In 1988, LA-based rap group N.W.A released a song that voiced the displeasure many Americans felt toward their local police departments. It became one of the best-selling songs ever and sparked a wave of distrust that many are still experiencing today.
One LA-based startup wants to make the situation better with tech.
Headquartered in Manhattan Beach, SPIDR Tech has developed a community relationship management platform to help governmental organizations — police departments, in particular — manage the feedback they receive. With data collected on the platform, departments can track how efficient particular initiatives are and implement critical changes for public safety.
“The platform gathers micro-transactional feedback, meaning, per incident, it's able to send out surveys to these citizens so they can give feedback on the professionalism of a dispatcher or officer,” said Co-Founder and CEO Rahul Sidhu, an LA native and former Redondo Beach police officer. “That data goes directly back to the police department and they're able start seeing trends based on things like a particular shift or supervisor. That's something they've never had before.”
While surveys provide businesses and government entities alike valuable data, the problem is: they’re annoying. Getting someone to stick around long enough to provide their feedback is one thing, getting them to finish the survey without irking them further is another, which is why SPIDR has made the process as simple as possible.
"We're giving governments the ability to do what private companies do," said Sidhu. "We believe strongly that we need to give citizens the ability to interact with the government without creating any barriers, so there's no sign-up process or a prompt to download anything. From a government standpoint, the process is entirely automated, so officers aren't required to do any extra work."
Originally founded as a data analytics platform for police departments, the startup pivoted after graduating from Techstars NYC in 2015. After building out their initial platform, Sidhu and his team started to notice how long it took to deploy the platform.
“We knew that we needed to pivot the product in a direction that allows us to sell lower and faster and start getting more traction,” said Sidhu. “I was on a boat in the middle of nowhere with the former chief of police for the City of Burlington and after hours of talking about the issues police departments face today, it kind of clicked for me — public perception”
Sidhu returned to LA and told his team to stop what they were doing immediately. 30 days later, SPIDR Tech had a working prototype. Since officially launching in September, the company has developed a pipeline of more than 100 police departments in the US. Fittingly, their first paying customer was none other than the Redondo Beach Police Department.
The startup is in the process of scaling its operations to deploy to markets all over the US. With police departments looking to change the way they’re viewed by the citizens in their jurisdictions, Sidhu said he believed the potential for SPIDR goes beyond just helping police departments.
"SPIDR isn't the type of purchase that mayors and city managers are used to signing off on," he said. "The chiefs who want to buy what we have aren't asking for tanks and body armor, they're asking for a way to be able to improve their relationships with the constituents. It's a rare alignment of political desire: everyone wants the government to have better relationships with their constituents. We firmly believe that by creating internal transparency and accountability, we can change the way governments run."
Images via Spidr Tech.
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