Work
Most advisors show you a curated success story. I show you everything. I believe that failure is where the real learning lives, and a relationship built on a partial picture isn't worth much to either of us.
Below are lessons learned from hard won experience. The same question in each: are we building on the right foundation?
Case Study · Partnership Turnaround
How a patent infringement suit became a strategic partnership, and why focusing on what you can control leads to success.
The problem
A lawsuit with no good outcome
In 2013, Motorola Solutions, then operating as Cassidian Communications, sued us for patent infringement. The litigation was expensive and the relationship was openly adversarial. We were competitors, not partners.
First attempt
A settlement that created new problems
We settled in a mutual resale agreement and launched a white labeled ESInet as a service. It didn't work. We weren't operationally mature enough for Motorola Solutions' scale, and their team still didn't see us as partners.
The fix
Restructure around what actually worked
I reevaluated the relationship, almost bailed. Then tried again. My team took a step back and looked at our differentiator, our selective routing technology. Everything else was a commodity. We gave up the commodities, restructured to a CAPEX model: licensed selective router technology with services to integrate, deploy, and operate. Everything changed.
The original OPEX model put two organizations in the same lane with no clear ownership. We needed to be in control as the operator. Motorola Solutions needed to be in control as the prime contractor. Neither was willing to yield. The relationship hemorrhaged trust and money.
When I took over the relationship in 2018, the first thing I did was stop pretending the model was fixable. It wasn't. The problem wasn't execution. It was structure. We were asking two organizations to participate in a partnership that was fundamentally opposed to their individual objectives.
The restructure was simple in concept, hard in reality. To move from an ongoing service arrangement to a licensed technology model required that Motorola Solutions would own the deployment relationship with their customers and we'd provide only the technology and integration expertise. Clear lanes. Clean accountability.
We had to give up control.
"The problem wasn't execution. It was structure. We were asking two organizations to participate in a partnership that was fundamentally opposed to their individual objectives."
The inefficient, duplicative network build process that had plagued the OPEX model was offloaded entirely to Motorola Solutions, freeing our team to focus on what we could actually control.
The results were tangible. The relationship doubled our population served and captured more than $100M in new revenue. By the time I left, we had quietly become the third-largest 911 provider in the country.
Outcomes
Case Study · Startup
A school safety company with real partnerships, real technology, and a federal grant that disappeared overnight. What we built, why it didn't work, and what it taught me.
The problem
Eight minutes between a 911 call and an onsite response
When a 911 call is made at a school, the on-site staff who can actually respond immediately may not know about it until law enforcement arrives. Critica cut that gap in half.
What we built
A serious partnership, a real product
A National Science Foundation grant to study 911 data in predicting mass casualty events with UC San Diego researchers. Automated 911 call notifications to school safety staff. Partnerships with Public Safety Network Americas, the Indiana 911 Board, and the Indiana Sheriff's Association.
What happened
The funding vanished. The model didn't survive it.
Grant funding dried up. We pivoted to school-by-school direct sales. The product-market fit wasn't there at that scale. A year in, we raised the white flag.
Critica was built on a lightbulb moment. The people closest to an emergency, teachers, administrators, on-site school resource officers, are often the last to know when a 911 call is made at their location. The average gap between a 911 call and an onsite response is eight minutes. Critica cut that by four. In a mass casualty event, four minutes isn't a feature. It's the difference between intervention and aftermath.
The partnership structure was real. The technology worked. The National Science Foundation grant gave us a credible research pathway. I had every reason to believe the model would scale, it was designed to scale regionally, with institutional partners driving adoption across entire districts at once.
When the funding disappeared, we lost the foundation our go-to-market strategy was built on. The pivot to direct sales, school by school and district by district, exposed a product-market fit problem we had not confronted before. The urgency wasn't high enough for schools to prioritize the spend without a larger deployment framework pushing adoption.
"I focused on the funding alliances, not the user. That was the mistake."
What I learned
The funding fragility was real, but I knew that going in. The deeper problem was that Critica was a one-trick pony in a competitive arena, and we tried to force the fit through federal relationships rather than earn it through the market.
We built strong funding alliances and weak school relationships. We were outsiders to the user. That mattered more than we acknowledged.
The product did one thing, and it was a real differentiator. It would have been a natural complement to many of the other platforms in the space. Approaching the market through partnership with established players would have been more effective than going direct.
I learned that too late.
Case Study · Foundation / Infrastructure
AI has entered public safety and fundamentally changed the game. No longer just a voice network, now a data ecosystem, and the vendors control the data. 911TL is the infrastructure that puts the user back in control.
The problem
Vendor lock is strangling public safety
AI has turned 911 into a data ecosystem. PSAPs are losing control of their own data. Interoperability is impossible. Consolidation limits choice. The vendor expands their control. The PSAP loses theirs.
The deeper problem
The system is built to stay broken
Federal funding reinforces the status quo. Procurement discourages change. Innovation is squeezed out before it can take hold. The structures that should drive better public safety outcomes are actively working against them.
The solution
An independent data layer that democratizes 911
A vendor-neutral, tamper-resistant record of 911 events. One that PSAPs own, not vendors. The foundation for interoperability, outcome-based funding, and a public safety ecosystem built for the future.
Public safety needs a ledger. An immutable, vendor-neutral record of every 911 event from origination through resolution. Not controlled by the network operator. Not owned by the call handling vendor. Owned by the PSAP, accessible to anyone with a legitimate need to understand what happened and why. This doesn't exist today.
Today's 911 ecosystem is a collection of closed systems that don't talk to each other. Every vendor builds walls. Every integration is custom. Every data standard is proprietary. A shared ledger changes that incentive structure. When the record is independent, the walls lose their value.
Interoperability is the entry point. What it unlocks is bigger. A trusted data layer that every platform in the ecosystem can build on. Outcome measurement that makes federal funding both accessible and accountable. AI systems that can be audited. A foundation that serves public safety rather than the vendors serving it.
"Vendors are grading their own homework. That ends when someone builds an independent data layer. That's what 911TL is."
911TL is not a product and not a startup. It's a foundation, a nonprofit building the infrastructure layer that the entire public safety ecosystem needs but no single vendor will ever build. No single vendor benefits from transparency they don't control.
The work is ongoing. The problem is urgent. Companies are spending billions on acquisition in this space. Venture capital has discovered public safety. The window to build an independent accountability layer is open, it will not stay open long.
What 911TL enables
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