About

When founders Sam Celarek and Chase Denecke began exploring IVF clinics, they encountered a significant challenge: despite an abundance of data, there was no reliable way to compare clinics. This gap in the IVF journey inspired them to create Baby Steps, a platform dedicated to simplifying the complex world of fertility clinic data. By transforming intricate statistics into clear, actionable insights, Baby Steps empowers prospective parents to identify the best clinics for their unique needs.

Because every family begins with baby steps.

Sam's bio

Sam Celarek, Baby Steps' founder, brings a unique blend of nursing compassion and data-driven insights to fertility care. Following his mother's footsteps into healthcare and driven by a desire to make a meaningful impact, Sam earned his nursing degree from Saint Louis University. His years in critical care and as a hospital quality improvement analyst gave him an intimate understanding of the complexity of the medical environment and the power of data to enhance patient outcomes.

This experience sparked a passion for using data to improve lives on a larger scale, leading Sam to transition to data science where he has worked on COVID-19 forecasting and led data analysis for Nerevu Group. Now, at Baby Steps, Sam combines his medical background and data expertise to guide hopeful parents through their IVF journeys, transforming fertility data into family dreams.

Chase's bio

Chase Denecke is CEO of Bootstrap Bio, a gene therapy company focused on making treatments for polygenic diseases. He was previously the head of disease impacts research at Genomic Prediction where he first became aware of just how big of an opportunity there was to improve patient outcomes by recommending they go to better clinics.

Chase launched the very first version of Baby Steps IVF in early 2023 after parents began reaching out to him for recommendations regarding which IVF clinics in their area were best. At the time the company was nothing more than a Python model and a few dozen emails between parents. After receiving a grant to continue his work on the company, Chase brought Sam on board to lend his expertise to improving the underlying model and managing creation of a website.

After launching Bootstrap Bio from a viral blog post in December 2023, Chase realized he needed someone to take over management of Baby Steps IVF, and reached out to Sam to see if he was up for the task. Sam agreed and Baby Steps IVF was born!

Chase is still involved in Baby Steps IVF in an advisory role.