A Product Market Fit Show | Startup Podcast for Founders
00:08:38 · Pablo Srugo, Ben Rudolph
[00:08:38] S2: So was that born out of what you were doing? Because the idea is very generic at that point, right? It's like, let's take data together and help law enforcement, for example. Was that kind of the first version of the idea? [00:08:47] S0: It was definitely the first version. I think we came to the problem with a very open mind and from first principles. When we went to partner with the first agency we worked with, the San Pablo Police Department. We didn't have a prescriptive solution. We had an objective, which was to help these detectives solve the cases that they were working on and then we worked backward from there. [00:09:09] S2: But you somehow knew that it was a problem. Obviously everybody wants to solve more cases, but you knew that they were probably not making the most of the data that was available to them for reasons that you saw like at the UN, et cetera?
00:09:09 · Pablo Srugo, Ben Rudolph
[00:09:09] S2: But you somehow knew that it was a problem. Obviously everybody wants to solve more cases, but you knew that they were probably not making the most of the data that was available to them for reasons that you saw like at the UN, et cetera? [00:09:21] S0: It was actually just, because when you go to solve a case, you get a bunch of data that you have to sift through and sort through. And we're like, wow, this is really hard. And it was there where we're like, okay, we need to build something to actually process this information. And then, we started tying it to some of their record management systems that they already had and connecting those dots. And those are the very initial steps when you're trying to solve a case. Obviously, there's some piece of this where we came from a background, where data integration was a very important problem and something that was front and center for us. But it was also very much a first principles, how do we solve this problem for the customer? [00:09:54] S2: You know, you want to have impact. So I get that that's kind of in the back of your mind. But what pulled you towards law enforcement in the first place? [00:09:56] S0: I think public safety is an incredibly important problem. I spent a lot of time in countries that had no functioning public safety system and I personally believe that, doing public safety correctly and right is a very, very challenging and hard problem. And I was motivated to work on that problem, and dig deep on it.
00:09:56 · Ben Rudolph, Pablo Srugo
[00:09:56] S0: I think public safety is an incredibly important problem. I spent a lot of time in countries that had no functioning public safety system and I personally believe that, doing public safety correctly and right is a very, very challenging and hard problem. And I was motivated to work on that problem, and dig deep on it. [00:10:20] S2: So both you guys just kind of, you just cared about public safety. You just decided, let's talk to some people. See what's happening in that world, see what problems we could solve. [00:10:27] S0: When we initially set out to find a partner, we were knocking on doors. We actually researched a ton of different folks in the Bay Area, different captains, different leaders who might be open to this type of partnership and our methodology here was really. We looked at essentially the org chart of these police departments. Who are the number two, number three in charge? They were maybe a little bit younger. They were leaned into technology. Isolated that list, we did a bunch of research on these folks, what kind of cases they worked in the past, and then we left very thoughtful messages. We reached out to them, and we were persistent in that. [00:10:27] S2: Were you asking them specifically at that point?
00:10:27 · Pablo Srugo, Ben Rudolph
[00:10:27] S2: Were you asking them specifically at that point? [00:10:27] S0: You know, at that point it was less of a question and it was more of a, hey, can we have a conversation? I would love to learn more about how you do your work and so in our specific example, in San Pablo, there was a commander at the time. Commander Brian Bubar, who responded to our reach out, and we were essentially like, hey, we are really interested in this case that you solved. We were interested in learning more about how you solve these cases. Could you take us along as a partner? We'd love to learn more and he said yes. He invited us to the police department. He gave us a bunch of background checks and basically handed us this book. And he's like, all right, let's see what you can do. And we got to work, and basically worked out of that department every day for eighteen months. [00:11:51] S2: So you went to them and just kind of said, I guess I'm just not understanding if it was a pure discovery, like, hey, we just want to learn the space, you know, you're an expert, whatever. Or whether you came at it as saying, you know, we want to work on something here. This is like the idea we want to do. Can we do it with you? Which of the two messages are you going out with to all these initial commanders?
00:11:51 · Pablo Srugo, Ben Rudolph
[00:11:51] S2: So you went to them and just kind of said, I guess I'm just not understanding if it was a pure discovery, like, hey, we just want to learn the space, you know, you're an expert, whatever. Or whether you came at it as saying, you know, we want to work on something here. This is like the idea we want to do. Can we do it with you? Which of the two messages are you going out with to all these initial commanders? [00:12:11] S0: We never came to them with, here's a technology that we want to build for you. It was always, we want to help you solve cases and we especially want to work with your detectives to do that. And that was, the ethos and mentality that we had. I think, especially in the early days, a lot of these government agencies have a ton of vendors who are like, hey, here's this technology. You want to use it? And it just doesn't land well. [00:12:38] S2: Why would they let you in? You know, you can't just like, yo, I want to help you solve a case. Like if you have a product or you're like, hey, I just want to have a chat. I get both of those, but I don't have a product and I don't want to have a chat. I just want to help you solve cases. They're like, yeah, come, come in, here you go, solve my case. How does that happen? [00:12:54] S0: Yeah, he definitely took a chance on us. We were very open and transparent with him in that we want to build a company. We were looking for folks to learn from and wanted to be design partners with, and he was open to that. And so, we tried a lot of people before we got a yes here. So it's definitely challenging.
00:12:54 · Ben Rudolph, Pablo Srugo
[00:12:54] S0: Yeah, he definitely took a chance on us. We were very open and transparent with him in that we want to build a company. We were looking for folks to learn from and wanted to be design partners with, and he was open to that. And so, we tried a lot of people before we got a yes here. So it's definitely challenging. [00:13:15] S2: Did you do a lot of the customer discovery before this, before jumping in and starting to try to work with this person to help them solve a case? How much did you already know going into it? In terms of what the world was like? [00:13:26] S0: Yeah, I mean, we did as much as we could, right? We read all these cases that he had worked personally. We learned about the law enforcement structure, police department structure, how they work, how they operate, how do warrants work, these types of things. But you really, in order to make that jump to being an expert, you have to work it and so that was our approach. [00:13:46] S2: And so then what happens? So he lets you in, what do you start doing at that point? [00:13:50] S0: Yeah, he gave us a room in the department and anytime there was a case, they would essentially treat us as crime analysts and they'd be like, hey, we got a new homicide in. Here's what we know about the case. Can you help us with it? And we would be like, sure. And then, so we would sit there all day, poring over these files, trying to figure out what happened, pinpoint a phone number. [00:13:50] S2: Just manually? You're basically free labor for these guys, or you're building tech to do this?