Katie Hotze, founder and CEO of Grocery Shopii, is dedicated to helping working parents prepare dinner.
Hotze—former digital marketer for a global consulting firm—understands the burden of cooking each night after a long day of work, especially after having her first child: “It was exhausting,” she writes, “This daily battle with dinner was a commonality among all of [my] ‘mom friends’…I knew there had to be a better way…”
Hotze accepted the challenge: she envisioned different ideas, tested them with friends and family, and soon began to “flesh out” her idea with a mentor, all while working full-time and pursuing an MBA from the College of William & Mary.
Then she was laid off from her job.
“I decided that was the day that I began to work for myself,” Hotze says, “I had the time and energy needed to figure it out. I immediately applied to the Ventureprise customer discovery startup incubator with UNC-Charlotte and began my journey to creating the ideal product/market fit.”
Grocery Shopii is a “digital meal planning application that allows grocery shoppers to manage their meal planning, online grocery shopping, and check-out in five minutes or less,” says Hotze. The consumer selects a recipe that the app delineates precise amounts of ingredients and then automatically places in a shopping cart.
After a year, Progressive Grocer named Grocery Shopii the industry’s Best Tech Application of 2019.
Since last May, Hotze and her team have used the resources at the Hurt Hub@Davidson, including the newfound Gig-Hub program. “The intense support system at the Hub was the greatest surprise,” Hotze writes, “through events, ad hoc introductions, and in-house mentorship…there is always someone available to answer a question, offer advice, or dial-up support.”
When asked what advice she would give to an aspiring entrepreneur, Hotze suggests “find a support system…don’t try to build a company on your own. Groups like LaunchLKN and Ventureprise exist so that people with an idea and a dream can dial-up the support systems needed to find their momentum.” She emphasizes “these programs are designed to support your exploration. No one expects you to have a fully fleshed idea when you walk through the doors to gain support.”
Her next steps? “We gained the attention of Mercatus, one of grocery’s largest eCommerce platforms headquartered in Toronto, who offered us a partnership agreement and immediately began introducing us to their stores,” Hotze says, “We now have a rich pipeline of grocers and a very busy schedule as we close out 2019.”
