Detailed Bio
Personal -
I'm a kid a heart that just won't take "you can't make that happen, it's impossible" very well. All my life I've loved to help people and make a difference in the world. I don't think I've ever hurt anyone on purpose, and I don't think I ever will. Why? What's the point on doing the wrong thing for the moment?
This last year has been the toughest year of my life and well it did take a toll on me personally. But thank God that I have the intestinal fortitude from lots of years of experience and impossible missions accomplished. I dug deep and started planning… it’s what I do best. Before I knew it, I started developing ideas left and right. Necessity truly is the mother of invention and profound thought (Sorry Plato, I remixed it – I do love to DJ). As I came to several realizations in life, I thought, wow… I really have a new direction in life. Mainly, for my beautiful daughter. A father’s love is really amazing. We all hear about a mother’s love and yes, I know personally having the world’s most amazing mother ever. But a father that is a good father and really takes the job seriously and not disappears, or fades out, or {add your fav here}, is really an amazing thing in life also. Think about it. We work 24 hours a day just to make sure our kids have everything to make them happy. Some of us take on other jobs or projects or just go the extra effort to get that priceless smile. Well, this is a case where I decided to go a little further than the extra mile. This new venture is not just another business attempt. It’s so much more than that. It’s an opportunity for a lot of people to become part of something amazing. Plus, …. hopefully, early retirement. If retired, maybe some endless travel plan (Jack…).
Business -
My last venture:
Here is an article I wrote on the last venture to give you and understanding of what kind of human being I have always been.
Failure is part of Success. The better you know what not to do, the higher the likelihood of achieving success.
Why this article is very important.
I write this article to help other fellow entrepreneurs from making mistakes I’ve made and understanding the real landscape of the Mobile App business. There are many costs and pitfalls that can greatly impact the success of your application. As a project manager, I’ll break these down by phase so you can quickly dive into the phase you are in or so you can refer to this article when you hit that next phase.
Initiation/Planning
When I came up with this idea, it was the next big thing to help people defend themselves from harm. A live recording app that captured audio, video and GPS in segments without the ability to delete. This video could be sent to your loved ones and to law enforcement within seconds. Great deterrent to stop people from thinking no own will ever know. Basically, the concept was very solid and the method I took to validate the model was to ask friends and business colleagues if they felt that the app had merit. Everyone though that is was an amazing idea and why didn’t we already have this?? The app was called ICE BlackBox.
Lesson Learned #1: “Why didn’t we already have this??” Sounds great but there is always a reason why something does not already exist. A) Because it is so revolutionary, and no one had discovered this product or service (un-likely, but possible). B) because although it may sound great, it may not be as easy to sell or to get people behind it. When you come up with that next big idea, make sure to do the homework and ask at least 100 people at random (not friends) if they would download, use, and pay for the app. Had I of done this, I think I would have realized that no one would pay for this service.
Moving on… I decided to employ a good friend to help me develop the app. He was a rock star developer whom I had worked with in the past and had seen his work product. He was floored by the idea and wanted to immediately begin coding. I funded the entire development (420K Roughly when all said and done).
Lessons Learned #2: “I funded the entire development” Why? A good way to test if you have a real sellable product or service is to see if anyone will invest in your idea. There are a lot of investors out there. If you don’t know any, ask around and you will find incubators, angel firms and maybe a few well-funded business leaders who like to invest. This is probably the BIGGEST LESSON LEARNED. I really should have just worked on the pitch deck, financial projections and looked to seek funding to start the development effort. The best way to see if your idea holds water is to get an investor. Use a simple convertible note contract as they are pretty standard and get someone else’s money to fund your idea. Had I have had that funding, I would have been able to use my money to push on other areas for success.
Build/Testing
Make sure to create a very good application flow diagram. We avoided many issues and conflicts due to this diagram. All features go somewhere and hit the database somehow. Map it out. We also created rich detailed wireframes. These wireframes were essential to make sure everyone was on the same page as to what the app would not only look like but how it would function and react.
Make sure to set up a good discount on having about 8 phone types. Because you will be testing your app repeatedly through the process. You’ll need two iPhone types and a tablet if your app works on a tablet. On android, you will need at least the top 5 phone types. Don’t worry about the other 8000+ androids the top 5 represent 90% of the users. Look at the web for statistics and plan for accommodating 90% of the US phone types. You will not be able to accommodate 100%.
Deployment
Moving on… Once the product was ready and we were ready to release the app we decided to pivot the app towards Anti-Bullying. It was very popular, and our app could really help stop bullies from attacking other kids. We decided to charge a nominal fee as we felt that the parents would definitely buy the app for the safety of their kids. We created a PSA with Jason Mraz!
Lesson Learned #3: “We decided to charge a nominal fee” Wrong!!!! No one buys apps no matter what the app is. There are a few exceptions to very rich and powerful utility, games or niche apps. But if you don’t have an established brand, or a huge gaming following… DO NOT CHARGE FOR YOUR APP. In-App purchases are better solution for those whom need more and more functionality or features.
Pivot, Pivot, Pivot
We decided to pivot looking at Neighborhood Watch. We were talking to the Campus Police at UCLA, and we realized that they were very interested in out portal that we had built to show the recordings on a map within seconds. So, we decided to investigate becoming more official, so law enforcement would respect us and want to partner with us to help them protect neighborhoods.
Made one phone call to the National Sheriffs’ Association (originators of the National Neighborhood Watch) and they loved the idea and were actually looking to create an app. Their focus was to use the app for reporting animal abuse. We told them we could absolutely create a feature in the app to report animal abuse. We partnered and launched a major press conference. We thought… this is it! We are on our way. The NSA also brought in the Humane Society of the United States to back us, and they even funded a person to receive the alerts and report them to local law enforcement and animal services. We signed the first ever partnership with the National Sheriffs’ Association and became the official National Neighborhood Watch App! We created two PSA for using the app with Dog Whisperer Caesar Millan in both English and Spanish. This surely had to be our big break!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80D7rukTcT4
Lesson Learned #4: “We thought… this is it! We are on our way.” Although we were on several news reports and had great coverage, the downloads we saw from all the media was about 1500 or so. Small peak and back down to 20 – 40 downloads a week mostly from Vietnam and other countries. You may think that media press will launch you into the stratosphere, but the lesson learned is that media will not push the public to stop what they are doing and decide to download, register, and use your app. You must have something that everyone will use daily or something that people want to use at least once a week. Your app has to be shareable and something that people feel that all their friends should download this app.
After the peak and saving some very amazing animals from being left in cars, abused in a farm and other horrible acts. We realized that the media push did not gain enough momentum.
Pivot to another direction… As the growing issues with terrorism attacks became headline news, we retooled our report animal abuse feature and added a feature to report any suspicious behavior. We reached out to the National Fusion Center Association and the FBI. The NFCA was very interested and actually began to vet our technology. They approved us to be able to send them alert notifications directly to all Fusion Centers in the US. This was the first ever approval of this alert system. We were invited to a special Anti-terrorism session where all the top agencies who fight and defend our country from suspicious activity were present. We presented our system and a future feature set to connect to CCTV and Video doorbells to create a safety net of reports for anyone who may see a suspicious act. We were rewarded with an overwhelming and surprising round of applause from all the attendees. We were honored to have such a positive response. We figured that surely someone from this session would be interested in moving forward to pilot or help us. Umm.. nope.
Lesson Learned #5: Know who your clients are and if they have funding to pay for what you are selling. It’s great to have an amazing idea, but if no one had funding to pay for it, there is no sale. Just a lot of excited people for the day and the next day they usually go back to their lives and forget about who you are and what you bring to the table. This applies not just for the public sector but the private sector as well. We should have been following up with those agencies that had grants or funding to help our cause or to partner with them to help them in their cause.
Pivot again… We looked again at our model and evaluated what was the biggest issue within law enforcement today. Domestic Violence. This was, according to many agencies, the #1 time consumer for law enforcement. We figured that if we could reduce the calls for service of domestic violence we could really make an impact in law enforcement and help thousands of families free themselves from this horrible cycle of terror. This time we decided to do the research and talk to several Police Chiefs and Sheriffs. We did a survey to see if our hypothesis was accurate. We drafted a new system to integrate with our back end to help with restraining orders and protecting both parties during child exchange and to avoid violations of restraining orders. We had it all dialed in. Law Enforcement responded with a very strong positive response with this new direction. We finally felt this was the right direction based on data. Well, be careful with conflicting interests. We were stopped by the Victims Advocacy Leader. She did not feel that the app would protect the victims and would put them in harms way. (Odd, aren’t they already in harm’s way? How much has Domestic Violence dropped in the last 30 years: answer not at all)
Lesson Learned #6: “We finally felt this was the right direction based on data.” Even though you have solid data on success, there are ALWAYS outside influences that have another interest and may put a huge wrinkle in your success. Make sure to ask everyone who may be impacted of your concept before you decide to dedicate time in a new direction.
Pivot yet again… So, we picked up our hopes and dreams from the floor and again looked at the need. We looked at the growing trend in Video Doorbells and architected a solution that would incorporate the video doorbells to help with the neighborhood watch system and also help protect schools from predators. We called it the Safe City Platform. We reached out to Skybell, Ring/Amazon and Google/Nest. All were interested initially but not so interested that they wanted to partner. We even came up with a revolutionary package protection system that incorporated all aspects of our original concept with even more technology. We waited on these companies until we could no longer wait any longer.
Final Lesson Learned #7: Know when you have hit that final wall financially and emotionally. Don’t keep funding an idea or venture that you can’t sell. There comes a time with you have to know to throw in the towel and shelf or move on. If you keep putting more money into your business, you will eventually over-extend your personal finances to the point of personal destruction. Know your limits and punt if you can. Yes, punt… as in try to sell the business or let it go. Maybe others can take the ball and try a new pivot. Or maybe another app business that needs something you already have.
I hope this helps others realize what things to avoid and saves you from making some of the mistakes we made along our journey. We are moving on to other initiatives and this time we are getting funded or not starting at all. We will keep the light on for BlackBox Digital Witness (Final Name) for as long as possible and we do have one last iron in the fire to help this app make a difference in the world but well we will see what this article does and maybe it may help cause some awareness of our goals. The positive is that we have helped thousands of people, hundreds of animals and will continue do so as long as possible.
I've learned a lot in my journeys and absolutely would love to give back, so if you need a planning session to help plan out your app. Let me know and we can work out a window of time. I enjoy helping others prosper in every possible way.
If you read all this... thank you. This is who I am.
What's Next?
2023:
Working on several ventures to elevate the collective team to begin to make progress on changing some things in the world that need some changing. There is a methodology I've created that will help facilitate and instigate positive change using a path of least resistance. Standby for more updates.