Nick Nickitas of Instacart describes today’s evolving grocery shopping experience. He encourages an experience driven by technology that enables personalization while supporting local, independent grocers.
Nick Nickitas, GM, Local Independent Grocery at Instacart, describes today’s evolving grocery shopping experience. He encourages an experience driven by technology that enables personalization while supporting local, independent grocers. Our hosts and Nick discuss innovation and ethics in technology, all while enhancing and streamlining the grocery shopping experience.
Instacart is the leading grocery technology company in North America, and works with grocers and retailers to transform how people shop. The company partners with more than 1,800 national, regional, and local retail banners to facilitate online shopping, delivery and pickup services from more than 100,000 stores across North America on the Instacart Marketplace.
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“ What makes it great for these grocery stores is they don't have the time or the energy to look at a lot of different vendors and try to figure out how these technologies are gonna work seamlessly together. And so Instacart has created this platform that makes it easy for retailers to be able to handle each part of how they build their digital business. And I think like, bringing the in-store environment to life has been a huge priority for us.”
“Technology, I think, can be extremely productive. But I think we also know that it is destructive, right? There is a certain creative destruction that comes from technology, but I think if we are doing our jobs the right way, if we're doing good, technology can really unlock a tremendous amount of equality, and access to food in ways that maybe are not currently well served by our existing food supply chain.”
“ One of the things that's been super delighting is we've got customers who have told us that they are shopping at the store because it has Caper Carts or they're shopping online from this retailer because of how great the retailer's online experience is. And when you hear that, it's like, great, I'm, I'm making an impact in the world. This is something that people really want and encourages you to go deeper and figure out what are more problems that we can do to solve for the customer.”
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00:25 - In the News
06:25 - Nick’s take on AI
09:54 - Nick’s experience
12:20 - Embracing tech in new ways
25:54 - The ethics of influencing
27:39 - Rapid fire
34:13 - Final takeaways
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More about Accruent
[00:00:00] Eric: Hello, and welcome to Beyond Built. I'm Eric Cook, Tech Solutions Strategist at Accruent.
[00:00:04] Kristi: Flores, CMO at Accruent and SVP of Partners.
[00:00:09] eric: On today's episode, we'll be talking with Nick Nickitas, General Manager of local independent grocery at Instacart. Nick, it's great to have you here.
[00:00:17] Nick: Good to be here. Thanks, Kristi and Eric.
[00:00:19] eric: All right, listeners and viewers, we like to start every episode with a segment we call in the news. Kristi today our in the news segment is all about a topic that's been making headlines lately, AI and grocery. Are you excited to talk about it?
[00:00:33] Kristi: I am excited.
[00:00:34]
[00:00:34] Kristi: I. Okay, good. So for all of you listening, we're discussing a recent Forbes article by Jill Standish that explores how AI is reshaping the grocery industry.
[00:00:43] eric: The piece argues that we're at a critical inflection point where artificial intelligence is fundamentally changing how people shop, how businesses operate, and how employees work. That's no news to us. Of course, according to the National Retail Federation, AI agent X is their top priority for retail in 2025.
[00:01:01] The article outlines five key strategies grocers should adopt, focusing on value across the entire business building secure digital infrastructure, rethinking talent and workflows, implementing responsible AI practices and embracing continuous change. With grocery retailers typically operating on slim margins in highly competitive markets, those who move quickly to adopt technologies may gain significant advantages over their competitors who lag behind.
[00:01:26] It's linked in the show notes below. I love this article because it's an inflection point where it's not too scholarly. A lot of times we read these AI articles and they're very lofty about what they're trying to achieve, but this is very much about what happens on the ground in businesses. As you read this article, was there something specific that stood out to you that you thought was particularly interesting?
[00:01:52] Kristi: Yeah. You know, I think the topic generally is really exciting. We're so happy to have Nick on this podcast with us 'cause this is really his sweet spot. So much background and experience. He's truly an entrepreneur in this space. But when I look at it. I think about these kind of two perspectives.
[00:02:10] One, being a consumer, which I definitely, I sit in that role. And then I think about the grocers who are, oftentimes they're our customers and I think about some of the challenges that they're faced. And at the end of the day, I am incredibly excited about technology and how it's going to really help grocery industry, which has largely been kind of unchanged.
[00:02:32] I think it's really at an inflection point. What stood out to me from my own perspective, outside of like Instacart and some of these other kind of newer advancements, it's been largely unchanged. So I see it as a real inflection point for change and where technology can drive a big impact. I was thinking about last week, I was on a call with one of our, um, potential customers, prospective customers, and they were pushing us on how we're using AI in our own software that could really enable them. And I see that conversation happening more and more. So I see grocers really, really hungry for this.
[00:03:11] And I also see as a consumer, I'm ready for some change.
[00:03:15] eric: I think that's an excellent point and I think that one of the things that I think about when we think about how this change happens is how we also do it with ethical considerations. I. Because oftentimes what happens, and I know we'll talk about this a bit later, but oftentimes what happens is the smaller grocery stores are gonna be left out of the conversation if they don't have tools they can adopt, or people who can help them adopt tools because the large, uh, vendors like the Big W, Albertsons or any of those vendors are gonna have an advantage just because of the size of their companies.
[00:03:47] Kristi: That's right. That's right.
[00:03:50] eric: So let me ask you this one more, one other question that I think might be interesting. So when you think about age Agent X, which is really, you know, having agents go do things for us, and this article, do you have a point of view on what that's going to allow us to achieve?
[00:04:05] 'cause I know that we've talked before about things like shopping preferences, health preferences and things like that. What do you think that's gonna lead to ultimately?
[00:04:13] Kristi: Oh gosh. I think there's so many things it can lead to. And we really haven't addressed so much of the consumer experience and even how we can help grocers improve their backend. But I think from a shopper experience first, it's just the, the shopping process can be overwhelming. My husband and I, we spend hours every week. Shopping for the family. And I think some of our pain points around, you know, juggling dietary needs, trying to plan for healthy meals, trying to stay on budget, it can be stressful. So, you know, as I think about AI and how we use it at Accruent, and then just how I've seen it being applied in the world. I think about personalized suggestions, meal planning tools, budget tracking, helping to reduce the amount of time we spend.
[00:04:59] So just so many things and I, I know there are even many more than I'm not even considering, but those are just some of the pain points I see from a, a consumer standpoint. And then from the grocer side, I, I hear about some of the, the pain points of grocers, just the intelligence opportunity on empowering behind the scenes work.
[00:05:19] So at Accruent we connect to sensors, we help cut down on spoilage, predictive maintenance, all those things I, I see incredibly powerful and we've got even more opportunity to help grocers, especially as the cost of goods is one of their biggest expenses. Um. But then I also think about, you know, optimizing staff and inventory, adjusting to weather and supply chains. The list of pressure for grocers is, is high. And I just think about all the different ways we can use technology as just is endless and there's a lot of opportunity I.
[00:05:53] eric: I love that. I love that. And I think that that's exactly where we need to be going. It's oftentimes we have all this technology at our fingertips, but we don't necessarily apply it in a way that's going to actually make things better for people. And, and I, I appreciate that. I think this is a good point for us to bring our guest in.
[00:06:10] Nick, welcome to the show. We're gonna get into your background in, in a minute, but first I wanna get your take on our in the news segment. How do you think that artificial intelligence, or at least what's available today, can help shape the shopping experience for people?
[00:06:26] Nick: I mean, look, I think in a word I would say personalization. I think that the trend over the last two decades that has been largely driven by the shift from brick and mortar to e-commerce is we've gone from a world where the store format is one size fits all to an experience where we expect things to be highly personalized.
[00:06:45] We want our search results to be personalized. We, when we're browsing for streaming content, we want that selection to be personalized when we're looking for music or books, but we don't get that experience today. In the in-store environment, traditionally, you know, if you think of the way grocery stores were really built over decades, the personalization model was kind of like, cheers.
[00:07:05] You know, you go in and everybody knows your name and, and that's like the model that most grocers use. They know their communities really well. They're one of the top employers in their areas. They're supporting all these variety of causes from the PTA. To the local baseball team. The thing is that millennials and the next generation that is coming up and becoming the primary shopper in these stores, they don't want to be talked to.
[00:07:27] They wanna have an experience where it is automatically personalized for their needs, but doesn't require them to engage with the store. And so that put these retailers that have basically been competing on service for many, many decades in this, as Kristi put it in an inflection point. And so what AI allows us to do is to really personalize that, that guest experience in a multiple of different ways, whether they're shopping online and in store, we can make sure that the results that they see are tailored for their needs. I mean, I think one of the biggest areas where we're innovating on the in-store experiences around our caper carts, which basically take the normal shopping trip and now has, has personalized discounts.
[00:08:04] Personalized routing around the store, the ability for that customer to take their shopping list and have it right at their fingertips on the cart to create an easy, seamless experience. And when you see that, like on a lot of these caper carts, 40% of shoppers using these carts are clipping coupons.
[00:08:17] It means that these highly personalized offers that we're presenting are actually meaningful and impacting the customer. That's a coupon clip rate that's much, much higher than what traditional grocers see. That's a huge opportunity. You also see it in terms of the way that we're doing search now, right?
[00:08:31] Search used to be, you know, searching for an item, cereal, or I'm searching for ground beef. Now you can do, you know, I, I need taco night for five, and, and Instacart will present the exact right items that you need to complete that. And maybe the evolution in grocery looks something like this. The last 10 years was really about logistics.
[00:08:49] How do we get the items from the store to your door the next 10 years is how do we make the, the procurement process that decision making that Kristi mentioned around, you know, solving what's for dinner planning, planning events. How do we make that process easier? And I think AI, through both the Genix and the other technology we're playing with really, really powers that.
[00:09:10] eric: I think that's great. It put an image in my mind, when you were saying that we could put together, you know, a, a simple search in natural language and bring you the ingredients and all, I was thinking about that, that terrible accident that happened last year. And I just say, uh, just make sure there's no glue in the pizza. let's talk about your role a little bit. Can you sort of let us know how you got to where you are today? What sort of led you to Instacart? I.
[00:09:36] Nick: Yeah, sure. So I, I've spent my entire career working in startups, taking products from zero to one, building a company from nothing to, to millions in revenue and more about. 12 years ago, I started a company with my best friend from kindergarten in my graduate school dorm room called Rosie. Rosie was there to really level the playing field so that local independent grocers could compete with national chains and online marketplaces in e-commerce.
[00:10:01] You know, we were taking stores that had never sold a product online and taking them and getting them up and running and, and what we were talking to these grocers about, I mean, they could see the trend from bookstores to music stores. They've seen large retailers be able to sell products online, but none of them were doing it.
[00:10:17] I mean, you saw a lot of online grocery shopping on the coast, but in secondary and tertiary markets across the, it just wasn't available. And so when we talked to grocery stores, they all said the same thing, Nick, it's way too difficult and it's way too expensive. We're priced out in the market. We won't be able to do it.
[00:10:34] And so our thesis behind Rosie was if we could make it easy and affordable. Would the retailers do it? And they said yes. And so over a, a 10 year journey, we grew from a few grocery stores in upstate New York to hundreds of retailers across the country. Went through four different financing rounds.
[00:10:49] Instacart acquired us in September of 22, and now I lead Instacart's local, independent grocery team serving several thousand retailer rooftops across the country so that they can better support their communities and transform to the store of the future.
[00:11:02] eric: That's amazing. It's, is that technology going worldwide at any point?
[00:11:07] Nick: Yeah, I mean, so, so basically what we've done is, our mandate is to take the best of breed tech that Instacart has provided to Costco, Publix, Wegmans, and many of the other top retailers in the country, and make that. Easily and easy and affordable to the independent grocer. So it's really kind of like an arm of the Rebels, David versus Goliath story.
[00:11:25] It's, it's like, how do we help Main Street tech up and get to that next stage? And there's nothing cool than working with these multi-generational family owned businesses, many of whom have been in place for 75, a hundred plus years, and you're helping maybe the third generation, bring this technology to their stores and take them to the next level.
[00:11:42] Kristi: Tell us something, maybe a little bit about these, the grocers that you're spending time with. And I love just the heritage and just the deep experience that these grocers have. Maybe give us a little bit of perspective, something that might surprise us around how they're thinking about technology and, and embracing it.
[00:12:01] Nick: I mean, well first off, like when you think about the Independent Grocers, these are like the true entrepreneurs of the country, right? These are folks that are going to work every day. These independent retailers are typically one of the key ways that new products enter our food system.
[00:12:14] Example, when you're a new brand, an emerging brand, it's really hard for you to go immediately and work with a national chain. You typically will work with a number of independents in your area, so you get kind of unique local flavor and selection, kinda hyper, locally targeted. You know, these independents have a larger orientation towards fresh, deli bakery prepared foods, so they're not often just, you know, a larger supplier of, of products for their communities. There, there could be the towns caterer, florists, wedding planner. They're also some of the largest employers in the towns and communities they serve.
[00:12:48] They're family owned businesses, which I mentioned before. So in many cases you're dealing with the parents and then the kids are coming up in the business and getting ready to take it over and drive it over, and, and then sometimes the grandparents are, are part of it as board members of their cooperatives or their wholesalers.
[00:13:04] So that, that's a really interesting element as well. I think in many cases, you know, these grocers are very, very strong on operations. That's their superpower. Imagine running a store where you've got all these different disciplines you need to master, finance, marketing, strategy, procurement, merchandising, and at the end of the day, you're on one to 2% margins.
[00:13:22] You gotta be really, really efficient to be able to turn that wheel and generate a profit year after year, no matter what's going on in the economy. So, so we have a really interesting opportunity to partner with these stores and take all this really great tech. Infuse it into this hyper-local environment that they've created to better delight their customers.
[00:13:41] And really it's taking the strengths of both parties. They know their customers and their market better than anyone. We provide the technology that powers the grocery industry, and it just is a, it's a perfect match.
[00:13:51] Kristi: Amazing. Alright, Nick, let's talk about Instacart's broader role at re-imagining grocery shopping experience and putting the customer first. Can you walk us through that journey?
[00:14:03] Nick: I think the way to, to look at Instacart as it enters this, this chapter is we're, we're more than just a marketplace. We're really a retail enablement company. When you look at the broad suite of solutions that Instacart provides, it, it's not just e-commerce, it's also deli ordering and catering with our food storm platform.
[00:14:19] It's ever site which represents price optimization to our customers. It's caper, our AI powered shopping carts, and all the other in-store activities that, that our connected stores offering is able to power. And so that's really been the major shift if you've been tracking Instacart's trajectory over the last decade plus as we've moved out of just being marketplace into handling kind of all these different solutions for the grocer.
[00:14:40] And what's, makes it great for these grocery stores is they don't have the time or the energy to look at a lot of different vendors and try to figure out how these technologies are gonna work seamlessly together. And so Instacart has created this platform that makes it easy for retailers to be able to handle each part of, of how they build their, their digital business.
[00:14:56] And I think like, bringing the in-store environment to life has been a huge priority for us. You've probably seen the news about our connected stores offering, at the heart of it is Caper, our AI powered shopping carts. You know, these, these shopping carts basically are helping our partners modernize the shopping spirits.
[00:15:12] I mean, you know, a couple things that I think about with caper, you know, one is like the, the net promoter score from customers is, is 70, right? Which is among the most beloved brands in the world. And, and, and just for a moment, if you think about it, every single foot piece of the, of the, the, the in-store footprint has evolved over the last three to four decades.
[00:15:33] Everything has been transformed and optimized to drive loyalty and larger baskets. But what's one thing that's never changed through that period? Shopping carts. It's the same shopping cart that our grandparents used in these stores. It has not changed to this period. And so caper has the ability to basically, you know, transform the way people shop in stores by using this cart, which has a, a, a payment, terminal on it, as well as a, a screen where they can see coupons.
[00:15:57] You know, we've been able to drive our footprint to over 60 cities in three countries. You know, we've got Aldi, Kohls, Kroger, Schnucks, Wakefern, and a ton of. Regional independent grocery stores like, like Geisler's, uh, which was the IGA retailer of the Year that have used these carts. And so, they're using these, uh, a lot in the stores.
[00:16:17] It's, it's driving basket size and basket usage as well. And also when you have these carts, you can basically drive advertising on the carts as well, right? So if a customer's coming down the cereal aisle, the card will know that it's on the cereal aisle and show an ad for, for a cereal or, and as an example, if you put, you know, cough drops and, and Advil in the cart or Tylenol, we can show an ad for soup.
[00:16:39] And so really like interesting ways to use AI and visual learning to, to influence shopper behavior and ultimately help them build their baskets. So I, I think that if you had asked folks, would Instacart really be focusing on in-store, I. That's not really probably what they would've originally thought, but that's the way the company has evolved because what our retailers are really looking for is a partner that can help them across every single aspect of the customer's experience, whether they're online or in store.
[00:17:06] eric: It's interesting to me that, that you have been able to become so ubiquitous across the United States when it comes to grocery, right. Starting with just the personal shopping experience and going on from there. I moved to the uk, so I live in the uk. I've lived here seven years now.
[00:17:23] And one of the things that shocked me is that all of the retailers here, do their own thing. Right.
[00:17:28] Nick: Hmm.
[00:17:29] eric: Sainsbury's has its own in-store shoppers who do home delivery. Tesco has their own co-op, has their own right. There's no unified experience, uh, providing a technology platform like yours.
[00:17:41] What are some of the things that you guys are planning, and maybe you can't talk about it, but what are you planning about, uh, making this more universally available to other markets?
[00:17:53] Nick: Yeah, so I, I can't probably talk a lot about it, but I can say I think it's clear that Instacart has had in international ambitions for a long time, right? You've seen it in our acquisition of Food Storm, which is an Australia based company. You see it with the, uh, caper carts being available at Aldi.
[00:18:08] In Europe, in Kohl's, in Australia. You know, we continue to, to, to have international ambitions. But I think the interesting thing you're talking about, Eric, around like how different markets have evolved with regards to their, their embracing of grocery tech. I mean the UK is a very interesting market.
[00:18:23] You've got large retailers. A relatively small and densely packed area. So the economics and profitability of online shopping look very different in the UK than a place like the United States, where you've got very spread out population with some dense hubs that embraced online shopping early.
[00:18:39] And then kind of a, a, a torso and tail of, of local independent grocers and other places of the country where, you know, that had to get built out over time. I think another interesting thing too is if you look at the international side, there are some markets, particularly Asia, where you know, these grocery stores, when they've been built, they were built with e-commerce or kind of a digital online.
[00:18:59] Instore experience from inception, whereas in the States, you know, very different model. I, you know, I would argue in some places we're probably over stored and, and underinvested in technology in the, in the US versus some other markets. So, you know, I think Instacart has an interesting role to play. I. You know, one of the things that's, that's, you know, when you look at Instacart, tons of retailers that use the platform, right?
[00:19:21] And so that, that provides you a really interesting opportunity where, you know, tens of thousands of retailers using Instacart available in 98% of US households. 600,000 contractors. So we have a very kind of wide view of the North American grocery landscape and we can see what's working for different retailers and ultimately, you know, create technology where the rising tide lifts all boats, where retailers of all sizes can benefits from these tools in tech.
[00:19:45] And ultimately, it's not just about our retailers, it's how we help advertisers, you know, better and more effectively sell and support consumers.
[00:19:52] eric: I, I love that. And I just wanna follow up with something else that was said. When we think about customer behavior and how we wanna drive that, you were talking about how you can present coupons and how you can use other types of technology, even when the, in the online experience to figure out what it is that people want.
[00:20:08] How do you balance the ethics of influencing someone toward a, a decision? Do you guys actually think about how that decision gets made by a person and how they decide what's good for them, or is that not, not enter into it.
[00:20:23] Nick: You've brought up this really, we could probably just do a podcast on the ethics of grocery, right? That, that would be a fascinating way to unpack this industry, right? Because I think, you know, if you dimensionalize this, Eric, there's a number of different ways to think about, you know, ethic, ethics in grocery, right? First there's sourcing and procurement. Are we properly labeling, maintaining cold chain integrity? What is the source of the food, the story behind it, but also are we providing a safe experience for customers? There's a D dimension around fast, easy access to fresh local food. You know, if you think about it, there used to be corner stores that were providing fresh meat, fresh deli in nearly every part of the country. But through population shifts and other economic dynamics, there are food deserts, which continues to be a rising problem in areas of the United States. And so solutions like Instacart can be really valuable for those two categories because, you know, we have to collect a lot of that data upfront to provide information to the customer and retailer about what's available.
[00:21:14] We also, you know, through our delivery drivers, which are driving orders within 60 minutes around the store, we're providing an an alleviating some of the pressure from these areas. I think in other areas, like when you think about, uh, is this a service that's really only for, uh, wealthy elite that are using it for convenience or is it really a service for everyone?
[00:21:33] And Instacart has been one of the largest drivers of Snap, EBT Equality. We work directly with the USDA and our partners with the National Grocers Association to help more and more stores offer online EBT access. Think about that. From an EBT standpoint, a lot of the people that take it, not, not all, but some of the people who take advantage of EBT benefits, you know, maybe, uh, uh, have mobility impairment issues.
[00:21:54] And so a service like Instacart can really open up quality of life. I think another interesting angle from the ethics standpoint, and, and this is something that shocked me as an entrepreneur, when we offered our, our technology to customers, we had a, a, a, a number of shoppers who were visually impaired.
[00:22:09] Who found online grocery shopping to be a huge benefit from a quality of life standpoint. Because, you know, in the in-store environment, it's not really built for a visually impaired shopper, but using screen reader tools and, and other, uh, accessibility guidelines, you can create an online grocery experience that provides, you know, equality, equanimity, a quality of life to, to shoppers.
[00:22:31] And so, inherent in your question is this idea that, you know, technology I think can be extremely productive. But I think we also know that it is destructive, right? There is a certain creative destruction that comes from technology, but I think as, as if we are doing our jobs the right way, if we're doing good, uh, technology can really unlock a tremendous amount of, uh, of, of equality and, and access to food in ways that maybe are not currently well served by our existing food supply chain.
[00:23:00] eric: Love that. Love that.
[00:23:01] Kristi: Amazing. I know we could have an entire podcast on that topic.
[00:23:05] Nick: Invite me back for the ethics of grocery. You can clearly see I'm very passionate about it. After spending, you know, a decade plus in this space, talking to some of the retailers that are on the front lines of this every single day.
[00:23:15] eric: Christy, do you think it's possible we found our first recurring guest?
[00:23:18] Kristi: Yes Nick, let's maybe dive into some of the specific innovations. I know we talked a little bit about caper arts, but tell us kind of the strategy behind that and how it's being received. You mentioned the NPS score of 70 plus, which is incredible, but so it sounds like it's hitting pain points, but let's talk a little more about it.
[00:23:37] Nick: Yeah, so I, I think right now a lot of the innovation being done at Instacart focuses around affordability, right? We, we know that customers right now are under a lot of pressure filling that basket. You know, you have customers that are putting up social media posts talking about how the same a hundred dollars or the same $50 that they send in the store is now buying less items. And, and that puts pressure on the household. And so I think there's a few ways that Instacart is, is trying to do that. One is we've, we've lowered our minimum basket size, uh, to make it easier for customers when they're doing stock up trips to be able to purchase it.
[00:24:08] That's a big deal. It, it makes Instacart more accessible. We've done more to kind of continue to drive snap adoption across the space. When you look at Instacart across all of our products, even our, for our online shopping tools like, like Marketplace or Storefront Pro, you're gonna see more coupon access loyalty usage.
[00:24:26] You know, we've been working very closely with our, our, our retailer partners to make sure that when customers are online, it's easy for them to see access. To earn points, redeem them so that they're actually getting the full value of all the merchandising and marketing that's going through that supply chain.
[00:24:41] We also are, are, are funding coupons ourselves, you know, for shoppers that are on caper, Instacart does caper exclusive coupons where we're working either through Instacart or our brand partners to provide opportunities for customers to reduce their costs. So, so a lot of areas I think have been around personalization. Affordability. I think the other side of it is, is as we talked about earlier on personalization. So if you think about AI and our, our CEO, Fidji sits on the board of Open Ai and she's brought a tremendous AI first focus to everything we do, and, and I think that that focus is pervasive in almost all of our tech in terms of how we use AI to make it easier for the guests to find the items they want.
[00:25:21] To quickly identify what's safe for their families to eat. Uh, but also we use it in our, we, we use it in our work every single day of the company as a way to unleash the productivity of our team.
[00:25:32] eric: Excellent. And, uh, you know, it's something that we do as well, right? It's something that we, we've adopted across the board and and sometimes we have great success with it, and other times we have challenges and we fix things. And I think that's one of the best things about being able to adopt to new technology to solve problems is the bandwidth that it gives us. A lot of people were worried for a long time about AI replacing people, but what we've found is it just, it unleashes their creativity and allows them to do more with, uh, with the time they have.
[00:26:01] Nick: I think the concern I always have is like, are we building technology for technology's sake or is it actually solving a customer problem and how do you know, right? We talk about having that like hair on fire problem. Is it really, really, meaningful? And, and one of the things that's been like super delighting is we've got customers who have told us that they, they are shopping at the store because it has Caper Carts or they're shopping online from this retailer because Of how great the retailer's online experience is.
[00:26:24] And when you hear that, it's like, great, I'm, I'm making an impact in the world. This is something that people really want and encourages you to go deeper and figure out what are more problems that we can do to solve for the customer.
[00:26:34] eric: That's amazing. And that sort of innovation is exactly why this podcast exists, right? That's the sort of things that we're trying to expose. So, I'm really happy with that. We, we were able to have a chat with you today. So, we're gonna do a rapid fire question segment that we always do with all of our guests. So the first thing I wanna ask you is what is your favorite innovation or technology in the world, and why
[00:26:56] Nick: Ooh, what is my favorite innovation like ever? I, I'm gonna say Wikipedia. Holy cow. Wikipedia's amazing. Do you remember the world before Wikipedia when you wanted to learn something, like you had to go to a library and the library probably had like a limited amount of the information you wanted. I remember with great excitement when my parents gave me Microsoft and Carta on like 10 CDs one year and, and like it still didn't have all the stuff that you wanted to look up.
[00:27:24] And so Wikipedia is just, it's, it's incredible that every single human being has access to the entire body of, of knowledge on it, pretty much any subject area. And so I, I use Wikipedia all the time. It's probably my most treasured, my most treasure, probably second would be YouTube how to videos of how to fix things.
[00:27:41] The fact that you can find just a random person who has fixed this exact thing with great detail on how to do it is like, it, it's transformational in terms of our ability to, to pass down knowledge from, from one generation to the next.
[00:27:52] eric: love that. I love that. Do you actually ever contribute to Wikipedia?
[00:27:56] Nick: I haven't, I'm just a avid, avid voracious appetite consumer, but I haven't contributed yet, and so I guess here's their chance to give a shout out to everybody who's improving Wikipedia each and every day for the rest of us to benefit from it.
[00:28:07] eric: Yeah. And another shout out is that when they put up that donate button, if you can afford it, do it. It's great. It's a great service. Let's flip the coin. What is one innovation or technology that you would just wish would go away?
[00:28:20] Nick: Okay, so I have strong, strong convictions on this. Anything that limits the ability of someone to repair something. I think like right to repair laws are extremely important. Part of the way we show love is maintaining things. I. You know, you look at great buildings, beautiful parks, old cars. We just keep on building and repairing and, and I, I don't wanna lose that. So anything that's limiting right to repair, uh, subscription paying subscriptions for features. I think that's also just like a terrible thing. I think
[00:28:49] we kind of push away the concept of ownership into this rental based subscription model. It, it takes away from people really caring for the things around us and investing in it. So I would say that those are probably, maybe a dark timeline that I'd wanna stay away from.
[00:29:02] eric: Great. Love that. So what is the number one thing that you think that organizations are not doing today that they should be?
[00:29:11] Nick: Getting super tight on career path development for people. I think that like there's something that's, that's changing. You know, we, we talk about the hustle and grind culture where you've got people that come into an org. We don't expect people to spend their life at a company the way that they used to.
[00:29:27] And, and so maybe there's become a little bit more of a transactional relationship between the employee and the employer. And we don't necessarily thinking about, think about finding and developing talent in unexpected places. You know, Kristi, Eric, we're all on this call because there were folks that invested in us.
[00:29:44] Mentors, coaches, colleagues that, that saw us at a critical point in career and said, you know, I really wanna hold the door open for that person. I wanna encourage what I see inside them. And I think that what motivates someone at the beginning of their career is very different than what motivates them in their thirties and their forties and their fifties.
[00:30:01] And yet we're so busy, uh, all the time chasing growth, chasing that next. Technological inflection point that sometimes we just lose sight of the, there's a, there's a very human aspect of wanting to be long, wanting to grow, wanting to perfect and hone someone's craft. And, uh, I don't think we do enough of it.
[00:30:21] I hope that we can do more of it. And maybe, maybe technology is something that can enhance that, but, uh, I, I think that people in a certain point, uh, that that's what they crave more than, more than compensation and titles. It's, it's self-actualization and that, uh, because we spend so much time at work, arguably in some cases more time than we spend with our own families, I do think work plays a role in that. And I hope to see more of it.
[00:30:46] eric: I love that. That's really inspiring. The last question I have for you is, what is one thing that we wouldn't know about you by looking at your LinkedIn profile?
[00:30:56] Nick: Ooh. One thing you wouldn't know about me from looking at my LinkedIn profile, you know, I'd say I love the outdoors. We spent this entire podcast talking about tech, and I can get really deep on all these different elements like living on the bleeding and cutting edge of, of technology for the, for my entire career.
[00:31:11] But man, I love the outdoors. There's just something that's, that's wonderful when you can walk away from a computer and. And, and go for a hike or camp outdoors. Go fishing, go on the water be with your friends and family. You know, I feel like that was so much a part of the, the experience growing up and, and what's changed is really, you know, having phones with us all the time.
[00:31:31] Right. That has really transformed because now we're always connected. There's always an opportunity for you to get in touch with someone. But yeah, any chance that I get to disconnect. Reconnect with nature, you'd never pick that up from my LinkedIn profile. But anytime you want to go in the outdoors, I'm your guy.
[00:31:44] eric: You're talking to the wrong guy. Unfortunately for that, I, I'm, I am, I am going to a remote mountain jungle next week and I am taking a Starlink Mini with me.
[00:31:55] Nick: Wow. The commitment. The commitment, strong.
[00:31:58] eric: So I also wanna just before we end, one thing I realized is that I've never asked you that question. Kristi. What is something that we wouldn't know about you by looking at your LinkedIn profile?
[00:32:09] Kristi: Well, it's similar to Nick. We love to spend time outdoors. We actually have a 30 foot Airstream camper, and so we hit the road a lot.
[00:32:17] It's been the best investment we've ever had because it gets us to be outside and we're not home thinking about all the different obligations we have. And anytime you can be outside to Nick's point, just doing things to connect with people and nature is, is amazing. So
[00:32:33] eric: I love that.
[00:32:34] Kristi: About 30, 30 nights a year out camping,
[00:32:37] Nick: Amazing. I love that, Kristi.
[00:32:39] Kristi: Yeah.
[00:32:40] eric: Maybe an Airstreams coming to a neighborhood near you, Nick.
[00:32:44] Nick: Yeah.
[00:32:44] Kristi: It, it makes camping a little bit easier for
[00:32:46] Nick: Yeah, for sure.
[00:32:47] eric: All right. Well thank you Nick, so much for, uh, being on the show today. We really appreciate it. I can't say how much fun I've had today. It's just incredible. Thank you again.
[00:32:56] Nick: This has been a blast. Thank you so much guys. Appreciate the invite.
[00:32:59] music break
[00:33:00] eric: So Kristi, thinking about the conversation today what were your main takeaways? What are the things that are gonna live with you going forward?
[00:33:09] Kristi: Well first Nick, I think just your depth of, you know, and passion for the industry is like really special. I feel honored that we got to spend time with you and how you think about, and how you're kind of empowering not just grocers, but these independent grocers. And so just getting some insights into, into that, the one to 2% margin you mentioned, and just how efficient and thoughtful entrepreneurs they are.
[00:33:31] So. I think differently about that piece of it. I think this how much is going on at Instacart and the piece about enabling the retailer and just that shift and all the things that are happening, um, within Instacart to go drive that. And even more the focus that's actually happening within that brick and mortar, that store, was really, I think, thought provoking. And it gave me even different perspective on how we think about the software at Accruent and how we can help.
[00:34:00] eric: It's funny that you say that. I was thinking almost the, the exact same lines. And what I was trying to connect in my mind was how we often work with grocers on the backend, you know, on the things that they're doing on their operational side. Getting a better understanding of how things work on the front end side of that and how technology providers like Instacart can provide services that are not only critical to grocers, but are actually critical to the people using the service as well.
[00:34:29] Well, I never even thought about the fact that uh, you guys were helping integrate SNAP and other critical services that people need, especially if they're disconnected, if they have disabilities and things like that. So for me, that was a real, eye-opener. And I think that it's really great that there are technologies out there where.
[00:34:49] People can be successful, where companies can make money for their shareholders, but they can also do good for people. And that I find really incredible.
[00:34:59] Thank you again to our guest today, Nick Nickitas and of course to our sponsor, Accruent. You can learn more at www.accruent.com. Thanks and bye.