Nick Nickitas, CEO and founder of Rosie, received a 2019 GenNext Award form Progressive Grocer. The organization selected 25 individuals from 175 nominees for the award in recognition of the energy and innovation these entrepreneurs bring to push food retail into the next era.
Rosie, a web and mobile shopping platform that learns your purchasing behavior for household goods and groceries, was the brainchild of Nickitas and fellow Cornell University alumni, Jon Ambrose and Michael Ryzewic. The team came up with the idea in September 2012 at Cornell’s Startup Weekend. Rosie was developed in Cornell’s eLab, a business accelerator for Cornell student entrepreneurs that offers start-up essentials such as office space, legal advice, and a network of Cornell alumni for mentorship.
Rosie is designed to save customers time and money by learning your shopping habits, notifying you when it’s time to restock common household items, and then offering price comparison on those items so you can order at the lowest price.
Nickitas and company created a best-in-class ecommerce service, offering a white-label product that an independent retailer can brand as its own. Unlike large corporate grocery retail chains that can invest in the exploration of ecommerce development, indies don’t typically have the financial resources to develop an ecommerce platform, and often don’t know where to start.
Rosie delivers that for them in a single affordable package including all of the training, equipment, software and success strategies that an independent retailer often can’t create on its own, and that can be installed and made operational in a short period.
Read more about the 2019 GenNext Award recipients.