The founders of Wollongong based startup, Critical Arc, plan on using large organisations like universities or hospitals to drive downloads of their security app.
Glenn Farrant and Jahmai Lay spent six months working with potential customers to develop the app, which allows security guards to respond immediately to accidents or security threats like an intruder on campus. It uses the location tech in your iPhone or Android device to allow you to alert security guards to any potential threats nearby.
The initial platform, SafeZone, was launched as a trial with the University of Wollongong earlier this year. In the first eight weeks, more than 1,300 people had downloaded the app. Farrant and Lay are now ready to launch the platform elsewhere and have spoken with around 20 universities. The pair are waiting for confirmation, but say 10 of those initial universities are seriously considering the platform for the next university year.
“We felt that universities had a unique need for this sort of thing,” says Farrant.
“Security can affect the bottom line. Students will make a choice about where they go based on safety.”
Marketing to universities
Farrant says Critical Arc should be in profitable territory early next year, though a university’s habit of planning a budget out many months in advance can make it a long sales process. Just negotiating the pilot took close to six months. The best sales technique has been tapping into the networks of security managers, says Farrant. He says when you’re dealing with specialised professions, there are existing networks you can tap into. The pair launched the product at the Campus & Student Security Conference.
“Half the university security managers in Australia were at this conference. We managed to sponsor lunch on the first day, and got to speak for 15 minutes. It definitely paid off.”
Selling to universities is easier in some ways, says Farrant, than selling direct to consumers. Because universities will be paying upwards of $50,000 for a license to use the platform, it’s in the interest of their security teams to promote the platform to their students and staff.
Universities are just the start, says Farrant, as the technology can be applied in a range of situations. Potentially the SafeZone platform could be used at hospitals, mines and even adopted for widespread use by emergency services personnel. He says the back-end has been built in a way that it can facilitate different verticals with different needs: mining, healthcare, construction etc.
Security: there’s money in perception
But in the meantime, why are universities interested in the software? Farrant says with international students now a big line of business, perceived safety can make a big difference to enrolments. Branding matters, and there is competitive rivalry too.
With universities (and other bureaucratic organisations) there is a lot of reference selling.
“If one university has a good experience, the others are likely to sign up,” says Farrant.
“But it’s a real high-wire — if it hadn’t worked (during the trial) it wouldn’t have been a viable market.”
Farrant says location technology is only now at a stage where it is reliable. While the tech has been around for a few years, location data was very hit-and-miss. Soon enough, it won’t just be 2D information (latitude and longitude), but altitude too. Say you’re on the twenty-second floor of a building in Sydney — soon, says Farrant, the technology will be good enough to identify exactly where you are. The potential for security and emergency services is huge.
“They have computer-aided dispatch systems, but they are all centralised. This gives every person more capability to see a situation.”
Improving signups
Because SafeZone depends on user identification, it’s important that people step through a detailed sign-up process. Farrant says the Critical Arc team has spent time trying to improve conversion from someone downloading the app to becoming a registered user. Once this is done, people only need to call on the app when a situation arises. People need to register after the initial download.
Making a few changes to the sign-up process has seen an improvement of 20-30% in the conversion from download to registered user, says Farrant. The changes included providing more detail upfront about what’s required during the registration process, explaining why each information field is required, making the wording clearer. Cleaning up the user interface also helped.