The technology behind Omaha-based Lyconic has been in the works for nearly ten years.
In 2003, Shea Degan, co-founder of Lyconic, started a private contract security company, Signal 88 Security, as a way to supplement his income. What started as a few extra security jobs, soon turned into more projects than Degan could handle. So, he brought in his friends, and when that wasn’t enough, he had to start employing strangers.
“It turned into a whole accountability issue,” said Aron Filbert, Co-founder of Lyconic. “He also was spending a huge amount of time just making sure his officers were where they were supposed to be.”
Degan had developed his own processes which included various PDFs, Excel spreadsheets and Outlook scheduling. All that time spent managing people soon cut into Degan’s original passion for the project.
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“All his processes were in different places and it got to the point where it wasn’t sustainable,” said Filbert. “I told him to put it all together on a website.”
Filbert explained that the business started putting schedules, reporting and time tracking for the guards online.
“Clients could now see who was working on their site and the reports the guards were writing, which already started saving Shea a lot of time,” said Fibert. “This was before cloud services, before Web 2.0, and before Omaha had 3G rolled out entirely.”
Signal 88 became so successful that in 2007 Degan started Signal 88 Franchise Group for the sole purpose of franchising Signal 88 Security. Since 2008 Signal 88 Franchise Group has built 112 different franchises in 38 states and provinces in three different countries.
Lyconic was founded as a separate entity at the end of 2008 as a way of formalizing Filbert’s partial ownership in the technology behind the companies. Signal 88 operates using the same technology behind Lyconic, and has been the sole client of Lyconic for the majority of the time since it’s founding.
How Lyconic works
Lyconic helps contract security businesses compete for, win and keep security contracts, according to Filbert.
“We do this by helping them be more profitable,” said Filbert. “We help them with operational stuff like schedule management, security operations reporting, intelligent automated patrol routing and time tracking.”
Lyconic is also redefining the traditional approach to security-patrol dispatching.
Security can be really expensive, especially when you require a dedicated officer on-site. There are many small businesses who would like to have security, but they can’t afford it. Instead of having an officer dedicated on site for eight to ten hours, many businesses are opting for a timeshare patrolling option. With this option, officers can split up their time between multiple locations, which increases profitability.
“We built a way that eliminates or reduces the need for a human dispatcher,” said Filbert. “[Patrolling] is one of the most profitable options for contract security businesses, and that’s where our software really comes in handy.”
Filbert explained that the team has basically Uberfied the traditional patrol dispatching approach by putting the power to dispatch within the hands of the officers.
“[Our technology] tells the officer where to go, when to go, how to get there, what to do when they’re there and how to report,” said Filbert.
Pivoting to attract a larger market
Filbert explained that the company is now in a position where they want to grow their business and realize that there is a much bigger opportunity in the extended contract security marketplace.
“We’re going through Straight Shot to essentially leverage building sales, the business, and to go and market to that overall security industry,” said Filbert. “It’s no longer about being bound to one client. We’ve pivoted from an enterprise vendor to a pure-play software as a service company.”
Filbert said it was difficult to grow the company when there was just one exclusive client.
“They basically controlled our revenue and our market size,” said Filbert. “We were really only able to grow when they could.”
Filbert explained how discouraged he felt when he realized his previous business model wasn’t going to be able to attack the broader marketplace.
“We had to pick between continuing to serve one client or attempting to attack the broader marketplace,” said Filbert. “It was really discouraging because it meant walking away from consistent revenue and more than anything it meant having to change. At first that was really terrifying and it made it really difficult for me to move.”
Filbert explained that his fear caused him to not see opportunity and that he had to realize that he couldn’t do everything on his own.
“That’s where Straight Shot came in and told me I really needed to change what I was doing if I wanted a different outcome,” said Filbert.
Filbert now feels more optimistic as he begins his endeavor as part of the 2016 Straight Shot cohort. He said that the team hopes to grow the business and sales as opposed to the product.
“For almost ten years now we’ve been mainly R&D focused,” said Filbert. “We’ve never had to really look at what it’s like to build a business. We’ve been building a product and maintaining a business but now it’s our goal through Straight Shot to build a business and really kick start sales and marketing.”
The big vision for Lyconic
With all of the product research, development, time and money they have put into the technology behind Lyconic, the team feels confident that they have a great product.
“It’s on its third generation, it’s highly scalable. We’re now on cloud services, and we’re uniquely positioned for rapid and scalable growth,” said Filbert.
Aside from their current goals for the business, Filbert sees many opportunities for the future of Lyconic.
“We want to integrate our software with video cameras to help facilitate workflow,” said Filbert. “We really want to build on that idea of integrated security.”
Filbert explained that the team also hopes to help better the communication between private security and law enforcement, and the communities they serve.
He also added that there is a huge amount of information that the company has collected since it started.
“We’re sitting on 10 million reports that share what happened at the properties, how they responded and what they did,” said Filbert. “That’s a massive treasure trove of information. There’s all kind of ways we can use that data, which really excites me.”
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Melanie Lucks is a communications intern for Silicon Prairie News and AIM Careerlink.
