Thought Leaders in Mobile and Social: Interview with Alex Bratton, CEO of Lextech (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: So you are betting on more sophisticated intelligent agents?

Alex Bratton: Absolutely. They are going to combine intelligence on the mobile device with big data in the cloud. Whether that data is all of my personal information that I uploaded there myself, or the big data of enterprises and being able to use that based on analytics, pushing information to a salesperson about something that is happening in their area they should be aware of.

SM: I think where that part of the ecosystem is likely to go is context-specific agents and apps that focus on specific context.

AB: I agree. But it is about having the intelligence in those agents to remind you when something happens. My reminder application is not just going to remind me of a date or location, but it is going to remind me when it sees a person when I walk into a particular building.

SM: What would you advise a young entrepreneur to do in regards to this space?

AB: I don’t think it is as much about the area someone focuses on as opposed to focusing on something where they are delivering a lot of value. It is virtually impossible to make a real business giving away free apps or selling $0.99 apps. Advertising support is a possibility, but it is a very hard business model.

SM: None of the people in my stories endorsed advertising-supported app business models. It is one of my least favorite business models in the world.

AB: Thank you. I completely agree with you. There are so many real business and enterprise problems that are crying out for mobility and apps that people would pay a lot of money for. One example would be that we spun out a sister company years back that was focused on video surveillance in public safety industries. Those are industries where organizations have spent millions of dollars on video cameras and recording systems. We rolled out the most expensive app in the app store. It was $900 per app. If those $900 apps enable a million dollar system, it works beautifully. That app was the top grossing app in the world for 14 weeks.

SM: Can you talk more about that app?

AB: It was essentially providing mobile access to video cameras and surveillance equipment used by police departments, schools, municipalities, and the federal government. These are people who historically had video cameras, recorded them and nobody used them. But they finally got to the point where they said, “There is real-time information here we want to use to run our organization.” This system is called LEXREY. It was all about getting real-time information for the people who needed it and making it simple and enjoyable to do it. The value proposition of getting access to that was worth so much more than the $900, that people paid it very quickly and got a lot of value in return.

SM: What is the usage model there? Is it the camera of the iPad that people are using, or is it people receiving data that is being analyzed?

AB: One example would be a first responder who is responding to a problem at a school. If that first responder has mobile access to the cameras in that school on her iPhone or iPad, she can know what the problem she is walking into before getting there. We started working on that not long after the Columbine school incident. As a technologist, I was sickened that there was a video system in that school in Columbine, locked in a closet, and there were police officers on the other side of the wall and they could not get it and know what was going on in that school. That makes no sense today with today’s technology. My vision for that was to get it out of a locked closet – out of the command center – and get it out to the people who can make a difference – whether that means saving a life or better running an organization.

This segment is part 4 in the series : Thought Leaders in Mobile and Social: Interview with Alex Bratton, CEO of Lextech
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