Continuing with our series of Member Spotlights, we welcome Rosie Bailey from Nibble. Having spent 20 years as an investment banker, Rosie wanted a big change and teamed up with her now co-founder Jamie to form Nibble. Nibble aims to disrupt and transform e-commerce sales negotiations through personalised AI negotiations – they’re driven by innovation and the latest technologies and the company has gone on to win awards like Start-up Company of the Year at the 2021 Retail System Awards. Enjoy this Q&A where we get to know Rosie and Nibble better…
Tell us about yourself and Nibble
I was an investment banker for 20 years but made a big career switch and I’m now CEO and co-founder of Nibble. Nibble is the first of its kind to provide negotiation at scale for customers. Basically, it’s a negotiation chatbot.
Where did you get the idea for the company?
Jamie, my co-founder, was delighted by a real-life negotiation at a Turkish bazaar. He wanted a pair of sneakers, and the price he eventually paid worked for him, worked for the seller and they both left with a smile on their faces after a cheeky haggle.
What would you say your ‘lightbulb moment’ was for Nibble?
Realising what is missing in e-commerce was a win-win approach where the buyer feels like they have paid what they believe the value of a product is worth to them, and the seller still makes a profit from the sale, which is personalised and fun.
What are you most passionate about in business?
At Nibble we are building something truly innovative which might well transform e-commerce as we know it. Fixed price retailing is a relatively new concept when you look at the human history of trade!
Personally, I passionately believe diversity drives the creativity at Nibble. It would not be possible without very different people working together; natural language experts, mathematicians, data scientists, AI developers, copywriters… and not to mention an encyclopedic knowledge of witty one-liners.
What/who inspired you to start your company?
I was inspired by the challenge to do something completely new. After being an investment banker for 20 years, working for huge multinational companies, pivoting into tech and becoming an entrepreneur was not part of the plan but many of the best things never are!
After working in finance for so long, having had three kids and a somewhat frenetic lifestyle (which I mostly enjoyed to be honest) I took a pause and spent a year at London Business School. The chance to reflect on what you are, and to rebuild your own self-confidence was a perfect opportunity for a fresh start.
What’s the best advice anyone has ever given you?
Look at what’s in front of you and DO THAT REALLY WELL because it can open doors to the opportunities that you really want for the future.
It effectively got me into Nibble in the first place: Jamie had created the concept and asked my advice. I took some time and thought about the proposition in detail. I offered a few intros to my network and was soon selling it passionately to everyone I knew. The project snowballed into a roadshow of meetings and we won our first customers just from the presentation, so it was a no-brainer to partner together to build Nibble for real.
Who do you most admire and why?
For the last nine years I have been a passionate supporter of STEM Learning, the UK’s largest charitable organisation supporting teachers of science and maths, in every school in the UK and beyond. Did you have a teacher who really inspired you? Most people say yes! Mine was Mrs Bazire in primary school… she even came to my wedding!
