Gil Guillory's blog on Subscription Patrol and Restitution

launch in March 2012?

2009-12-30T02:33:00Z

These are the pre-launch musts:

Balance of site visits to other security companies, make notes.
Find key employees or co-venturers -- patrol manager, salesman, dispatcher, investigator. These four competencies could come in fewer than four people, of course. The main problem here is timing. It would be great to identify these people right away, and have them help me to develop the business plan details, and then launch. But their employment situations might not be that flexible, or they might not be interested in investing time until there is an associated paycheck. But I will continue my low-grade search for them until it becomes critical.
Identify victim-offender mediators and arbitrators that "get" our business model and hopefully put a VOM casebook in their hands along with the great VOM books by Charles Barton.
Pick location for launch.
Complete business plan documents. I have a number of these in draft form, but when the business launch is near, I will likely enroll in an E-Myth program to make sure I have covered all the bases. At the very least, I will complete one year of proforma income statements, balance sheet, and cash flow; plus, following the terms in The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur, my Immutable Laws, Focus Five, Prosperity Plan, Quarterly Plan, and Daily Metrics -- all of these have analogs in the E-Myth program.
Ensure I have enough money to meet the cash flow plan.
Develop marketing plan and materials. This is kind of included in point 5 above, but it's big enough to be its own item.

All of this could be done in one year, I think. There are hidden to-do's -- saying that I complete the business plan documents implies that I decide on patrol transportation (cars, motor scooters, bikes?), scope (24-hr? partial day?), etc., and saying that I pick a location for launch implies a final marketing study that informs that decision -- but I think it can all be done part-time in a year. I could start on this list after March 2011.

At launch, I expect that I would work on the business full time for at least 12 months, but it's really hard to project such things.

What I have learned by writing all this down in the last few posts is that the launch for the business could happen as early as March 2012. I will be 41 years old, and my daughters will be 9 and 13 years old. Oh, and that will give us a solid 9 months to operate until the world ends :)

Plan of Work, Apr 2010 - Mar 2011

2009-12-30T02:04:00Z

I generally plan my work for the year on a March-to-March cycle, since my papers are major deliverables of my work, and they are presented at conferences in March.

Next projects:

Site visit to 1 patrol company. Write a paper on it (won't be published -- I don't publish everything). I'd like to visit at least 3 before launching, but each visit will take time (maybe up to a week!). The most I think I could visit in one calendar year is two.
Patrol field trials. Write a paper on it.
Launch Mediation Casebook Project. The key will be to find a mediation center that would like to try it. I can assist with pro-formas, typesetting, and publishing. Maybe I can kick in some money to make it happen, as well.
GIS in SPR. This will be a paper on what GIS tools, both hardware and software, the SPR company will use at launch, including some equations that need to be developed to calculate reserving requirements from incident-based data, and some initial, careful inquiries into how incident-based data can be obtained from local law enforcement and other security providers. This paper is in the planning stage as of this writing with 2 co-authors.
CJ Essay Contest. To drive more libertarian-aligned CJ students to consider private security options (including my planned business), I will establish an essay contest along the lines of the APEE essay contest, but specifically for CJ students and concerning the private production of security. I hope to obtain from ACJS a list of CJ departments and publicize it to them with a poster. I also hope to get a major institute to put their name on the contest.

That's a pretty full year, but that does not exhaust the things still to be done. More on that in another post.

Plan of Work, Jan - Mar 2010

2009-12-30T01:29:00Z

There are two papers that I'm working on:

1. A Call for Victim-Offender Mediation Casebooks. This paper, which I am co-authoring with Greg Rome and Daniel Coleman, looks at the current and historical methods used to solve the general problem of arbitrating terms -- usually monetary damages -- to offenders. Our solution in the modern context is the establishment of Victim-Offender Mediation Casebooks that can be drawn upon as a guide for the arbitrator.

2. The Search Power: Ethics, Theory, History, and Empirical Findings. This paper, which I am co-authoring with Dick Clark, provides a survey of the search power along a number of dimensions. One of its conclusions is that the search power is indispensable in the enforcement of malum prohibitum crimes, but not nearly as important in malum in se crimes.

These will be completed between Jan and Mar of 2010. If they are accepted for presentation, then both of these papers will be presented at the Austrian Scholars Conference in March 2010.

In February of 2010, I will attend the ACJS Annual Conference. I am a member of ACJS, and will be attending under my Molinari Institute affiliation. Goal of the visit is broadly networking. Specific hopes are to find: Texas CJ professor(s) with long-term interest in studying the launch and operation of SPR, which will assist me in setting metrics and as a general critical sounding board; and victim-offender mediators or mediation program directors that might be interested to establish a project to create victim-offender mediation casebooks.

Nutshell of what I know and don't know about SPR

2009-12-29T22:13:00Z

I maintain a web archive of academic-style papers and short articles in the evolution of the SPR business model here (also accessible in the sidebar of this blog). But, in a nutshell, this is what I know and don't know:

What is proposed is legal, but I'll have to co-venture with someone with 3 years' security experience to get the license for the company -- study is here
Consumers are receptive to the SPR business model at the price point of ~$35-50/mo -- study is here. Still to be established is the location for launch. Most likely location will be somewhere in the greater Houston metropolitan area, since I don't want to move when I start my company -- but that is not nearly specific enough. Some further marketing studies and strategizing will need to be done.
Indemnification costs (pure premia) have been quantified at ~$5/mo -- study is here
Patrol staffing has been approximated, but field trials will be necessary to fully understand the cost structure -- preliminary study is here. What especially needs to be established are: initial and expected final geographical extent of coverage of first office, and estimate of number of staff required versus number of subscribers. If I cannot hire a security company to perform these trials, then I will attempt to pay a Criminal Justice professor to perform it as research with CJ students.
Regarding investigation, cops have the search power at their disposal which is a comparative disadvantage to security companies, but this seems not to be a big problem. First attempt at quantifying this potential weakness is here (pp. 14-16), followed up by a presentation in Oct 2009 (PPT, MP3). Forthcoming paper on the matter, due in March 2010.
The market for mediation services for victim-offender mediation are not well-developed in the US or Texas (don't get me wrong -- there are mediators, but they rarely do victim-offender mediations), and the market for victim-offender arbitration services is non-existent, and so the market will have to be helped along a bit in the beginning. Forthcoming paper on the matter, due in March 2010.
I don't have first-hand experience in security. Ideally, I might work for a security company for 3 years in the evenings to gain experience; but, that just won't work for me. Instead, I have read books by three security company entrepreneurs (Ira Lipman of Guardsmark, Ross McLeod of Intelligarde, and K C Poulin of Critical Intervention Services) and plan to conduct site visits and interviews with at least 3 security companies that perform residential patrol, hopefully including both Intelligarde and Critical Intervention Services. The rest of the security experience will have to come from a key employee or co-venturer.
I need 4 key first employees (these could be co-venturers): a patrol manager with experience in residential patrol, a dispatcher with experience in dispatch, an investigator with experience in investigation, and a salesman with experience in selling allied products, such as home monitoring services. While I have some "irons in the fire" to attract the right people, and have met candidates for these positions, none of these people have been definitively identified/chosen. Each of the key first employees needs to be ideologically aligned with the vision of the company.

When are you going to start a security business?

2009-12-29T21:56:00Z

Because I am known in certain circles as that guy who is planning to start a libertarian-ideology-inspired subscription patrol and restitution company, the question I am often met with is: when are you going to start the business?

The point of this blog will be to chronicle the steps I think I need to take in order to launch it successfully.

The reason for this blog is not to answer the question above. The reason for this blog is to elicit critical feedback from fellow entrepreneurs, would-be entrepreneurs, specialists in patrol and security, those with business acumen, and really just about anyone.

The first few posts on this blog will lay out what I know so far, and what I think the most important steps are to being launch-ready.

Welcome to my blog!