The Perspective: 5 Questions with Caraway founder, Jordan Nathan

In the latest edition of The Perspective 👀  we’re back with one of our Founder Five sit downs – 5 Questions with Caraway Home founder, Jordan Nathan.

Cookware is one of the most brutally commoditized categories in retail. Thousands of SKUs, endless Amazon knockoffs, and legacy brands that haven’t meaningfully changed in decades.

Then Caraway Home showed up and did something different: they didn’t try to win on price or features — they reframed cookware as a design-forward, non-toxic lifestyle product.

In a few years, Caraway built one of the fastest-growing home brands in the world, selling millions of sets DTC before expanding into retail with partners like Target. The real lesson though isn’t cookware — it’s how a brand can completely rewrite the rules of a “boring” category.

So we sat down with founder, Jordan Nathan, to the questions founders actually care about.

Founders Five 🧠: 5 Questions with ‘Caraway’ founder, Jordan Nathan.

Question 1:  Cookware before Caraway was basically a race to the bottom on Amazon. You came in charging hundreds of dollars for a set of pans in a category people were used to buying for $40. What convinced you consumers were ready to pay a premium for design and “non-toxic” positioning instead of just buying the cheapest option online? Was that a calculated insight, or a gut feeling that could’ve easily been wrong?

Jordan: It wasn’t really a bet that people suddenly wanted to spend more on cookware. It was more that the category had been neglected for a long time. Everything had moved toward cheaper, faster, and more commoditized products, but not better ones. At the same time, people were becoming a lot more aware of what they were bringing into their homes. You saw that in food, skincare, and cleaning products. The kitchen just hadn’t caught up yet. What gave me confidence was seeing that gap firsthand, both from working in the category and from my own experience getting sick from overheated nonstick. There was a clear disconnect between how often people

Question 2: Most DTC brands launch messy and “figure out the brand later.” Caraway launched looking like it had five years of brand equity on day one — packaging, storage systems, colorways, the whole ecosystem. Did you feel like you had one shot to get it right in home goods, or do you think most founders dramatically underestimate how finished a product needs to feel at launch?

Jordan: Absolutely. At home, people are not cycling through products quickly. You are asking someone to bring something into their space and use it every day. If it feels off or incomplete, you probably don’t get another shot. A lot of brands launch and figure it out later. We approached it the opposite way. We spent years getting it right before putting it out into the world. That meant not just the kitchenware itself but everything around it. Storage, organization, colors, how it actually lives in your kitchen. The goal was for it to feel complete from day one, not like something that would get better over time.

Question 3: A lot of DTC brands win because they’re great at marketing, not because the product becomes part of someone’s daily life. Cookware is unforgiving. If it sucks, people will let you know in a week. What were the earliest signals that told you this wasn’t just a beautiful Instagram brand, but a product people would actually cook with every night?

Jordan: It showed up pretty quickly in post-purchase behavior. People were not just buying the product, they were using it consistently, then coming back to purchase again or gift it. That is a very different signal than a one-time purchase driven by aesthetics or marketing. We also saw it in the depth of customer feedback. Reviews went beyond design and into performance, how it cooks, how easy it is to clean, how it integrates into daily routines. Cookware is a category where performance is immediately clear. If it falls short, customers know quickly. The fact that people continued using it and advocating for it early on was a strong indication that it was delivering real, everyday value.

Question 4: You scaled heavily through DTC first, then moved into retail with partners like Target. Retail can explode a brand, but it can also quietly destroy margins and positioning. What’s the biggest thing founders misunderstand about retail distribution when they’re dreaming about “getting into Target”?

Jordan: A lot of founders view retail as a milestone, when in reality it is more of a scaling channel. Retail works best when there is already a strong foundation in place. Clear product differentiation, healthy margins, and proven demand all become even more important in that environment. For us, moving into retail was a natural extension of what we were already seeing in DTC. Strong repeat purchase, high customer satisfaction, and a clear point of view on the category gave us confidence that the brand would translate well in-store.

Question 5:  You’ve expanded beyond cookware into bakeware, storage, and more, but the brand still feels tight. A lot of consumer brands die from SKU bloat disguised as growth.What’s your internal rule for deciding when a new product is a true brand extension versus just something that will sell a few units but slowly dilute the brand?

Jordan: We try to keep it pretty simple. If we cannot make the product meaningfully better, whether that is materials, performance, or function, we do not do it. The second thing we look at is whether it fits into a system. We have always thought about the home as a connected experience, not just individual products. So anything new has to make that experience better .And then time is a big filter for us. Most of our products take years to develop. That forces us to be selective and not chase things just because they might sell in the short term.

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That wraps up our latest issue of The Perspective! But don't stray too far, because next time we've got some thrilling insights and a few surprises up our sleeve that you won't want to miss.

Keep an eye out, and until then, keep pushing boundaries and relentlessly pursuing higher conversion.

Shaun, Taylor & Cam