A strong health and safety focus is paramount for every business. What could be more important than ensuring the safety of staff and visitors in an evacuation scenario? For Safeout this is all about being able to track the whereabouts of all persons potentially on site independently of desk-based systems.
Matt Hall and Paul Dow, the co-owners of Safeout, have a product that provides an end-user mobile app-based visitor management system that will do exactly that. “The decentralised model allows for great analytical capability regarding who is on site, when people come and go and most importantly an ever-ready current list of site personnel during and emergency,” they say.
For Matt and Paul, the idea came during a small business StartUp weekend at the Base Station. During that weekend they identified a specific gap where they could make a simple, effective, mobile-based solution that would help boards and employers reduce the health and safety risk associated with staff and visitors in their care. “Our app addresses a crucial need for businesses across the country,“ say Matt and Paul. “Often when meeting clients we find that emergency evacuation processes are not very strong and in many cases there is no method of accounting for personnel during emergencies.”
Matt and Paul love seeing the “light-bulb moment” in their clients’ eyes when they download the app and try it for the first time. “It affirms that we are addressing a real weakness in staff and visitor management and safety in an emergency.”
The business is still in its start up phase. “We have space for another 5 local clients to be involved in our trial phase for nil cost until the end of December. After that we will be pushing and promoting the services to a wider market in New Zealand and overseas.”
It has been a testing as well as a rewarding time for Matt and Paul. Maintaining work life balance has been challenging. Going forward Matt and Paul intend to bring on extra development, sales, and marketing staff to support projected growth. Equally, finding wider industry connections for user testing and sale beyond the pool of friendly local businesses has not been straightforward.
During their start-up phase Matt and Paul have received a lot of great advice from seasoned business people. They have embraced the concept of “fail fast” by moving quickly to test their business ideas. “All new business is about giving things a shot,” they say. “What have you got to lose?”
If you are a business looking to improve your health and safety systems Safeout could have the solution. For more information about Safeout visit their website at www.safeout.co.nz.
