Exploring Smart Entry Solutions: Sedisto | Self Storage Explained #5

Hi, I'm Gavin Shields and this is Self Storage Explained expert advice on how to set up and scale your self storage business. Hi Stefan, thank you very much for joining us everyone. This is Stefan from Sedisto who has joined us and have known Stefan for a few years and I think we were on a panel together in Sweden not so long ago as well. So Stefan, would you mind starting please by introducing yourself and Sadisto please.

Oh yeah, I can do that. So my name is Stefan, I'm actually a telco guy. I worked in telco industry in big blue chip companies for more than 20 years and then I moved over to a startup called Sensoberg some years ago. And since one and a half years I was starting up Citisto together with my partner there, Nils and we both started the company Cities two.

Great.

Okay, so we are providing, we say we are your entry point into digital saast storage, which you can also see if you look up Zedisto on the webpage. So what we provide is an access control system for including the boxes and all the auto shelf elevators whatsoever, whatever you need to steer. And on top of that we do a lot of sensoric. So we're getting all these sensor data. We are working now on security solutions. We also partner with other partners in the industry for providing full fledged one stop shopping for emergency cases if something burns down. We have experts for planning all of that. So it's a big network of experts in it. That's why your entry point.

Okay.

We work with software companies like Stora.

Yeah, yeah. So these are then from a smart entry system point of view. So your solution works on shared doors, gates and roller shutter doors. What about units? So I think you mentioned there, it can also go on to unit doors as well. We have lots of customers who have indoors.

Correct. Basically we can cover everything which is outside a building and the building itself, which I would say call it the outer shelf. But we also steer every door inside. We steer elevators and we steer. And that's probably something a little bit unique is we also steer the box units themselves. So you can, you don't need a padlock anymore. You can work with this locks on the box units, which gives you a hell of advantages. Starting with the first one is just security because if there's no padlock then it's of course you cannot break in. So you need a very heavy tooling to get into these doors actually.

Okay, okay. And what about if you're an operator running a container site? So we've lots of container operators who will have, you know, smart entry system on their gates. What about lock on container doors? Is that something you're able to support?

This is something I was looking for for a couple of years already and every, every desire show I go to the container guys and have a look at the locks. System wise we could do it. The problem is that there is no real good lock for containers yet. That's the big problem with it. So there's no digital lock, no electrical lock, no smart lock that you can actually use to lock a container at the moment. So we do have customers with container storage, but there we only do the outer shelf. So the gates and stuff, but the container themselves, that's still something open. What we can do is we can put storage units within a container and use that with solar power and everything and have let's say 10 boxes within a container. And these we can open with the app or with the pin code, but not the container itself. That's still something missing.

Okay. And so your locks for the doors, for unit doors, let's say for an indoor self storage facility, you can put those on at the time of installing the steel units. But I think also you can retrofit your locks onto existing doors. Is that right?

Yeah, both is possible. So normally if you have a new build then the partitioner, when they build up the box partitions, they already can put the locks into that. So they have a special profile for that. So all of them know it. So it's nothing new actually. Or you can do a retrofit for that. You need a special little profile which we provide or we provide the drawings. I mean that's nothing we produce in a way. So you need just three rivets and then you, with the rivers, they can put this profile onto the existing door and then you can use those, the south co locks, the electromechanical locks.

Okay. And then do you also have any kind of alarms on the doors or any. So if you are putting it on every single unit, how do they work?

Well, we don't have a, we don't have an alarm in, in that case we, what we have is we have two sensors within the lock. So we have a, a so called lock status and the door status. So we do know when the door is open. There's a magnetic read contact which is built in into the lock already and we have a status of the lock itself if the lock is closed or not. So we have two sensors in each door and if you want you can also add let's say motion sensors to it. But that's something we are still working on. So from the platform side we have it, but we're still looking for the right sensors to use. Actually that's one thing. And the other thing is that we also want to cover the security aspect in the future by working closer together with these CCTV systems. And we're also trying to use lightning by the way to find out what's happening on ground and then we bring that together with an algorithm. I wouldn't call it AI because I think everybody talks about AIs but that's something we're going to show you most likely at the next big fit as I show in Stockholm in October.

Okay, okay. Okay. And then for, for the lift. So if you've got two floors in your south towards facility, I presume that the way that works is that you know, some customers, the ones on the upper floor will be able to use a lift, ones on the ground floor won't. Is that correct?

Yeah, yeah, we can do that as well. That's, that's a normal steering of access control for elevators. That's not a, it's not a rocket science. Yeah. Do you need that for, for, for, for all the SAS storage premises? I doubt, I think sometimes you burn a lot of money with that if you, if you use the elevator steering. But that's case by case. So we discuss it with the customers. What is the best option for security for access control between.

Okay, okay, so I'm just going to ask a few questions about the customer experience then. So assuming, let's say you're, you know, you're a customer of a self storage facility that has used your solution, used sodisto on the gates and the units. What's the customer experience? So let's say they're using store and they book online and they're about to move in later on today, what does the customer get? How do they open the doors and the gates?

The customer will receive an email after his booking and in this email he will have a link to an app and he can download the app and the app is then branded by the logo of the operator. And with that app you can actually open all kind of doors and boxes that you have actually access to. And if you want to use pin, you can also still use a pin. So also within the app you can see the PIN code. So every customer has an individual PIN code.

All right.

So the readers on the door, they also work with PIN pad. So very nice from third party suppliers. So it's really industrial readers that we use there and within the premise, you can also use a kind of a kiosk system in which you can enter your PIN code and then you see on the screen of the kiosk system which boxes and entrances you are able to open. And then you can just press the button and open the boxes.

I see. Okay. Okay, so that's quite nice. Fall back then. So if you're at the front gate and maybe you don't have a maybe, I don't know, your Bluetooth isn't working or whatever it is, you can still use a pin.

That's correct. And you just mentioned, you just mentioned Bluetooth. I mean, we haven't talked about it, but it's true. We also use Bluetooth. So we have a dual opening. So if the customer presses the button of the app, then you have two requests coming out. So one goes via Bluetooth, the other one goes via the cloud.

Okay.

Wherever is the faster one will open the door. But just in case that you don't have an Internet connection on your phone, which can happen. So I know storage is three floors down, concrete, a lot of steel, so you don't have mobile access anymore. Then it will open with Bluetooth. So you are safe on this one, but you are also safe in a way if your premise doesn't have Internet. It will also work on the premise because we have, let's say the backend system is in the cloud, it's cloud based, but it's also on the premise. So the permissions are actually handled on the premise.

Okay. Okay.

So we tried to build, so what we did is we tried to use all the experience we had also in the other, in the other companies before, and all the use cases in the customers, all the experience we put in that software, which is brand new, it's just a year old, and we try to make it extremely fail safe. So even we have a very dedicated IoT gateway which is a industrial piece of hardware. And even if you have no Internet connection, as I said, the permissions are there. And even if you want for new bookings, which then would not be possible, if you have no Internet connection, you even have an LTE backup if you want. So all of that is safe. And even if this industrial piece of hardware would fail, which is very undoubtful, then our log control units would directly connect to an emergency back end. So you can still open the door. So it's pretty fail safe.

Okay. Okay. All right. And so one of the things that a lot of, one of the big benefits I find of having kind of A smart image system at my facilities is if a payment fails.

Yes.

Being able to just turn off access. So is that the way your system works too? So if somebody's payment fails, the software system can communicate to your system and say this person's access is now disabled.

Absolutely correct. So it is handled by the leading system like yours, like Stora for example. And if there's no payment, then there's no access. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. And so what about the operator experience? So let's say you know, they, they meet you and they, they decide to get your, your system installed. What, what is the typical experience? Do some of your team come out to the facility, do you get a quote and then is there an installation date?

Yeah.

Do they need to think about getting power to all the gates and Internet cables to gates or what's, what's the process there? If you're an operator looking to.

Well, if you're an operator, normally we first have first contact, we talk about the system, we talk about their solute, their problems, more or less. We explain what we can do then normally we get a floor plan on the facilities, if it includes the boxes especially. And then we do a Bluetooth planning. So we play in the range of the Bluetooth devices and we also plan where the lock control units will be placed actually. And they get a nice drawing with everything in there. So where do we need 220 walls and we even make suggestions on how to cable everything. Having said that, I should tell you that we can, you don't need a network cable to each lock control unit. You can also put them in a row, so to say. So it's more easy to install and they get all of that from us. But we don't have an installation team. So what typically is in a new build is as I said before, the box builder, the partition they build in lock, they put in a dedicated cable into that Southco lock and put it to the top of the box and they are done. And the next guy coming in is normally an electrician or a network guy. If they provide electrician, they just take a LAN cable and they click into the controller. It's a click click system. Very, very simple to install. Why do I know that? Because I've done it on my own and I'm not a technical guy. I've done it on my own. With our first customers, Niels and myself, we were installing the whole building on our own and it took us I think six hours. Wow.

Okay, so, so the, the installation is done a combination of the, the People doing the fit out and like a local electrician or whoever you're using for the electrics.

Correct. Okay. So everybody can do it? If I can do it, everybody. Well, what I cannot do it. I cannot bring in a 220 volt or 110 volt in the UK block. That has to be done by an electrician, of course, but you have that for everything else. Same for video surveillance or whatever. You need that or you work with poe.

What about Stefan? What about the gates? So I'm just thinking about my sites. You know, I had a company that came out and added the motors to the gates so they open and closed. And then the smart entry solution I have in my sites from four or five years ago, somebody from there came out and installed that. So for the gates, is it the same? So maybe the electrician or whoever's installing the gate, they would have the hardware that they would buy from yourselves and they would install that. And it, it's. You have instructions of how to do it. Is that how that works as well? So it's very flexible there.

That's flexible. We have partners where let's say the electrician buys the hardware from us and installs it, or we send the whole stuff over to the, to the premise and the electrician just installs it. We are flexible on this one.

Okay, okay. All right. And what about so for the operator then? So they've got, they've installed your system, it sounds like, you know, I think I understand in the customer experience is that they book online or book over the phone, whatever, the day of their moving, they'll get an email with a link to download your app, which will be branded for the facility and then the customer can move in and out. What about the operator experience? So, you know, I think you. Have you mentioned before we started the recording that you have a back office system operators can look at what's kind of the on. I suppose the question is, what's the experience for an operator after the installation? Do they need to do things? Do they need to create codes or deal with stuff, or is that managed typically by the software product that they're using?

Yeah, for the daily operation they work normally with the leading systems like yours, for example, and others. But what they can do in our back end, they can do a lot of nice things as well. So for example, you can define different access times, different access groups. You have 24, seven or only in the afternoon, and you can divide it by different groups. You can also see in our backend all the openings you can see whether doors open or close. You can see if a cable is broken or not. So that's all to be seen in our backend. We're still working on let's say the optical part. So how nice it looks like. So the data is all there and we even have even more data in the back end. And we are currently in discussion with our customers and also with leads, what they would like to see. For example, you can also see how many people were coming into the premise by hours or in the morning or in the afternoon. So all the data is there, it just has to be displayed. And the question is now for, for the dashboard, actually what kind of information they want at the moment we have normally just the openings in there, the interactions open doors and broken cable, but we can show more on the back end as well. Okay, they can also do sharings, they can change things. They can do also remote opening by the way, out of the back end. That's, that's also very simple. It's a search function in it. So if, if, if you as an operator get a, a call from your customer that oh, I, I can't open my box, I lost my phone or whatever, I'm standing in front of my box. And you would just say, okay, what, what is your box? You say oh, it's number 17 and you have a generic search engineer. You just pass in 17. You will see the box immediately, you will open it. You see the tenant agreement which is then linked by or pushed in by companies like Stora. You see who this is. You can even ask him for authorization, for example, with a PIN code or whatever, and then you can remotely open the door for him. That's all also all possible.

Fantastic. And that's one of the things that I do a lot of my sites is because I don't have staff there and sometimes customers do just turn up at the front door. And so not customers. People want to have a look around potential customers. And I can carry out a tour of the facility over the phone.

You can do that. But you can also go a step further because for, for these, let's say demo cases where we have a customer at the moment or a lead that we are discussing this intensively. You can also have dedicated demo accounts that you can use for that, for example, and then you can give them specific access on specific times and diff different boxes and entrances. So you can, and that is maybe valid for a day or you define how long it's valid and then they can freely show around, look around and, and See, maybe two or three boxes and then they move out again and afterwards they do a booking, hopefully for you.

Okay, okay, that's. Yeah, that's great. So like, so you, somebody could, maybe you could give somebody access for one day so they can go and have a look around and decide what size they want and they can do that in their own time.

Correct.

Nice one. Okay, Stefan, are you able to explain why roughly what the cost is for the system?

Yes. Basically you have two parts. One is the hardware part. We're using external hardware. So here we're a bit bound on the hardware prices of these suppliers. And you need to have the setup of the app and the software once it's the one time payment. So you can use it then for 100 locations, 200 locations, or just one location here we're also flexible. If we have smaller customers, then we can also split that cost over several locations if they want. And then of course we have this fee, the monthly fee, which is for running the whole system, for the whole infrastructure, for the support part and so on and so forth, updating the app and new features and so forth. And this fee, there are also two options. One is we charge it per box. So if you have a box access, then you charge a certain amount of euro per box. And we don't care about the outer shelf. So all the other accesses and elevators are all in that fee included. And if you are just doing the outer shelf, then we normally work on fixed pricing per location, which is discussed depending on the size of the location, size of the customer. Okay, we're very flexible on this one.

Okay. So there's a one off setup cost and then there is an ongoing fee then. That's correct with the software. And that can be either by box, if you're doing it by box, or maybe by site if it's just the share.

Correct. And that's normally something. We're very flexible. We're discussing that. And we also have customers that tell us like, oh, I have investor in the background, so. So my opex should be lower. I'd rather pay Carx. Then we can also shift part of the monthly fee into the car Pax. That's also possible. We are a small company and we are flexible on the small.

Okay, okay, okay. And what countries do you support? Where is Sadisto available?

Sidisto is available all over Europe and apparently we have set up also the Asian installation now. So we have also a back end in Asia because you need that locally because of the latency. And that's the second Content we're doing at the moment. So it's Asia and Europe. The US would be a target for the future one day.

Okay, okay, okay. And if, you know, if we've got a listener who wants to find out more about Sadisto and getting it installed, where should they go to reach out to you or your team?

Well, first of all, I can say that if you go to YouTube and you just put in Zedisto, then you will find only one video. And that one video explains a little bit how it works in real life. So it's a real life situation there. 40 seconds, so everybody can have a look at it. Otherwise our webpage, which is www.sidisto.com and here you find all the call to action buttons. Also for the support part, you can see more information in it and then you can reach out to us via phone, WhatsApp, email, ticket system. There are several options to get us know.

Okay. Okay. So the web page is sedisto.com. that's S E--I-S-T-O.com.

Correct.

And you can get lots more information there. And it Sounds like the YouTube video is a good place to start as well, to see more about the. The solution. So, Stefan, is there anything else that listeners should know about Sedisto? Anything that we haven't covered on the call so far?

I think we have covered most of it. I think what is important to know is that this is, I believe, the most modern system at the moment. Also when it comes to APIs, I'm just saying, giving an example, if you need a dedicated API. So we have of course integration with companies like yours and others. But if somebody for any other reason needs an API, they can click their API together in our backend and then create their own API code. So it's very, very easy actually. API key story. It's very easy to work with us and we are fully flexible. I think that's the key thing. It's the most modern system.

Okay, okay, great. Well, thanks very much. Great to hear all about Sedisto and I'm sure I'll see you again soon. Are you going to be at the. So it sounds like you're going to be at Fidessa this year. Will you be at the SSA event in. In the uk?

Yeah, I'll be in. In Madrid, I'll be in Birmingham, I'll be in Stockholm. Yeah, everywhere.

Lots of air miles. Okay.

Actually, actually not no air miles because I use a camper van. Because I have a demo box. So I have a demo box. And I drive with my demo box across Europe.

Oh wow. Okay, Stefan, thank you very much and yeah, great to chat to you and I'll see you soon hopefully.

Yep, see you Gavin.

Thanks very much. Bye. Thank you for listening to Self Storage Explained, where we aim to provide expert advice on how to set up and scale your self storage business. For more resources, including financial models and in depth guides for setting up or growing your business, visit our Self Storage Academy at Stora Co. At Stora Co or. And if you would like to find out more about how Stora can help your business grow sales and save time, set up a demo or contact us at Stora Cora Co. Thank you.