“Today, we have an unprecedented opportunity for entrepreneurship.   With the advent of the Internet and all of the technologies that are associated, an idea can become a business quickly and efficiently.”  Ara Bagdasarian, CEO and Co-founder of Omnilert, LLC. 

The Rich Niche Group blog interviews and enables you to hear directly from successful entrepreneurs and product managers about the steps they took to grow their businesses/products and how they were able to create, penetrate, and/or dominate their niche.  This week we interview Ara Bagdasarian:

Interviewee:  Ara Bagdasarian, this is Ara’s second start-up. 

Why Selected:  Omnilert (www.omnilert.com) was one of the first companies in the unified mass notification systems business (urgent text messages) for colleges and universities.  Ara and his partner started Omnilert in 2003 and have since become a leader in the space.  I had the pleasure of working with Ara in the past and he is one of the most innovative and customer-focus individuals I know.  In addition, he is very active in his community of Leesburg, Virginia serving on many non-profit boards and as the Chairman of the Town of Leesburg’s Economic Development Commission.

In the following interview, Ara takes us through the concept for Omnilert, how it changed based on feedback, and then managed the hyper-growth caused by the shootings at Virginia Tech in 2007.  As you read the full interview, here are some points that stood out to me:

1.  If your initial concept does not resonate with your target audience look for others where it might

2.  Innovate in all areas of your company, not just with technology

3.  Publicize every new client you get and get existing clients to tell your company story  

 

What drove you to start Omnilert and what opportunity did you see that was not being served at that time? 

As with any innovation, there must be a pain that needs to be remedied.  The initial pain arose when my wife and I were looking for homes during the incline of the insane housing market in Northern Virginia.  By the time we received a listing; the house was either under contract or sold.   It was getting beyond frustrating!   The initial concept was to allow a Realtor to broadcast a new listing to their group via text message even before house was listed on the market.   We ran the idea by a few Realtors, and the response was lukewarm.   There clearly was a market opportunity in instant dissemination for time-sensitive information, however the real estate market would have to wait. 

Several months later, I was reading an article about a female college student who was brutally raped and murdered in her dormitory room in 1987.    Her family investigated the situation and formed a non-profit to support campus safety enforcement.   They determined that the information about the rapist on campus was not distributed quickly enough to the campus community.  This information could have saved her life.   At that moment, it became crystal clear that there could be no better application for mass text messaging than for campus emergency alerts.   Some quick market research revealed that over 90% of college students carried mobile phones, and there was no service that provided campus alerts.   I called my partner and the wheels went in motion to start Omnilert with the vision to create a new standard in campus communications.

 

       

You actually launched Omnilert prior to the Virginia Tech shootings how difficult was it evangelizing your concept and how did that change post that event?

Prior to the VT shootings, it was a challenge evangelizing our concept to schools.  It was such a new concept at the time.   Most people over the age of 25 had little familiarity with text messaging.    We started to gain traction in the 6 months prior to the VT shootings as some key customers signed on for the service.  We noticed a direct relationship between posting a press release highlighting a new customer and the amount of incoming leads and started closing a new customer almost every week.

After the VT shootings, the demand tsunami began as the market was exposed e2Campus (our service brand) as the solution to the campus emergency communications pain.   As Malcolm Gladwell notes, that experience was the “tipping point” – a market suddenly sees value in the service that we are offering.    We went from one customer per week to over 10 per day.  CNN, USA Today, ABC World News, MSNBC, and most importantly our existing customers became our evangelists at that point.

 

What were the biggest obstacles you ran into at the different stages of Omnilert’s growth and how did you overcome them? 

In the early stage, the biggest obstacle was finding the visionaries in the market.  We were fortunate to find one in our first prospect, however it took time to find others.    Once we went into hyper-growth mode our biggest challenge was dealing with the rapid spike in demand and customer acquisition.  We overcame the challenge by implementing highly-scalable processes and systems that allowed us to be responsive to all inquiries and be timely in delivering new service accounts.   By using CRM tools such as Salesforce.com, a hosted telephony system, desktop-sharing software for demos, and creating an easy account creation tool in our application, we were able to successfully operate in an intense environment.

Also, suddenly after the VT shootings, hundreds of new competitors instantly appeared in the marketplace.  Most were offering a lower-cost and technologically unsafe service and they started aggressively selling into our market.  What this did was create the perception that Emergency Notification Systems were unreliable and did not work “as advertised”.   Administrators from colleges would speak at conferences and share their unsuccessful stories about emergency messages taking hours to get delivered, and only half of the registered population even received the message.     With all of the heavy evangelizing by the media and parents demand, there began a “this text alert stuff is not all it is cracked up to be” movement.  Our system really DID work- we invested heavily into our infrastructure to ensure this, however many third-tier providers tainted the overall market perception.

We overcame this obstacle by launching a comprehensive education campaign.  The campaign was designed to allow our customers to share their success stories, best practices, and educate the market that not all Emergency Notification Systems were created equal.  We sponsored a webinar series “Best Practices in Emergency Notification” and we launched e2Campus.org which was a peer-forum for our customers to share best practices.   Over the last 2 years, most of the new competitors dropped out of the marketplace as their customers upgraded to the more reputable providers.  That also helped with this negative perception.

 

Omnilert was one of the first unified mass notification systems and services companies, my question for you is did you find more collaboration between you and the other pioneers in your industry or was it more of a competitive nature between your companies?

Immediately after the VT shootings, we had several companies contact us to partner since they were not providing mass text messages (just voice messages).   Since that brief exchange, it has been more of a competitive relationship.

 

Omnilert is known as one of the innovators in your niche. What are you doing so that Omnilert stays in that leadership position?  What were you doing different than others in the niche?

We are very cognizant and almost obsessive about keeping and widening our leadership position.   To do this we constantly innovate – not just from a technology perspective, but also from a customer experience, and operational perspective.    We choose not to enter the “feature war” game with our competitors- instead we find better ways to accomplish our customers’ objectives.   It is about offering the “right features” not just “more features”.   I know it is tempting to want to check every feature box on an RFP response, however too many features can sacrifice usability and the effectiveness of the product.    For example, the iPod had considerably fewer features than most mp3 players on the market.   Any standard mp3 player had tons of buttons and features included FM radio, voice recorder, preset locks, and other functions that should accommodate any consumer requirements.   The iPod came out and it had one button and a circular dial!   It made it incredibly easy to manage the user’s music library, purchase new music, and the user interface was far superior to any of its predecessors. The iPod offered the “right features” not just jam-pack the unit with “more features”.

If others are doing something in our niche, we will not do it.   If there truly is a pain for a feature, then we will find a better way to realize that feature’s outcome.   We will not simply just add the feature as already defined.  When a feature request arises, we always ask “What is your objective?” and then come up with the best solution to that objective.

We invested heavily in the most important features in our niche- speed and reliability.  While competitors may add more bells and whistles to their systems, we maintain a reputation for being the most reliable and trusted in the marketplace because we constantly innovate on making our network the best.   You can have all of the bells and whistles in an ENS service, however if it does not work when there is an emergency- that does the customer no good.  Don’t get me wrong- our platform is very feature-rich; we just have different features that enable our customers to be successful when there is an emergency.

 

In general, what piece of advice would you give to someone who is either starting a new company or getting ready to launch a new product which they are hoping to either create and/or penetrate a niche?

Today, we have an unprecedented opportunity for entrepreneurship.   With the advent of the Internet and all of the technologies that are associated, an idea can become a business quickly and efficiently.  Here are a few points of advice:

                     A. Visualize the Outcome.   What does the world look like after your product is well-adopted and in use?  Now, with that in mind, how are you going to get there?  That outcome needs to serve as your decision making beacon on attaining that goal.  When new “opportunities” arise (partnerships, markets, etc) you can decide whether or not that “opportunity” is a true opportunity, or if it is a distraction.  You can do this ONLY if you know what direction you are headed in.  If you have your outcome defined, every action your business takes must be a step in the direction of that outcome.   For Omnilert, our outcome was to become the new standard in campus safety communications.  Every college would be using e2Campus to notify students, faculty, and staff of a time-sensitive emergency situation.   Our decisions leading up to that point were made towards realizing that outcome.  Today, most states, and even the federal government are mandating Emergency Notification Systems for college campuses.  We now have a new Outcome as our beacon:  to evolve all campuses into utilizing multiple communication end-points (their single message reaches text messages, voice mail, public address systems, desktop alerts, email, digital signage, and other technologies) to keep campuses even safer.

                    B. Tell your story.  Use your website, press releases and the media to communicate your message.   People want to be a part of a movement, part of a solution.  To build momentum for a new product or company, it is important to build a story around the product.  As early customers adopt the product, let the marketplace know – make a big deal about it.  Make it newsworthy.   When Penn State was featured in USA Today for their text alerting usage, we quickly signed up several new customers who wanted to be a part of this new movement.   You can tell your story with little investment as well.   By utilizing press releases, web sites, email newsletters, webinars, and speaking engagements your story can be spread on the smallest budget.    Rather than hiring a Marketing Director, you are better off hiring a Chief Storyteller.

                    C.  Be “tech frugal”- utilize technology to give your business the same customer experience as a Fortune 50 company.  You can outsource anything that is not a part of your core business.  Also, it is best to start with a prototype of your product/service before investing in fully developing the product.  Many entrepreneurs I speak with believe that one of the first steps in launching the business is raising millions of dollars to build their product.   They write a lengthy business plan with wishful projections and market analysis.   I suggest the opposite: if you can design a prototype or even a “mock up”- you can begin selling the product immediately and then re-invest the sales revenue into the development of that product.   There are so many resources today that allow a new company to prototype a product with little or no funds (do-it-yourself).

                    D. Trail Blaze – never create a competing product, instead innovate in a niche where a remedy to a pain has yet been created.  I have often heard “how can you compete with the big players in the market?” from young entrepreneurs.  The answer is simply “do not compete with the big players in the market!”    In 2004 there were a few ENS providers in the market, and they were all focused on federal government, military, or corporate markets.   There were no providers in the higher education space, so it made even more sense to forge forward in that niche.

                    E. Make lemonade from lemons – Look at problems as opportunities.  Problems are opportunities to innovate.    This is not only true for your product, but it should also apply to the way that your business thinks and operates.   When presented with a problem in sales, operations, marketing, or any other process, be sure to turn that problem into an opportunity to improve and innovate.  If you lose a customer, hit a roadblock with sales, or lose power at a trade show, rather than write it off as a problem, you can find ways to improve and become even stronger.   If there is a problem in the marketplace that has yet to be met, turn that into an opportunity!  If you and your company think from this context, you will constantly improve, constantly innovate, and constantly lead.

 

Ara, thanks for the advice and for sharing the Omnilert story.  Starting and running a mission critical service presents great challenges and I am thrilled to see you and your company doing well.  Let me provide a quick summary to Ara’s interview:

1.   Solve a particular problem and be sure your solution resonates with your target audience.

2.  Create a vision for what your product/service will look like in the market place and NEVER lose focus of that and the solution it provides. 

3.  Implement highly scalable processes and systems as you never know when a catalyst for hyper-growth will come along and having processes and scalability will enable to you surge while your competition ramps up.

4.  Be overly responsive to inquiries and delivering new service accounts. 

5.  Don’t copy what your competitors are doing, create better solutions. 

6.  Use existing clients as company evangelists and use PR and press releases to get your story told.