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Ivo Allen, CEO of 911inform (8/8/24)
The Brief Interviewer (00:19)
Welcome everyone to our new video podcast from Wall Street Whisper called The Brief. Today we have our special guest Ivo Allen, the CEO of 911inform. Welcome Ivo and let’s get started.
Ivo, introduce yourself and give us your background.
Ivo Allen (00:38)
My name is Ivo Allen. I’m the CEO and founder of 911inform. I’ve been in telecommunications and networking for K-12 municipal and government here in New Jersey for the past 27 years.
The Brief Interviewer (00:56)
Why did you start 911inform?
Ivo Allen (01:00)
I started 911inform about eight years ago after my wife and I saw a Dateline episode on the school shootings. In that episode, they said that 80 % of fatalities in a mass shooting event are from non-life -threatening gunshot wounds. Police don’t have situational awareness, so it takes time for them to enter the building. So people that got shot, just bled out. My wife turns to me says, “Well, why? You do all the schools, you do all the police.” So I started looking at what the police had and they have a myriad of software. But the interesting fact is an active shooter event or a medical emergency is over in less than eight minutes. So there’s no time to get into all this software and look at this information in real time. So I went back to my wife and said, “Yes, it doesn’t exist. People are throwing more software at it, but that’s not going to solve the problem.” So she said, “You need to fix it.” So with that, we started developing 911inform.
The Brief Interviewer (02:03)
What is Ray Baum’s compliance and how do you exceed it?
Ivo Allen (02:08)
Ray Baum’s Act, it’s a federal law that went into effect on January 6th, 2021. And it says if you make a 911 call, you now have to provide a dispatcher location. This applies if you bought a new phone system, after January 6th, 2021, or if you did an update to your existing phone system, you now have to be compliant with the law. And basically, if you dial 911 and it just gives the street address, that’s no longer compliant. You have to actually say where they are in the building, what floor they’re on and you also have to notify the personnel in the building that they’re having a 911 call. We saw this as a Trojan horse for us. The technology that’s been doing it, a couple of major companies, Red Sky, owned by Everbridge up in Toronto, that have been doing it. And they’ve been doing it the same way since basically 1980. So it was easy for us to come into this and really be a disruptor and provide a higher level of service.
The Brief Interviewer (03:06)
What would the customer see as 911inform’s biggest value?
Ivo Allen (03:11)
I think the biggest value to 911inform to the customer is twofold. One is the reduction in response time. I mean, it’s the safety aspect of it. We reduce the response time to an emergency by 60% here in New Jersey. In other areas, metro areas, we reduce response time by 80%. And if you’re having a stroke, you’re having a heart attack, that’s life saving. Additionally, the accountability. You know, when there’s a 911 call or a panic button or any kind of… that’s triggered in our system, we’re bridging the police, we’re bridging the security staff, we’re bridging that 911 caller all together on a single communication channel. We’re tracking everybody’s movements, we’re tracking their response times. So now the K -12 school or the enterprise has a rock solid accountability of how they perform. For liability aspects, I think it’s a huge value 911inform brings to the table.
The Brief Interviewer (04:09)
What were the biggest challenges you had to overcome with 911inform?
Ivo Allen (04:13)
I think some of the biggest challenges we overcame, are actually still overcoming. First of all is the industry itself. You know, if you look at K through 12 as an example, know, they’re bombarded every day with new software claiming, you know, safety. And, you know, you look at we are a single pane of glass, we’re a complete paradigm shift into thinking, you know, everyone else is throwing more software, buy my software, and none of it’s used in an emergency. We are saying, get one software package and we’ll connect to everything. So, you know, the industry itself is fighting us and it’s tough to get through the noise. If you’re a business administrator, superintendent, you know, just normal solicitation, normal contact doesn’t work because we have to convey a value prop. We have to convey that we are changing the paradigm. So that’s one of the biggest, you know, things that we began to overcome and still are overcoming. I think the other thing is the mindset. Again, using K through 12 schools as an example, it’s, you know, I’m just gonna check the box. The state’s giving me software for free, I’m going to check the box. I train once a quarter, I train once a month. That’s not gonna save lives, right? So, you know, getting them to care and look at a software package that’s going to cost the same as everything else, but be more efficient, reduce your response times to emergencies, make you accountable, getting through that noise and then making them care about it, changing that mindset. Those are, I think, the two biggest things that that were challenging for us.
The Brief Interviewer (05:46)
As a single pane of glass solution, what sets 911inform apart from its competitors?
Ivo Allen (05:53)
Our single pane of glass solution sets us apart from our competitors because we don’t have competitors. Again, look at the paradigm. Everybody’s throwing more software. You have companies like Motorola throwing software out there. You have companies like Entrato throwing software. They hate each other. They’re not going to play in the sandbox together. So when we say competitors, we say feature competitors. You know, so if you look at our connected building solution, we have mapping in there, we have paging in there, we have door access in there, we have camera in there, we have facial recognition, we have LPR, license plate reading, all that technology is under a single pane of glass. All these other companies, there’s companies out there that are selling LPR, there’s companies out there selling facial recognition, companies selling camera. You know, so we don’t have competitors, we have feature competitors.
The Brief Interviewer (06:43)
How many buildings and how many countries are you currently serving?
Ivo Allen (06:49)
So 911inform, we’re installed in over 10,000 buildings to date. We are under contract for 12,000 buildings. Keep in mind, some of these contracts that we have are massive. You have Bloomberg globally, you have FAA, 1,000 locations, you have Home Depot, Southwest Airlines, AAA. So you have a lot of deployment to do, it takes time. But we’re in over 10,000 to date and 12,000 contracted and we are up and operational in over 50 countries worldwide.
The Brief Interviewer (07:25)
What is the most important statistic about 911inform?
Ivo Allen (07:29)
What’s the most important stat about 911inform? I mean, there’s so many of them. I mean, look at the company itself. You know, triple digit growth year over year, AR triple digit growth, net retention value. We closed last year at 156% net retention value. At the halfway mark this year, we hit 118% net retention value. We have over 10 ,000 deployments. We’ve only lost five customers, right? So we’re doing an incredible job. We have an incredible sticky product. But really, the most important thing is the lives that we saved. We’re credited with saving seven lives. We have five children and two adults that are alive today because of our software. Also, you look at last year, we processed 47,000 emergencies and this year we’re at the halfway mark we’re already at 36,000 emergencies so we’re going to double that number as well. So I mean you come down to it, you can look at a lot of stats but the most important thing is how many people that are alive today because of what we do.
The Brief Interviewer (08:41)
Ivo, thank you for spending time with us on The Brief. Please give us your closing thoughts.
Ivo Allen (08:47)
Well, that’s a wrap. So thank you, JB, Oliver and Mark for putting this together. Thank you guys for watching. And most importantly, thank you to the investors, everyone that took a chance on us. We are truly making a difference in this industry. We have a lot of exciting things coming out, a lot of news coming out. So keep watching and we’ll talk to you soon. Thank you!
The Brief Interviewer (09:11)
Thank you for joining us here at The Brief by Wall Street Whisper. For more information on 911inform, please visit www.911inform.com. And please join our mailing list by signing up at www.wallstreetwhisper.com. We look forward to seeing you on the next episode of The Brief.
Welcome everyone to our new video podcast from Wall Street Whisper called The Brief. Today we have our special guest Ivo Allen, the CEO of 911inform. Welcome Ivo and let’s get started.
Ivo, introduce yourself and give us your background.
Ivo Allen (00:38)
My name is Ivo Allen. I’m the CEO and founder of 911inform. I’ve been in telecommunications and networking for K-12 municipal and government here in New Jersey for the past 27 years.
The Brief Interviewer (00:56)
Why did you start 911inform?
Ivo Allen (01:00)
I started 911inform about eight years ago after my wife and I saw a Dateline episode on the school shootings. In that episode, they said that 80 % of fatalities in a mass shooting event are from non-life -threatening gunshot wounds. Police don’t have situational awareness, so it takes time for them to enter the building. So people that got shot, just bled out. My wife turns to me says, “Well, why? You do all the schools, you do all the police.” So I started looking at what the police had and they have a myriad of software. But the interesting fact is an active shooter event or a medical emergency is over in less than eight minutes. So there’s no time to get into all this software and look at this information in real time. So I went back to my wife and said, “Yes, it doesn’t exist. People are throwing more software at it, but that’s not going to solve the problem.” So she said, “You need to fix it.” So with that, we started developing 911inform.
The Brief Interviewer (02:03)
What is Ray Baum’s compliance and how do you exceed it?
Ivo Allen (02:08)
Ray Baum’s Act, it’s a federal law that went into effect on January 6th, 2021. And it says if you make a 911 call, you now have to provide a dispatcher location. This applies if you bought a new phone system, after January 6th, 2021, or if you did an update to your existing phone system, you now have to be compliant with the law. And basically, if you dial 911 and it just gives the street address, that’s no longer compliant. You have to actually say where they are in the building, what floor they’re on and you also have to notify the personnel in the building that they’re having a 911 call. We saw this as a Trojan horse for us. The technology that’s been doing it, a couple of major companies, Red Sky, owned by Everbridge up in Toronto, that have been doing it. And they’ve been doing it the same way since basically 1980. So it was easy for us to come into this and really be a disruptor and provide a higher level of service.
The Brief Interviewer (03:06)
What would the customer see as 911inform’s biggest value?
Ivo Allen (03:11)
I think the biggest value to 911inform to the customer is twofold. One is the reduction in response time. I mean, it’s the safety aspect of it. We reduce the response time to an emergency by 60% here in New Jersey. In other areas, metro areas, we reduce response time by 80%. And if you’re having a stroke, you’re having a heart attack, that’s life saving. Additionally, the accountability. You know, when there’s a 911 call or a panic button or any kind of… that’s triggered in our system, we’re bridging the police, we’re bridging the security staff, we’re bridging that 911 caller all together on a single communication channel. We’re tracking everybody’s movements, we’re tracking their response times. So now the K -12 school or the enterprise has a rock solid accountability of how they perform. For liability aspects, I think it’s a huge value 911inform brings to the table.
The Brief Interviewer (04:09)
What were the biggest challenges you had to overcome with 911inform?
Ivo Allen (04:13)
I think some of the biggest challenges we overcame, are actually still overcoming. First of all is the industry itself. You know, if you look at K through 12 as an example, know, they’re bombarded every day with new software claiming, you know, safety. And, you know, you look at we are a single pane of glass, we’re a complete paradigm shift into thinking, you know, everyone else is throwing more software, buy my software, and none of it’s used in an emergency. We are saying, get one software package and we’ll connect to everything. So, you know, the industry itself is fighting us and it’s tough to get through the noise. If you’re a business administrator, superintendent, you know, just normal solicitation, normal contact doesn’t work because we have to convey a value prop. We have to convey that we are changing the paradigm. So that’s one of the biggest, you know, things that we began to overcome and still are overcoming. I think the other thing is the mindset. Again, using K through 12 schools as an example, it’s, you know, I’m just gonna check the box. The state’s giving me software for free, I’m going to check the box. I train once a quarter, I train once a month. That’s not gonna save lives, right? So, you know, getting them to care and look at a software package that’s going to cost the same as everything else, but be more efficient, reduce your response times to emergencies, make you accountable, getting through that noise and then making them care about it, changing that mindset. Those are, I think, the two biggest things that that were challenging for us.
The Brief Interviewer (05:46)
As a single pane of glass solution, what sets 911inform apart from its competitors?
Ivo Allen (05:53)
Our single pane of glass solution sets us apart from our competitors because we don’t have competitors. Again, look at the paradigm. Everybody’s throwing more software. You have companies like Motorola throwing software out there. You have companies like Entrato throwing software. They hate each other. They’re not going to play in the sandbox together. So when we say competitors, we say feature competitors. You know, so if you look at our connected building solution, we have mapping in there, we have paging in there, we have door access in there, we have camera in there, we have facial recognition, we have LPR, license plate reading, all that technology is under a single pane of glass. All these other companies, there’s companies out there that are selling LPR, there’s companies out there selling facial recognition, companies selling camera. You know, so we don’t have competitors, we have feature competitors.
The Brief Interviewer (06:43)
How many buildings and how many countries are you currently serving?
Ivo Allen (06:49)
So 911inform, we’re installed in over 10,000 buildings to date. We are under contract for 12,000 buildings. Keep in mind, some of these contracts that we have are massive. You have Bloomberg globally, you have FAA, 1,000 locations, you have Home Depot, Southwest Airlines, AAA. So you have a lot of deployment to do, it takes time. But we’re in over 10,000 to date and 12,000 contracted and we are up and operational in over 50 countries worldwide.
The Brief Interviewer (07:25)
What is the most important statistic about 911inform?
Ivo Allen (07:29)
What’s the most important stat about 911inform? I mean, there’s so many of them. I mean, look at the company itself. You know, triple digit growth year over year, AR triple digit growth, net retention value. We closed last year at 156% net retention value. At the halfway mark this year, we hit 118% net retention value. We have over 10 ,000 deployments. We’ve only lost five customers, right? So we’re doing an incredible job. We have an incredible sticky product. But really, the most important thing is the lives that we saved. We’re credited with saving seven lives. We have five children and two adults that are alive today because of our software. Also, you look at last year, we processed 47,000 emergencies and this year we’re at the halfway mark we’re already at 36,000 emergencies so we’re going to double that number as well. So I mean you come down to it, you can look at a lot of stats but the most important thing is how many people that are alive today because of what we do.
The Brief Interviewer (08:41)
Ivo, thank you for spending time with us on The Brief. Please give us your closing thoughts.
Ivo Allen (08:47)
Well, that’s a wrap. So thank you, JB, Oliver and Mark for putting this together. Thank you guys for watching. And most importantly, thank you to the investors, everyone that took a chance on us. We are truly making a difference in this industry. We have a lot of exciting things coming out, a lot of news coming out. So keep watching and we’ll talk to you soon. Thank you!
The Brief Interviewer (09:11)
Thank you for joining us here at The Brief by Wall Street Whisper. For more information on 911inform, please visit www.911inform.com. And please join our mailing list by signing up at www.wallstreetwhisper.com. We look forward to seeing you on the next episode of The Brief.
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