Episode Details

We're back with another insightful episode recorded at last month's NRF "Big Show." This time our focus is on how entrepreneurs bring their ideas to market, secure venture capital funding, and fight through all the challenges to create a sustainable, remarkable business.

We're fortunate to have two great female founders join us to share their wisdom. Michelle Bacharach heads up FindMine, the AI powered company that helps consumers and brands find their best looks. Katie Hotze founded and leads Grocery Shopii, an innovative technology platform that powers digital meal planning. In a wide ranging discussion we learn about the inspiration for their companies, how they've funded and scaled them, and explore some of the unique challenges faced by founders from under-represented communities. 

But first we give our perspectives on the most remarkable retail news of the week, with a fairly deep dive into Amazon's concerning quarterly earnings report. We also give our quick takes on news about Sam's Club's expansion plans, a very strong US jobs report, Tom Kingsbury being named "permanent" CEO at Kohl's, Ryan Cohen's setting his activist sights on Nordstrom, Bed, Bath & Beyond's looming bankruptcy filing, and how Rent the Runway has kicked the debt can down the road. 

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We're headed to Las Vegas in March for another edition of Shoptalk. Retailers and brands can get a Shoptalk ticket for a reduced rate of just $1950 rate here using our special discount code RBREMARK1950.

About Michelle

Michelle is CEO and Co-Founder of FINDMINE, an award winning software platform that uses machine learning to scale product curation for the world's top retailers. As a product and strategy expert, Michelle is experienced in growing companies by launching software, apps and websites to millions of people, putting together joint ventures, and conceiving of new products. Michelle has shared her expertise with thousands of leaders in retail and technology as a speaker at SXSW, the National Retail Federations' Retail’s Big Show and Shop.org, Intel's Shift, Women in Machine Learning and Data Science, and many others.  

About Katie

Named a Top 10 Women in Grocery Tech by RIS, Katie Hotze is an innovative leader and entrepreneur with over two decades of experience in digital marketing, data analytics and business strategy. 

Katie is the founder and CEO of Grocery Shopii, a Charlotte-based startup that solves a $550B problem in the CPG & Retail industry by reducing cart abandonment with machine learning. Grocery Shopii uses recipes as a recommendation engine to expedite online grocery shopping inside the shopping journey.

Prior to Grocery Shopii, Katie spent 20 years in management and technology consulting where she led global marketing teams for Mercer, the world’s largest HR consultancy, and BearingPoint. 

She holds an M.B.A. and Business Analytics certification from William & Mary, and a B.S. in Marketing from Virginia Commonwealth University. 

In 2018, Katie was a Direct Marketing News (DMN) 40-Under-40 Award Recipient. She’s also been awarded the Top Women in Grocery honor by Progressive Grocer. Today, she is a regular speaker on both digital and social media topics at conferences in the marketing and grocery retail spaces.

A resident of Charlotte, N.C., Katie is a graduate of UNC-Charlotte’s Ventureprise entrepreneurial program and is an active participant in the city’s tech community.

About Us

Steve Dennis is an advisor, keynote speaker and author on strategic growth and business innovation. You can learn mo