Founder Friday: David Roger, Michael Rostowsky, Bobby Shomrony, & Mike Walters, Co-Founders of Hetal Retail đđ
Issue #55
Founder Friday is a content series from SuperAngel.Fund that highlights companies across our portfolio and the inspiring founders behind them.
This week weâre featuring a company modernizing one of retailâs biggest blind spots: what actually happens once products hit the shelf.
In our 55th edition, meet David Roger, Michael Rostowsky, Bobby Shomrony, and Mike Walters, co-founders of Hetal Retail, an AI-powered platform helping brands understand and optimize whatâs happening on shelf.
The Hetal team previously worked together at Felix Gray, a venture-backed consumer brand they scaled into major retail channels like Target, CVS, and Best Buy before selling the company in 2023.
Through that experience, they saw firsthand how little visibility brands have once products hit the shelf.
I first met David while he was building Felix Gray and was fortunate to write the first check into Hetal.
While over 80% of purchases still happen in retail, 25% of sales are lost due to poor execution, and 20â40% of displays are set up incorrectly.
Hetal helps brands understand whatâs happening on shelf and turns that visibility into better execution, merchandising, and sell-through.
Legacy solutions are expensive, manual, and slow. Hetal flips that model.
Using a network of everyday shoppers (âHetalitesâ) and proprietary computer vision AI, Hetal:
Captures shelf-level data across stores
Identifies out-of-stocks, pricing errors, product orientation, number of facings, shelf placement, and merchandising compliance
Connects execution directly to sales outcomes
Brands use Hetal to improve availability, win shelf space, and deploy merchandising spend more efficiently.
In short, Hetal is building a âGoogle Analytics for retail shelves.â
In just six months, Hetal surpassed 100 customers and now works with leading brands, including: Caraway, Cleancult, Freestyle, Lalo, Windmill, GrĂźns, Lemme, Oats Overnight, David Protein, Starface, and Everyday Dose.
Hetal is already helping brands audit major retailers including Target, Walmart, Sprouts, and Whole Foods, and will be expanding into conventional grocery including Kroger, HEB, and Publix starting Q2 2026.
As digital channels become more competitive, physical retail is becoming more importantâand complex. Hetal is building the infrastructure layer that makes retail shelves measurable.
Reply to this email if you or anyone you know might be interested in speaking with the Hetal team!
And see what David, Michael, Bobby, and Mike have to say in this weekâs Q&A đ
Founder Q&A
Describe your company in 5 words or less.
David: Affordable/powerful shelf analytics/actionability.
Michael: Retail analytics and workflows.
Bobby: Auditing. Trends. Insights. Merchandising. Intelligence.
Mike: Continuous retail shelf data.
What was your primary motivation for starting your business?
David: Having experienced growing in retail firsthand at Felix Gray, we realized that the current system is broken. The data is expensive and itâs unwieldy. Auditing and correction shouldnât be part of the same merchandising visit, itâs inherently what makes understanding the shelf so expensive. Computer Vision AI can be used to mine the data in the photos to actually generate useful data/insights. And, a platform needs to be designed to action the information. Operators are too busy to use another tool to help them figure out what to do. The best companies figure it out on your behalf.
Michael: Brands had no affordable way to understand what was actually happening on the shelf, a problem that directly impacted our last business. We wanted to build the solution.
Bobby: Nobody actually knew what was happening on the shelf in CPG. The data existed in spreadsheets and disparate data sources â never in real time, never affordably. That gap felt both obvious and fixable. So we fixed it.
Mike: Working with my other founders on a fun and exciting project.
What new product/feature are you most excited about and why?
David: Our new merchandising coordination (Dispatch) is pretty amazing. Weâre helping brands save 70-90% of their merchandising budgets, correct issues faster (2 week lead time), and no longer have to handle the time consuming coordination + confirmation. We hone in on what stores are worth visiting by cross referencing our audits with brand provided criteria and budget. Then we push that work out to approved merchandising firms, but we batch jobs across our customer set to get better pricing. Weâll handle all the coordination and grade the after-photos to grade issue resolution.
Michael: Improved merchandising coordination, it closes the loop from diagnosis to action. Brands can see exactly which stores need attention and dispatch help automatically.
Bobby: Campaign-based merchandising coordination. Weâre building the ability to support recurring, reactive, and proactive merchandising workflows â giving brands a complete, closed-loop system for managing shelf execution from diagnosis all the way through resolution. No more one-off store visits or reactive firefighting. Just a structured, intelligent approach to getting and keeping â your shelf right.
Mike: AI across the board and its ability to give insights that were previously hidden.
What piece of advice would you give an entrepreneur starting a business today?
David: Itâs a three legged race. Everyone at the team needs to work towards the same goal and put the teamâs goals above their own priorities.
Michael: Your plan will change a hundred times. Be okay with that and stay close to your customers.
Bobby: Talk to your customers obsessively â before you build, while you build, after you build. Every major Hetal decision came from standing in actual store aisles, not a whiteboard. Reality always beats assumptions.
Mike: Perfect is the enemy of good. Get a good MVP and ship.
What do you love to do in your free time?
David: Outside of family/friends, anything that gets me into a flow state and clears my head. Skiing, biking, cooking, swimming all do this for me.
Michael: Tennis, trying new restaurants, reading when I can.
Bobby: Get outside â playing basketball, exploring new places and having fun with my kids.
Mike: Video Games and Family Time.
What is the most interesting place youâve visited recently and why?
David: Greenland for a backcountry ski trip.
Michael: The Magic Castle in LA, a private club for magicians. Hard to explain, worth experiencing.
Bobby: Disney World with my kids. Hundreds of thousands of people, all completely bought into the same experience â itâs a wild thing to witness. As a founder, you canât help but marvel at the brand machine theyâve built. The operational scale, the emotional buy-in, the consistency across every touchpoint. Nobody executes an experience quite like Disney, everyone drinking the same Kool-Aid.
Mike: Sesame Place American Dream - Getting to see my daughter enjoy seeing Elmo in person.
What is your favorite app or tool in your work life and in your personal life?
David: Evernote. Itâs old, there are probably better solutions, but without my lists, Iâm lost.
Michael: Work: Claude, has enabled so much. Personal: Spotify, always have a podcast going.
Bobby: Asana. Itâs where my thinking lives and keeps the chaos organized enough to move fast.
Mike: Claude. Has changed how my development works and allows me to prototype in hours what took days.
What do you want to be when you grow up (besides a successful founder)? đ
David: Would rather always be a kid, but you know, a responsible one. Life is too short: stay curious and have fun.
Michael: New York Knicks Season Ticket Holder.
Bobby: A great mentor and father to my children. The people who gave me honest, unfiltered feedback early on shaped everything. I want to be that person for the next wave of founders.
Mike: Video Game Designer.
What do you believe is the most important skill or attribute of a successful founder?
David: Depends on the role. For me, selling a vision, prioritizing the steps to get there, and communicating that effectively to keep everyone working together.
Michael: Resilience.
Bobby: Resilience with self-awareness. The best founders absorb hard feedback, adapt fast, and keep going â without losing sight of why they started.
Mike: The ability to see problems in a different light or attack them from unseen angles.
Know a founder building something exceptional?
Reply to this email â Iâm always looking to meet great entrepreneurs.
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