Using Technology to Protect Responders and Residents in Critical Moments

All right, TGIF, and welcome back to our In Case You Missed It podcast, where we talk to thought leaders in and around the GovTech industry to identify the innovations, market trends, and issues you need to know about. Our guest today has previously been with us, Andre McGregor, the co-founder and CEO of Force Metrics. He's a returning guest. He joined us back, I guess it was 2022, for our GovTech Startup Showcase winners from the State of GovTech event. And, you know, in this industry, we tend to focus on, you know, startups and well-established companies. We're always exploring what's kind of going on at the cusp of the market's edge. And without spoiling too much, Force Metrics has really had a big couple of years since our last update, and they were actually on the front page of GovTech.com over the last week. And so we wanted to bring Andre back to provide an update on their mission and kind of where things are at. So welcome back to our virtual studio.

Yeah, thank you for having me.

So, you know, we've spoken to you before, uh, we're aware of your impressive background, although I feel like I kind of need a security clearance just to, uh, you know, discuss part of it. But would love for you to maybe, for those that are, you know, first-time listeners of yours, uh, give us a quick overview of your journey to becoming a GovTech founder.

Yeah, so, um, I'm originally from Denver, Denver native. After Brown University and Goldman Sachs, got recruited by the FBI. After Quantico and the FBI Academy, they put me in Manhattan. I got a chance to start with counterterrorism, moved on to Italian organized crime, and then cybercrime. So hacking became a thing in 2008, 2009 from China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and there was no one really to investigate in the Bureau. And so they pulled a bunch of us from the field that had technical degrees and said, investigate this. So Sony, OPM, a variety of different attacks. And then Really didn't wanna get stuck at a keyboard. So I was a firearms instructor, I was a firefighter medic. I was also single and had no children. So a lot of things you can do. And then wanted to go back to engineering, was building cybersecurity software. And then George Floyd happened. And really that was one pivotal moment in my life. But then the other was my academy classmate, Dan Alphin, was shot and killed in Miami not that long after. And really sort of this sort of conversation around how we have better outcomes with public safety was both on the community side for me as much as on law enforcement. And that's what led me to create ForceMetrics along with my wonderful team.

So tell us a little bit about, you know, what's the elevator pitch to ForceMetrics and kind of how you're approaching the market and the problems that you've really sought out to solve in such an important area?

Yeah, so, you know, the way that we looked at data was We tend to, quite frankly, vomit lots of data on our first responders. And when are they gonna have time to read it? And when are they gonna have time to consume it? So ForceMetrics is a decision assist platform specifically for patrol operations dispatch, those that I say are taking my mother's 911 call. And the idea is I quickly wanna identify if someone's gonna kill me or not kill me, kill someone else or themselves. And then why am I here? What are your needs? Are you deaf and hearing impaired, domestic violence victim, homelessness? have autism, dementia, PTSD, and we surface that using machine learning and AI to really say from all those reports that no one's reading, all those call notes that dispatchers are taking, can we surface a profile that really tells Andre's truth in a Google meets Redfin, Zillow experience on your smartphone?

Love it. So we don't want to vomit data. We want to do it in a seamless kind of modern experience. And y'all have been, you know, really having some amazing progress over the course of the last time we talked. And, you know, one of the things that stood out is you were also one of 12 companies that were accepted into the first AWS GovTech Accelerator cohort on justice and public safety. Tell us a little bit about that experience.

Yeah, well, I tripped into being a startup founder often, like many other founders. I didn't know what I was doing. I think half the time I still don't know what I'm doing, but I'm surrounded around smart people that can, guide me, and AWS was one, you know, on top of just giving us access to their platform and services for us to build on and expand and scale. I think one of the, you know, biggest sort of compliments we hear is how fast our application is. Having access to the solution architects, being with other peers that are building software and early on and getting advice on how to get market penetration and product-market fit and, and language to even do the elevator pitch that I just gave you. AWS really did support that. And so it was a great experience.

And you've made some pretty notable hires too since the last time we talked. And on the financial side of things, you recently brought in Tim Sadler as your Chief Revenue Officer. Tell me a little bit about kind of the state of your organization and some of these key hires and how they helped you.

Yeah, so it's nice because when we spoke, 2022, you know, we had 3 customers using our platform. Now we're at 30, you know, so being able to expand is great, but we need to ramp up in terms of having more people, you know, get the word out that we exist. And Tim was one of those hires. I knew him from 10 years ago back in Silicon Valley, but even prior to that, he was a Chicago cop that came from a family of cops, that he married into a family of cops. So he understands law enforcement, but he's also been selling, uh, for 25 years and been able to scale companies from single-digit to triple-digit ARR. And so it was important for me to bring someone that had that industry experience. I need someone that can sit with a police chief and actually know what it's like to, you know, wear the uniform, you know, be concerned about safety, and but also someone that could know how to help me grow a company so that we continue to get more, uh, cities using the platform.

So the big news this week was that you raised, you know, $22 million in capital from investors. And, you know, congratulations to you and the team on that. But tell me a little bit about, you know, how this is gonna help usher in the next phase of Force Metrics.

Yeah, and I mean, it's not remiss on me that, quite frankly, founders that look like me don't normally, you know, raise money like that. And so I wanna make sure that I'm taking the proper steps to trailblaze as little as I'm doing. I don't think of myself as a trailblazer to continue to show diverse founders exist. But really with that is we just have a company to grow. We wanna go from 30 logos to 80 logos next year. That includes a go-to-market team that needs to get out there to cities, customer success, which I think is as important as sales because if in this industry, as you're well aware, If an agency loves you, they'll tell their friends. If an agency hates you, they'll tell their friends. So we wanna make sure that our customers, you know, love using the platform, that we have high utilization of the platform. And then quite frankly, there's just an organizational machine that we need to put in place so that we, you know, get contracts out properly and we deal with sort of the HR problems that sometimes arise and all the things that any company has to deal with. And so, you know, my goal is to really have ForceMetrics, you know, be, uh, the, the technology that officers think of first when they have a couple seconds before they knock on that door or step out of their car to make sure that they have a safe outcome.

Yeah, such a good story. Uh, and so, you know, there's a lot of people that we talk to in the market that are interested in, you know, kind of becoming the Andres of the world. They want to build a company in the space, they want to scale, they've got a mission orientation that they're looking at trying to build a business around. So you've seen kind of the good, the bad, and the ugly, the data vomit that we just talked about, right? Like, so tell me a little bit about kind of co-founding and leading a company in GovTech. I mean, you know, any words of advice or things you wish you could tell kind of an earlier, you know, form of yourself?

Yeah, you know, it's interesting because when I was speaking with, uh, the many investors I spoke with, uh, to get, you know, through our fundraising round, you know, I like to say that there's, uh, most VCs are GovTech curious. They may not actually invest in it because They don't quite frankly understand it. And I think the thing that is most important is you've got to think of, you know, local state law enforcement like SMBs, but instead of SMGs, small-medium governments. They can make fast decisions. They actually have a very large budget if you think about it. If you look at any city, your tax dollars funds anywhere from 40% to 70% of a police department come out of that budget. And so And you have to realize that you're working with a buyer that has the ability to purchase what you want. You just have to know what that pain point is, articulate what that ROI is for them, and then help them trust and de-risk that going with you, A, you're not gonna go outta business tomorrow because that's a legit concern. But B, you know, surrounding yourself with the advisors that have been in the space before. And I know that sometimes it's hard to get advisors' attention sometimes to be able to do it. But, you know, there's a lot of people that have walked that path, a lot of people that are not the largest of companies. And really, you know, it's a little bit of a slog. I don't think anyone's gonna deny that selling into GovTech isn't the easiest thing, but when you do and you have successes and your customers are willing to speak about those successes, that's important, then you actually will get traction.

And I've seen your customers all over social media definitely talking about, you know, what's going on with their use of Force Metrics. It's been great to see that. Now, kind of the flip side of things, as you think about them, you know, what's the experience been working with the different types of jurisdictions? Are there common kind of threads that are there? Any thoughts there on, you know, what they should know about working with companies like Force Metrics, maybe even the early days of that journey?

Yeah, I think in general, you know, when you— if you're coming from like an investor side, they tend to always think about New York, Chicago, and LA. And I actually say that there are more customers like Greensboro and, and Abilene, Texas than you are gonna have New York, Chicago, LA. So being able to, to work with the, the mid-market and actually the, the smaller agencies is, is very important because there's just more of them, quite frankly. And once you understand that language, you're able to talk to the neighboring agencies and a variety of stuff. There's actually a lot of similarities in police departments in terms of, you know, the data they collect, the tools that they use. You know, how they police their communities are often different. You're going to see a major difference between a Raleigh, North Carolina than a Cary, North Carolina while they're neighboring to each other. But the thing that they're all looking for is how can we all work together? I think there's just a little difference in like maybe the private sector where they're like a Citibank and a JPMorgan Chase may fight each other on deals. Well, police departments don't fight each other on deals. So they're really looking to say, how are your— how's your technology gonna work with this neighboring technology or this, you know, ancillary technology? And really that's the conversation that we should be having with departments is that you have an open API, open ability to share data.

Openness and interoperability, definitely a key, you know, and as you look to the future, I mean, there's so much right now that's intersecting government, especially in justice and public safety. I mean, what do you think, you know, looking a year out, can we even predict that far? Like what are some of the kind of things that you're tracking on that are gonna intersect JPS? You know, is it AI? Is it, you know, new regulations that are gonna emerge? Is it new behaviors or expectations? I'm just kind of curious, you know, you're in the market, you're seeing this vantage point. What do you see around the corner?

Yeah, so it's interesting because prior to OpenAI and ChatGPT, I would say you would never mention AI or anything around public safety because it was sort of a pejorative. And then once ChatGPT existed, you, I started getting customers saying, what's your AI like? Or, you know, can we use AI for X, Y, and Z? And, and that's a good thing in a lot of ways, not often in public safety, mainly because I think it's one of the few industries that we still need a human highly connected, much like emergency rooms. We have a lot of data decision-making, but if my Spotify DJ, which, you know, I have a newborn and I play a lot of white noise out of my Spotify, the DJ, as with my music, all of a sudden now the next song suggested is white noise. Spotify, you kind of got it wrong, but no one got injured, no one got hurt, and I can just fast forward past that song. Can't always do that in public safety. And so I do think there's still a man plus machine that we need to continue. But the thing I think it'll be interesting is really not only drones, obviously that's a highly interesting topic, but robotic security.

Yeah.

I think you're gonna see a place where 20, 30 years ago we laughed at RoboCop, right? We remember even that initial scene of RoboCop. Um, and now I don't know if it would be bad to have an office— a, a robot that could go into a situation that doesn't get injured when shot at, can have a non-lethal way of, um, you know, wrapping up a subject, and everyone goes home alive. I think you're actually going to see people say that's not a bad idea, and I think you're going to start seeing more of those little pieces of, you know, technology emerge.

Love it. Well, always fun to talk to you, pick your brain. And I mean, congrats on just the amazing success that y'all have had. And it's been so great to follow your journey from LinkedIn. And but also like just to see your customers talking about it has been phenomenal. So I guess the final question I have for you is just, you know, where can people go to learn more about what you're doing in market and connect with you?

Yeah, I mean, obviously our website, forcemetrics.com, is is a great place to get that initial information. And if you want a live demo and see for yourself why 75% of all agency employees use Force Metrics and we're not their system of record, we're not their dispatch software, uh, you know, please go to the website and we'll get, you know, fill out the form, we'll give you the demo. But then of course I, I do like to post on LinkedIn, so feel free to, you know, take a look at, uh, LinkedIn. And, you know, I just posted today some free software for You know, people looking for, you know, social media information for investigations, and I like to just stay connected there as well.

So connect with Andre there, plug into Force Metrics. Thanks, Andre, for carving some time out. I appreciate it, and we'll see you— maybe we'll check in a little bit sooner than a couple years. We'll try to, you know, come back to you maybe in 6 months to 12 months, but appreciate your time today.

Appreciate it, Dustin.

All right.