, Jenn Hyman has already decided her next move. The Rent the Runway founder will become the CEO of Babylist, the baby registry service founded by Natalie Gordon. Gordon will become executive chair.
I broke the news in UnHerd this morning. And this transition stands out for a few reasons. First, it’s a rare example of a founder-to-founder CEO handoff—and of course it’s even more rare for that handoff to be between two female founders of separate businesses. Babylist could have hired a professional CEO type to lead the company into its next phase, but chose another founder instead.
Second, Hyman and Gordon—and their companies—are complementary in so many ways. Hyman built Rent the Runway for 18 years before she stepped aside in May (a clean break—she’s no longer on the clothing rental service’s board). Gordon has been building Babylist for 15 years. But the pair only met for the first time last fall, and Hyman joined the Babylist board in January.
Rent the Runway was a media darling that Hyman took public in 2021, making her the 30th woman to take a company public. Rent the Runway invented a category, but has struggled since the pandemic. Its share price is down about 80% since its IPO, and Hyman has spent the past few years playing defense, overhauling its originally capital-intensive business model and making the argument that Rent the Runway is in a better place today even though it’s never quite recaptured its former glory.
Meanwhile, Babylist was more of a quiet success. Gordon is a former Amazon software engineer, and has previously told me how she coded every line herself in the startup’s early days. She never courted much media attention, and while the site dominates the registry space and is well-known among new parents, it never bothered to build much brand recognition beyond that group.
Recently, that’s changed. Babylist is on track for $1 billion in revenue this year and is approaching an IPO. It built out businesses in health and personal finance, offering breast pumps through insurers and capitalizing on the launch of Trump Accounts. With $1 billion in revenue, it’ll be about three times the size of Rent the Runway, which did $330 million in revenue last year.
Gordon started thinking about stepping aside about 18 months ago, before Babylist had one of its best years ever. She’s moving to exec chair before taking the company public—but says she’s “fully satisfied” with what she’s achieved.
Hyman takes over Sept. 9. Another major difference: Babylist is a fully remote, distributed workforce of 300 corporate employees. Rent the Runway, like the fashion world, always had a very in-person culture. Hyman will need to adapt to a new way of working.
Hyman and Gordon have lots of plans for where Babylist is headed next—possible M&A, serving the parent starting at pregnancy and through sending their kid off to college. For Hyman, running a business that’s not dealing with the challenge of customer acquisition will be a radically different experience.
“Right now, Babylist is on top of the world,” Hyman says. “There was a 10-year period where Rent the Runway was on top of the world. … You are constantly dealing with cycles of growth, adversity, and transformation. Businesses go through cycles, and being a leader is the resilience to lead through all those phases.”
But she wants to prove that “founder-led companies can evolve without losing what makes them special, and two founders coming together is a powerful force to be reckoned with.”
My full story on the news is here.
Emma Hinchliffe
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Some founders are turning their health challenges into businesses. My colleague Sydney Lake tells the story of McCall McPherson, founder of Modern Thyroid Clinic. McPherson was spending 16 hours a day in bed before she saw a more "progressive physician" open to nontraditional prescribing to treat thyroid concerns. Her clinic is expecting "lower-mid eight figures" in revenue this year.
How Pickle reimagined rental. Speaking of Rent the Runway's new competitors, a growing one is the peer-to-peer rental app Pickle. Founded by Brian McMahon and Julia O'Mara, the platform lets users rent from each other, avoiding the headache of maintaining inventory itself. My colleague Sarah Glodek has a new story exploring how Gen Z women in New York are earning as much as $30,000 a month renting out their closets.
Another Democratic primary to watch. Francesca Hong is leading the Democratic primary for governor in Wisconsin. The 37-year-old is a Democratic socialist, and her race will demonstrate that faction's ability to win statewide races, not just districts.
ON MY RADAR
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PARTING WORDS
"I know you know what it’s like to feel confined."
— Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, talking to Michelle Obama on the latest episode of her podcast