The Story Behind My Investment In Citizen

When one of your best friends and seed-stage co-investors texts you about a company “you’ve just got to meet,” that certainly gets my attention. Thanks to that good friend in NYC, I was able to meet Andrew, the CEO of a company called sp0n. Yes, that’s right — sp0n. I have no idea what it means, but it is a real company and I wired my money to them.

Andrew and I clicked right away. I am always on the prowl for a new opportunity, and especially in the consumer space. As I’ve mentioned, it’s been harder for me to get excited about the consumer concepts and networks that have come my way. I am sure I’m missing some good stuff, but I want to make sure what I’m funding either (a) has a path to distribution in a large market; or (b) is a product so unique, I am compelled to see it exist in the world.

Investing in Andrew, sp0n, and its first product — Citizen — is most certainly (b), but I also believe it could be (a). Over the years, you may have noticed that I reference Chris Nolan’s Batman in tweets often. I am a mega-fan of his trilogy. I wrote it about here. And, as I got to know Andrew, I talked about it often. He felt the same way.

I have been investing in a few new companies which are selling software to different levels of government. Traditionally, this is not an attractive customer to go after — long sales cycles, RFP bidding, local politics, and so forth. But, that is changing. I’ll have more to share on this in the coming months, but software built by startups is penetrating different levels of government. On top of this, sadly, we are in an age where crime, especially in our growing cities, is on the local television news, on Twitter, and broadcast on Facebook Live. Tensions among citizens and law enforcement are deep, and this was before 2017 began, not to mention tensions within different bodies of law enforcement, both local and national.

sp0n has now launched the mobile app, Citizen, which you can download and use on iPhone or Android/Google, though note right now, it’s only available for use in NYC. I’m biased, but I’d encourage you check out their video, here. I know that launching in one city is often a way to aggravate other users, but Citizen has a legitimate excuse — their setup requires significant work to get right before a city launch. I can tell you that Andrew and his team are obsessing about getting it right in NYC and have a plan to rollout at the right time. Inside Citizen, NYC residents can get real-time crime alerts around them, browse a newsfeed of incidents, view and/or broadcast live video, and eventually, I can imagine much more. Having watched the NYC “Citizen Network” grow over the past few months, it’s clear there’s a need for this type of product, and I am lucky to have been introduced to Andrew and to be a small part of the ride to see if it can work, city by city, citizen by citizen.