Hidden Gems with YourSix Physical Security as a Service
Automated Transcript:
Richard Murray (00:19):
Hello everyone, and welcome to this episode of Hidden Gems. I’m Richard Murray, COO of Telarus, and today I am joined by Eric Styles, the CEO of YourSix. Today we’re going to be discussing why physical security as a service. It’s something that you should be talking to your customers about. So welcome on in today. Let’s learn together Why YourSix is a Telarus Hidden Gem. Eric thank you so much for joining me today. Appreciate you, you coming to talk to our partners about this opportunity with physical security. I’d like to start with, can you please tell us where YourSix name comes from? I think it’s a wonderful story.
Eric Styles (01:05):
Yeah, absolutely. First of all, Richard, thanks so much for even having me on on here and inviting us to the Hidden Gems show. We, we always, we always enjoy the opportunity to address the partner community. So YourSix is you go, can go all the way back to the World War I era when it, when it popped up. And if you think the simplest way to think about it is if is if there’s a clock in a good old fashioned clock with the 12 o’clock standing in front of you, six o’clock would be behind you. And it kind of turned into starting as an aviation term, but moving into the broader military and law enforcement fields as a general term for watch my watch, my six, watch my back, or I’ve got YourSix, I’ve got your back. Same. So in the world of security you know, we feel we should be watching our customers
Richard Murray (02:03):
Backs. You’ve got their back. Awesome. I love it. So, let, let’s dive in a little bit. You, you guys have been part of the Telarus portfolio since 2019. You’re very unique in our portfolio and candid, very unique just in the channel. To begin with, most physical security providers aren’t, don’t have a channel program. So let’s start with what is physical security as a service and make sure our partners understand that as a baseline.
Eric Styles (02:29):
Absolutely. So first of all, the term physical security needs to be understood that it’s an umbrella term. It’s not just one thing. There’s multiple industries within the full industry of physical security. So we think of physical security as video surveillance, access control, monitoring, sensors audio and analytics and ai. And what we’ve built at YourSix is a single unified platform to provide all of those services in one single interface for the end customer. And essentially we built the platform and the model, the channel program to, to, to kind of duplicate what UCaaS has already been so successful in doing, which is helping end customers move from premise-based solutions to cloud-based solutions, enabling them to standardize on a single solution across their enterprise and ultimately deliver them a better experience and a more secure security solution along the way.
Richard Murray (03:35):
And, and I love some of the solutions. They’re, they’re really exciting to look at. They do some very unique things. We’ll get into those a little bit as as we go through. But early on in our discussion here, I wanna make sure that we have the conversation with our partners of why having this conversation is so important right now. Talk to us about what, what the opportunity is here with physical security.
Eric Styles (03:59):
Yeah, so we actually, at YourSix, we pioneered the physical security as a service term in the channel. We were the first ones to enter the channel and by way through Telarus. And so we were very excited to strike that partnership three years ago. And really why we did it was we understood that the entire physical security market was about to go through a major shift. One that rivals what UCaaS has already accomplished, moving again, premise solutions to, to the cloud. And what most partners i, I think need to be aware of is just how big the opportunity is. The physical security industry, when you think about the total addressable market, is actually larger than the total addressable market of business communications. So just think about that, Richard at the, the telecom channel or the channel as a whole has really been living off of this shift from old school premise-based phone systems to now UCaaS and CCaaS and everything that’s, that’s being delivered in, in, in that space today. But think about a, a larger market than that, that is just starting that shift to cloud. That’s why we were so excited about the solution that we’ve built and bringing that solution to the partners to bring it to the end customer. It’s a huge, huge opportunity for everyone.
Richard Murray (05:30):
Yeah, and I, I, I just wanna underline that for everyone. That this addressable market, we’re all selling a lot of UCaaS, a lot of CCaaS, those types of products. This is a larger addressable market, so we wanna make sure that we’re jumping in and having those conversations with, with our customers. So as our partners are meeting with their customers, having these conversations. What are some of the key names, the, the incumbents, the legacy technologies that they should be listening for so they can have that conversation with, have that light bulb moment and say, Oh, I have an alternative to that that I can bring you.
Eric Styles (06:09):
Yeah, some of the biggest names in the industry that are the incumbents that are the legacy products some, some of the biggest ones would be Genetech, Milestone Exac. And that’s just on the video surveillance side of the world. When you move into access control, there’s a whole nother group of incumbent solutions out out there Linnell as an example and some others. And so there’s just, there’s a lot of systems out there that the typical telecom channel or, or the channel as a whole hasn’t really needed to know, but now it’s a matter of starting to be aware of who already has a physical security system in place today. And just being able to ask that next question of what are you currently using? And then just start getting familiar with some of those names that you start to hear out there because chances are it’s not a cloud solution today. Chances are it’s an opportunity to provide a cloud solution.
Richard Murray (07:13):
Yeah. So you, you’ve got those legacy providers that are kinda like the, the, the old Mitel, you know, we’re replacing a a a box essentially, but now there, there are also some competitors to you guys that, that maybe don’t have channels for, for us to operate in. Who should they be trying to listen to or, or make sure that, Hey, I, if I hear Cisco Meraki, I know I need to go engage YourSix, but who else is out there?
Eric Styles (07:42):
Absolutely. Well, you actually just named one Cisco Meraki has, has a cloud surveillance play. It’s more of a me too product for theirs, but they are technically in our space. And for customers who have a Meraki managed wifi solution today, they think sometimes that’s the easy button to just turn on cameras. But then more often than not, we usually replace them. So Meraki is an example of one. Vercada is a big name in our space. They are certainly the biggest marketers in our space, so they’re probably the most well known in this shift to cloud. You’ve got Ava is another one. And there and there are others, Eagle Eye some other names that that I’m sure partners will come across. But, but there are clear differentiators as well between those companies and what YourSix brings to the table.
Richard Murray (08:38):
And I promise you we’re gonna get there, but I do want to turn the page just real quick and talk about the customers for, for just a moment so that our partners now can say, Okay, these are the type, we’ve defined the market, we know what we should be looking for. Who should they be talking to? Who are the decision makers that are making these types of decisions now?
Eric Styles (08:58):
Absolutely. So there’s a few things there. One of the reasons we were so excited to build our platform is we wanted to build an enterprise grade software solution that was also gonna be priced all the way down to the SMB market. And so really there is no starting customer per se, for YourSix. We are, we’re seeing that multi-site and mid to large space seems to be a sweet spot for us, but we have partners that bring us into small customers all the time, and we’re happy to bring them in. We’re price competitive, we’re a great solution for them as well. But we really do shine the more locations a customer may have, the more complex the opportunity may be. We’re even doing global rollouts now. So there’s no limit to the, the size and scale of an opportunity, which I think is really is exciting for partners.
Eric Styles (09:53):
You should never be you should never be fearful to bring YourSix into, say, a multi-billion dollar organization because we know how to speak to them and we know what they’re looking for and we know how to bring a good solution to the table. Now with that said, the, the, the, the decision maker, another reason why it was the right time to bring this solution into the channel is because with the incumbent solutions that we discussed earlier, the decision maker around those incumbent solutions were typically your facilities managers, loss and prevention teams, kind of more old school blue collar type roles. And as this industry has shifted to more IP connected devices, now those devices reside on the very network that the IT decision makers are responsible for managing. And those just happen to be the same decision makers that our partner community is so used to engaging with today to sell all types of different technology solutions. And so the decision maker has shifted along with the industry shift, and that’s why it’s the perfect time. You are already speaking with the right person. Just learn to ask a couple more questions and you’ll be surprised with the opportunity that can be presented to you.
Richard Murray (11:15):
All right. So we’ve talked to our partners here about what this market looks like, who they should be talking to at their customers. Now let’s get into the differentiators. So talk to us a bit about why YourSix, what you guys have built that is different in the marketplace.
Eric Styles (11:32):
Absolutely. So if I could, I’m just gonna take a step back here and actually explain that I was once a sales partner on the other side of this video. And so I came from the channel and I have some understanding of the channel. And so when we built YourSix and the solution offering that we have, we built it specifically to be sold through the channel. So we are 100% channel sales driven. And that’s important because some of our competition, which I mentioned some of their names earlier, they have a very very heavy focus on direct sailing, direct selling, which means they will be competing with the partners for the end user’s business. Another differentiator is that this is not a me too product for YourSix, this is all we do. We are a cloud physical security company. We built a world class tech for this shift to cloud, and we can help your partners win because we have physical security experts who understand where the industry came from and where it’s going and why it’s going, and why does that matter to the end customers. And so we don’t expect our partners to become experts in the physical security space, certainly not out of the gate, but we will help win the business alongside you.
Richard Murray (12:56):
And I know I’ve heard from partners and from our engineering team that they love your engagement process. They love that you guys will actually help a partner run the sales process so that you can make sure that they’re successful.
Eric Styles (13:12):
Absolutely. We take a lot of pride in that, and so I’m happy to hear that you’re hearing that from your own team. But it’s very important to us because we know that the physical security space is a little scary for most partners to just jump right into. It’s something new, right? And it’s, it requires a little bit of a change and everyone is uncomfortable in some degree with change. So we understand that, but because we recognize how big the opportunity is, we really want the partners to win and we’re gonna do everything we can to help them win. And Richard, a final differentiator I I’d like to point out is really around cyber security. Cyber security is such a huge talking point inside of the partner community and rightfully so with these devices all being IP connected, they are, they are all essentially an attack vector for a cybersecurity event.
Eric Styles (14:06):
And we recognize that. We have always understood that from the beginning, and we built our software with that in mind. So we are extremely cyber security conscious to the point where we’ve already gotten SOC too. And so you can feel comfortable bringing us, again into any type of business, any size of business, be it banking, be it whatever industry that you might think security is is, or cyber security is of utmost importance to them. We can absolutely get through any red tape that those customers may have because we’ve built not just our software around it, but we’ve also built the practices of our entire organization around cyber
Richard Murray (14:51):
Security. Yeah. And SOC is not easy, but so important as you mentioned with banking, healthcare, all these other industries that that’s so important too. So that, that, that’s a really impressive solution set to be able to bring to a customer and stand up with confidence and say that, that it’s backed with SOC too. I, I spend some time with you guys at your booth, that partner Summit, and, and I loved a couple of the, the solutions that you were presenting there. Can you talk to our partners here about a kind of a case study of something that you guys have done that can just get their mind going on the type of solution that they can provide to their customers?
Eric Styles (15:27):
Yeah, sure. I can speak it to a couple of different case studies. One in particular is in the industry of cannabis which no pun intended, happens to be our fastest growing vertical. For this particular customer. They had a very aggressive growth strategy in front of them. And some of that part of that strategy included mergers and acquisition or an acquisition strategy for, for growth. And as we all know, when acquisitions happen technology-wise, they inherit what was already in place for that acquisition. And that was gonna be a constant headache for them to manage just acquiring four or five new sites in one state and just inheriting whatever security solution is at the, at each one of those sites, as well as inheriting the security vendor that service those sites. And then you duplicate that times, I think they’re in 12 states now and however many sites with us, that was gonna be a huge undertaking.
Eric Styles (16:34):
It was gonna be a solution and vendor management nightmare. And so we happened to get introduced to them early on, early enough at least, that they got to put us, they got to put YourSix into a couple of their sites. They had a great experience and they plan to continue rolling us out, but they weren’t gonna roll us into their largest grow farm just yet because they had an existing premise based solution that didn’t cause them any problems. Okay? And then outta nowhere, we get a phone call from them that they were hard down site, completely down from a video surveillance perspective. And if anyone has dabbled in the cannabis industry before, you know that if any of their technology is down, they, they are susceptible to fines from the state and also shutting that facility down entirely because that’s how regulated they are at the state level.
Eric Styles (17:38):
And so one camera down could shut their business down at that site multiply that times 900 or so at the time, that’s what they were dealing with. And the quote from their existing security vendor, both timing and pricing, was gonna be near 30 days before they could replace the server that crashed, and it was gonna be all kinds of tens of thousands of dollars to, to get it there. So think about that a whole month of their entire money source, their grow farm being shut down and in incurring tens of thousands of dollars, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines from the state, all they did was call YourSix, ask us what we could do. And within 24 hours, every single one of those cameras were on our platform. They were back up and running and we’ve been doing nothing but growing with them since.
Eric Styles (18:38):
So that’s the power of cloud, replacing the box, but then also us being able to execute on an enterprise wide plan to standardize us, standardize on YourSix across all locations in any state, and also any size. So as far as streaming video, the concern was how many cameras can we actually stream from one site? Well, that Grow Farm has grown to over 1200 cameras streaming continuously to the cloud with no problems whatsoever. So we have debunked a lot of myths in the physical security market even of what we can do with, with cloud technology. So they’ve grown, like I said tremendously. That partner also important to know the partner that brought us into that account and many others that partner is billing in excess of 150,000 a month with YourSix. That’s just an example of an opportunity for the partner community to listen to, to listen to.
Richard Murray (19:43):
Yeah. And there, there really is just so many good little points within that story of, Hey, you didn’t win it at first, but they, you the partner had the conversation so that the customer knew that they could call them in the event that something bad happened, right? They knew to reach out to, to the partner and, and to YourSix. So great there you guys are responsive, quick, an economical product and a great product delivery. I just think there are so many great nuggets in that in that case study.
Eric Styles (20:12):
Yeah, a absolutely. I forgot to mention that we were first brought in for their retail locations. We th the, the customer initially thought that the, the growth farm facilities were gonna be just too big for a cloud solution. And so that was part of the debunking that that, that we were able to prove in that moment. But absolutely there’s, there are lots of different lots of different use cases within that, that customer in itself. And to go, to go even further, the regulations that the states put on these cannabis operators differs between states. And so you have to actually really know the legislation all the way down to the state level. And, and one of the biggest benefits for a cloud solution is that most of these estate require video retention to be stored on site for so many ti for so many days, but then also offsite for so many days.
Eric Styles (21:07):
And that’s again where a cloud solution shines, cuz we have flexible storage options for the customer. Another great use case, Richard is car dealerships. We have a customer with multiple locations in the Atlanta Met metropolitan area, and they were they were victims of a lot of, a lot of catalytic converter theft as well as, I believe it was Hellcats being stolen off of there. There are lots. And they were on a video monitoring platform or a solution provided by a traditional security company that was local to them and it was some kind of video monitoring platform, but they, they weren’t getting the value added the value from that solution, and they were never able to catch anyone. And within within less than seven days of them moving on to the YourSix platform, they got immediate ROI and they had two thieves arrested on their lots trying to steal either catalytic converters or another hellcat. But our proactive video monitoring solution proved to be you know, superior to, to the one that they were using previously.
Richard Murray (22:25):
Well, well, excellent. Thank you. We’ve given our, our partners a lot to think about, hopefully some ideas of customers that they can talk to, solutions that they can go provide for their customer base as they think through that and they, Hey, I’ve got an opportunity. How do they engage with YourSix? What’s the best way?
Eric Styles (22:43):
Absolutely. So we have a small but growing channel management team, and I would say the best way is to first reach out to your Telarus partner manager to ask who is the, the main point of contact at YourSix and maybe how to best reach us. But we also have Ken Wooster, who’s a, a well-known name by many in, in the channel itself. We have him as a VP of channel sales for us who heads up the channel team that is growing. Currently we have three channel managers that that work underneath him, and they are supporting both theirs the eastern side of the country, central part of the country, and the west side of the country. So large regions with only three channel managers, but we also have sales engineers behind each channel manager to help work work each and every deal that the partners bring forward. So I would say Telarus partner manager Ken and his channel management team, and then of course, utilize the Telarus tools as in the back office and our contact information should be
Richard Murray (23:54):
There. Excellent. Excellent. Thank you. And, and look, I, I will just underline, Ken is a channel veteran, one of the great, great people in the channel. It says a lot about YourSix and the opportunity in this market that he chose to, to join your team and, and help build out this channel as it continues to grow. And so we, we love everything that is working with this relationship, love the direction that it’s taking, and really appreciate your time here today to talk to our partners about why they should be talking about physical security with their customers. So thank you for joining us today.
Eric Styles (24:30):
Thank you so much for having me, Richard.
Richard Murray (24:31):
Well, that’s all that we have for this episode of Hidden Gems. Thank you for joining us today. We hope that you’ve learned something and can go sell physical security to your customers now. Have a great day, everybody.