Lassy Project Investment

My partner Steve recently made an investment into a company called Lassy Project which will be bridged into Pilot Mountain Ventures. Here’s the what and why of it.

Lassy Project helps find lost children. Faster.

It has three types of users. First, the village, comprised of friends, family, and trusted neighbors who volunteer to be alerted when a nearby child is reported missing. Next up, the parents. If your child goes missing, you can notify an entire local community with the push of a button. Lastly, children. Using location monitors like a phone or GPS device, Lassy Project alerts parents when your child isn’t where they’re supposed to be. It’s worth noting Lassy Project doesn’t require your children to have their own phone.

Here’s how it works in practice. Your child walks to soccer, school, or a friend’s house on a daily basis. You, as a parent, set up safe paths for them. If your child wanders off, you receive an alert. Most times, it’s because they detoured to McDonalds or something similarly harmless. You confirm they’re safe and go on with your life.

But what if that’s not the case? You can’t confirm where your child is or what’s happening. You then escalate to your village. Village members receive an alert with a picture of the child, description, and the last active GPS information available. If needed, Lassy Project will alert surrounding villages for additional coverage to create an instant search and rescue party who work together to find your child.

Why sign up? 

Parents sign up to get access to the most effective tool to find a missing child…people. For those of us who aren’t parents, join the village knowing you can safeguard your community’s children, and maybe even save a life.

Sign up here! Download the iOS or Android app or sign up directly on their website.

Why we made the investment?

This is a good example of how PMV expects to do business in the near future.

First, we believe in Lassy Project’s team. I roomed with CEO John Guydon in Downtown Las Vegas during the June Catalyst Week. We got along on a personal level and I knew I’d love to work with him some day. He’s a D-1 collegiate champion and excellent sales person. His co-founder and CTO Temitope Sonuyi holds multiple degrees from MIT. Plus, these two have worked together since 7th grade. This fits our team-first focus.

Also, Lassy Project replaces a government program that isn’t effective enough: Amber Alerts. It takes Amber Alert hours before information gets sent out. That information is bare bones and quickly out of date. By comparison, Lassy Project sends rich details to people within seconds, including up to date tracking information. Every second, let alone hour, counts. This is easily 10x’s better than the current solution.

In addition, from a hardware perspective, we like their location tracker solution. Instead of a phone+tracking app or building something in-house, Lassy Project is hardware agnostic. Any device with GPS capabilities can be plugged into their system via API. That means the would-be abductor doesn’t know if something in the child’s shoe laces, backpack, or phone could track him. This is a big preventative measure. You, as a parent, also don’t have to buck up for a new iPhone.

We don’t think lost children is a frivolous issue. According to the DOJ, nearly 800,000 children were reported missing in a one-year period. This problem deserves to be solved.

John and Temitope also have incredible business development partners signed and in the works that really excite us. We can’t talk about most of them, but here’s an endorsement from the Colorado Fraternal Order of Police. These partners are really exciting distribution channels.

Things have sped up lately

For starters, Lassy Project announced they were accepted into the most recent Techstars Boulder class. They’re a few weeks in and loving it. And on last Tuesday, they launched a new version of their site. It’s a massive improvement.

It’s worth noting that both John and Temitope are the first all-minority team that we’re aware of to be admitted to a major accelerator program. Congratulations to them, that’s no small deal.

We love the team, we love the business, and we’re excited to work with Lassy Project over the coming years.

Volunteering Some Time to Make Great Connections

Doing VC means staying on the cutting bleeding bloody edge of technology. To do so, I meet new startups constantly, and luckily I love that. If I wrote my job description, finding companies would be first on my responsibilities. We at Pilot Mountain Ventures have a variety of ways to find great startups. I’ve written about some before, but here’s one more for today: volunteering.

Ultra Light Startups appears on this blog a few times. It’s a simple format. Eight to ten companies show up, present a short pitch, do Q&A with an investor panel, and the panel responds with actionable advice and feedback at the end. Panelists love it because they can show they’re smart. Startups love it because of the feedback, press, and potential prizes. I’ve been to a number of ULS events dating back to 2012. The group’s grown in size and stature since, moving from NYU’s classrooms to Microsoft’s offices. Some past alums have floundered, others are doing well (ie Handybook). ULS even focuses events now, like the Bitcoin investor feedback or the recent devs only presentation (with a devs only panel).

As a spectator it’s fun. Startups ranging from great to good to okay pitch (sometimes) new ideas. Panelists ask incisive questions, founders answer competently or not, and differences of opinion break out. I’ve liked it enough that I decided to start volunteering three events back.

Volunteering is not a complicated task. Arrive early. Fold programs. Check people’s names off in the lobby and give them elevator access. Check people into the event. Make sure they have a program. Make sure they paid. Have all panelists talk to Mike Simmons (ULS coordinator). Have all presenters talk to Mike. Set up the pizza. Set up the water and sodas. Watch most of the presentations. Clean up. Chat. Maybe head out for a beer after.

But it’s more than that. No matter what I’m a touch point for everyone walking into the event. If I see a company or a name I’m interested in, I have a much easier path to follow up. I have a much more organic conversation with my fellow volunteers (many of whom I’ve worked with multiple times). It’s no longer “Hello I’m Tim,” but follow up questions to Ike about how the app store approval process is going. Or talking to Mike about how the last event went in SV. Peter from StrategyHack was there last week. Now I’m going to the all-day event on November 9th. I’ve grabbed coffee with folks, gotten introductions, and I’ve been able to put my own effort behind an organization that I support.

Obviously this isn’t fully altruistic. I like ULS. I definitely get great networking out of it. Frankly, I’d love a panelist spot at a future event or perhaps hosting since Graham’s stepping back on that effort. But that’s in the future. In the meantime I look forward to strengthening my relationship with the ULS team, volunteers, and everyone else that I meet there.

Pilot Mountain & The Great Office Search

This post is about Pilot Mountain’s office space search and about where I’m sitting right now, The Lounge @ WeWork on Grand and Lafayette. Thanks to the friends who referred us to various locations, and specific thanks to Colin Meagher and Pat Arangio for their assistance.

For some time, Steve and I have been checking out different offices. He’s been doing it more in person, while I was browsing on the interwebs. It hasn’t been the most fun, but it could also have been a lot worse. We had to figure out a few things: where do we want to be located and what kind of space and culture do we want? What’s our cash outlay? And what are you getting for it? And what term is your rental? If you’ve never rented office space before (like me), then you should know that until you’re actually firmly established you’re probably not leasing a space. You’re probably not even subleasing a space, because landlords don’t want to take that kind of a risk on your business. So instead, you’re renting space from some other company. So who are those companies?

First, there were the executive suites. Maybe you’ve heard of Regus? They’re the global leader. Some other companies we’ve checked out included PowerSPACES, Jay Suites, and Virgo. They’ve purchased or leased floors on buildings across the city, from Bryant Park to Flatiron, down to the Financial District. They’ve typically got nice buildings with great reception areas. They’re also very quiet. And full of suits. And are fairly expensive.

Next, you’ve got companies that are similar in vein but have more of a tech/entrepreneurial feel. TechSpace has a few locations in the city (Chelsea/Union Square for example). And so does WeWork. They’re everywhere from SoHo to Madison Ave to West Village. Both of these companies encourage a little more mingling in the hallway. They’ve got events organized by their members and for the community. They’re also at different price points.

And lastly, you’ve got your co-working spaces. You’ve got the big guys like General Assembly. There’s New Work City, Greenspaces, and the WeWork Lounge and Labs. Here, you’ve got a chair, internet connectivity, community access, kitchen, etc. This is your most cost effective space. They’re  all over the city too.

Lastly, we could beg, borrow, and steal office spaces. We work with some great people at Silicon Valley Bank to handle our custody. We could call and impose on them (and still can if we’re between meetings by their offices). We have our lawyers or other service providers. We have friends who are trying to get rid of space. This tends to be cheaper, but often at the sacrifice of location, office culture, etc.

I would be remiss to not mention The Square Foot too. TSF presented at #ERANYC Demo Day this Friday and offers a pretty cool solution outside of the traditional spaces (maybe Foursquare has some unused space they want to lease?). Good presentation by them.

So with all these options, how did we land at WeWork’s The Lounge?

WeWork offers the shortest term and lowest cost options, but has all the upsides that we want. Many of the places we saw had 6-month leases, some 3. WeWork was 1. Many of those places are stuffy, quiet, and didn’t have the energy we wanted. A 4-person office might cost $4K/month, plus you need to pay for the right to drink coffee and tea in the kitchen and every other little tack on. WeWork just included that in their base prices, which are published and easily accessible, along with a kegerator (there’s your opposite of stuffy). Why the Lounge and not their other office spaces? When we spoke with their gang over the course of April, their 2-3 person offices had limited availability. The Lounge gave us low cost entry into the community. It’s a spot to get together that’s in the heart of SoHo, near a lot of startups and our homes. We don’t view this as our long term solution, but we’re now on the wait list for appropriately sized offices at all of WeWork’s locations (including their upcoming Bryant Park one, which I’m excited for). I do, however, love the idea of maintaining a seat at a co-working space.

We’re excited to be a part of the WeWork family. We’re also getting together with WeWork to create a community event too. So, at least until June 1st, now you know where to find us.