Arc Security, 'Arc' for short, is another company that I am a founding member of and went through the Creating a Company curriculum, but with its own twist.
I did not come up with the idea of forming a team and new company, rather I was invited to participate in this by the TA (teaching assistant) of the Creating a Company course I went through for JailBird. This TA, whom I admired for his vast experience in entrepreneurship despite his young age, reached out to me and I immediately accepted as I considered this a once in a lifetime opportunity to work with him.
While the company in its current state was founded in November of 2020, the original team was formed in February of that year. We spent many months trying to figure out what our business/product would be. We didn't land on the idea of Arc until September, after having gone through several prior ideas that we dove into but eventually decided not to pursue due to creative differences.
Arc in its initial form was meant to be a hardware company, not a software company. However, it was always meant to be a personal security company. We initially wanted to create a ring with a discrete panic button for customers (the business idea was to be B2C) to use in times of emergency. After having dove into the logistics and having created some designs/renders we were gearing up to pitch for prototype funding from the Creating a Company instructor. However, the night before we were due to pitch, we spoke to one of our advisors, Mariah Gentry, and her feedback completely upended our trajectory, but in a good way.
That night, we decided we no longer were going to pursue hardware, and thus began our software journey. We also shifted our target customer from general consumers to brokerages, where the end-users are real estate agents. We chose this as we believe brokerages, who employ agents as independent contractors, could use our service as a distinguishing trait of their business. Real estate agents face a well above average amount of danger due to the nature of their profession, and thus having us as a service could help set brokerages apart and allow them to look more appealing to potential new agents.
Since having begun this journey, we have lost two of our founding members (differing priorities) but have also added a whopping 9 new team members, bringing our current head count to 12 people! We strive for a welcoming and inclusive culture where while we are effective coworkers, we are also good friends.
We are currently in the process of developing our product, after having held one round of beta-testing, with more rounds planned before launch. We are also exploring funding options, including VC, to allow us to scale more rapidly.