Not tonight mate: How Getaguard is changing the security industry

We've all heard those dreaded words. Not tonight mate. In truth, we probably were too drunk on that time, or too loud or whatever. But there have been occasions for almost all of us when we have encountered security personnel who were unnecessarily rude or cruel. Getaguard is seeking to change that. Founded by Christian Avery, a security industry professional with a background a bit different to what you would expect for a doorman, the company is on a mission to make the industry work better for all parties involved. That includes the guards, the businesses who book them and the end customer who gets the business end of a stern look. The company are building a mobile app to connect freelance guards with businesses who are looking for their services. The model itself is nothing new as we have seen it countless times before with different ridesharing or food delivery businesses in the past. It is interesting how the company see this being a real sea change in the security industry though. The security industry, Christian explains, is archaic as things stand. Everything is analogue with little transparency and lots of bloat in the process. A customer puts a request in with a security company for security personnel, they then get on the phone to a list of guards they have on their books, by which they mean their phone books. Once they have rounded up enough commitments, they confirm it and deploy the guards to the site. They keep paper based timesheets, incident logs and then the company sends invoices manually the following week. Getaguard is building an entirely electronic version of this, where the customer doesn't need to get on the phone with the company to book the guards, they can just fire up the app. No person at the security company rings the guards, they can just see the shifts in an open pool and choose to accept or decline. They keep a cloud based incident log so any issues are stored indefinitely and can be accessed from anywhere.