Transcript
The Brief Interviewer (00:18.062)
Welcome everyone to a special episode of The Brief. The following interview with Ivo Allen of 911 Inform was filmed live at our invitation-only Olivon Advisors Spring 2025 conference in Austin, Texas. Let’s get started. Ivo, tell us a little about 911 Inform and how you got started.
Ivo Allen (0:39)
Well, I got started, I’ve been in the public safety space for 25 years and I got into it after my wife and I were looking at the school shootings about eight years ago and the problem is there wasn’t any technology that really solved the problem. There’s a lot of software out there but none of it’s used or can be used in the amount of time that an active shooter or a medical emergency is over. that’s how we developed 911 Inform. was, know, unfortunately I have to give my wife the credit. She was the reason why I did it. It was her idea.
The Brief Interviewer (01:13)
Ray Baum’s compliance is a big deal. Can you talk about that a bit?
Ivo Allen (01:18)
Yeah, Raybombs Compliancy is the federal law went into effect in 21 saying that now any owner of a phone system in a building really has to provide a dispatchable location. So prior to prior to 21, if they dial 911, the police would just get the address of the building. So now with the Raybombs Compliancy, they now have to basically show exactly what room they’re in and provide a dispatchable location. So since when we developed 911 in form, we already had all the integrations into the phone systems. That was an easy pivot for us to develop. the way we’re doing it is revolutionary because we’re zero touch. The other people that are out there that are doing it, you have to manually update it. It’s very cumbersome, it’s very labor intensive to manage it. We’re zero touch. Our clients like Bloomberg, with 240,000 users globally in 800 offices, they had 17 people just managing it.
911 inform, it’s zero touch. It’s autonomous. So that’s really the Trojan horse for us. That’s how we get into an enterprise or school with that compliance. They see how good we are. Then we land and expand to other products that we offer.
The Brief Interviewer (02:31)
Your go to market strategy has been centered around value added resellers. Do you see that continuing or is there a push for more direct sales?
Ivo Allen (02:40)
Yeah, I know. the problem with the VARs that I found, you know, and when we originally started, I thought, you know, again, being a VAR and being in the space, would be, it cuts through the noise, right? So now instead of a net new and trying to solicit them, now we’re going in as a trusted advisor. And it’s worked well for us. I mean, we got a lot of traction, but the problem is the VARs are very, very lazy, right? They’re dealing, they’re more order takers than hunters. So what they’re doing is when there’s, you know, their customer has a need, and says, I’m looking at public safety. We’ll talk about non-mono-inform, but they’re not out there actively selling it and soliciting it. So one of the things that we’re doing is we’ve started our own direct marketing campaign where we are now contacting the businesses and individuals through video, through social media, and then we’re engaging with them, we’re doing the demos, and then we’ll hand it off to the VAR for the completion. So the VARs are good, and it allows us to install basically nationally and globally when I have to have eight million technicians running all over to do it. So it’s just that they’re more order takers than they are salesmen. Whatever’s hot for the time and the customer wants it, that’s what they’ll provide. But we’re now going to augment that and help them out by doing our direct marketing campaign to all our end users.
The Brief Interviewer (04:05)
911 Inform is growing steadily year after year. At what point do you consider a sale or raising strategic capital to accelerate growth?
Ivo Allen (04:09.839)
Well, we are, it’s funny because we’ve developed so much technology so fast. It’s hard to say what’s the catalyst, what’s the turning point. We are in the middle right now of developing our weapon detection technology that’s truly gonna revolutionize school safety. We’re gonna be able to have the claim that we can prevent gun violence in a school, which is incredible. I mean, and people that have seen it think it’s magic, it’s vaporware, but it works. But we’re developing that. So our plan is really to, as soon as we have that working pro, as soon as we have that working into a school and have that testimonial, that’s probably when we’re going to be doing, you know, the B round and bringing in capital because we’re going from $150 million valuation to true unicorn status over a billion dollars with this technology.
The Brief Interviewer (05:05)
Speaking of growth, where do you expect to see the biggest growth for 2025 and 26?
Ivo Allen (05:13)
Well, as far as customers and net ads, it’s our government, our military and Department of Justice. mean, have, in the last month, we’ve received seven purchase orders. But the problem is it’s not recognized revenue. So where the contracts are in multimillion dollars in AOR. It just takes time to execute. total number of net new is gonna be the military. Financially, it’s gonna be the K through 12 space with what we have going on to the K through 12 schools because we recognize that revenue pretty quickly. four to six months after contact is when we recognize it. So financially, it’ll be the K through 12 and then total numbers, total company expansion, it’s gonna be the military.
The Brief Interviewer (06:02)
Can you give some background on the patents you have currently and any new cool tech you were working on?
Ivo Allen (06:10)
The patents we have truly are, you know, are revolutionary. Our patent attorneys can’t believe we got them. We hold the patent on the police being able to remotely lock down a building. So if someone dials 911 and says someone has a weapon at this building, that police officer from the dispatch, they can lock that building down in a second. We hold that patent. Also, routing in a building. A lot of companies out there have maps and the police have maps, but when you look at this complex, and we’re in now right at the Omni, to get a call and say it’s in the Barton Creek ballroom, they don’t know where that is. So we hold the patent on being able to route the police in to that building. We also hold the patent on being able to route them out. So whoever called the emergency, doing that. We have that patent. We have the patent on threat tracking. this is really going to be huge for us because you would not believe in schools how many swatting calls there are or how many bomb threats that are called in because a student doesn’t want to take a test. And what they’ve done is they’ll go to Google and they’ll get a spoof number and they’ll basically dial 911, say I’m going to blow up the school. School gets canceled. Now with the pad that we have, we’re able to track that originating IP address. So even though they go to Google and they spoof their number, I can pinpoint exactly where that person was when they made that call. And then lastly, the pad that we had was being able to show a camera view where you see on all the Apple commercials about being able to share the video from your phone. Well, if you’re having a heart attack and I’m giving you CPR, I’m not gonna be able to share the video. So our technology there’s a camera in here if I dial 9-1-1 I’m going to show the police before the phone even rings in their dispatch That where that calls coming from so they can actually see so if you’re giving a CPR They can sit there and talk to them and walk them through it That’s what we have the really you know the thing that’s really going to make us the unicorn in this market is them is our weapon detection technology that we’re launching. We’ve had our first we went through and did our first test on it. We were able to detect at an incredible range and that is really going to revolutionize. I can’t say too much about it because there’s trade secrets and we have a lot of IP pending on it, but that’s going to really revolutionize us.
The Brief Interviewer (08:43.019)
Lastly, can you tell us about your experience here at the Olivon Spring Conference 2025?
Ivo Allen (08:50)
Yeah, no, it’s, it’s great. I never miss an Olivon event. They were really instrumental in raising capital and getting 911 inform where it was, you know, a lot of, when we started raising capital, a lot of people didn’t agree with my philosophy. They wanted me to hire 20 salespeople and have, and have, four, developers and four engineers and just push the push the product and it really made raising capital hard and because I didn’t agree with what they wanted me to do when we know when we got with JB and Mark and Oliver you supported and understood what I’m looking for it’s not it’s not about making as many sales as possible it’s about making a difference in making technology that’s truly revolutionary so this event is great I love seeing you know it’s not only meeting new investors and raising capital, but it’s about meeting the guys that are already invested and hanging out with them socially and getting all the backstories. So, wouldn’t miss it.
The Brief Interviewer (09:45)
Thank you for joining us here at The Brief by Olivon Advisors. For more information on 911 Inform, please visit 911inform.com. And please join our mailing list by signing up at OlivonAdvisors.com. We look forward to seeing you on the next episode of The Brief.
