Company Name: Mark43
Headquarters: New York, N.Y.
Signature Product: CAD/RMS/Analytics platform
Website: https://www.mark43.com/
1. Where did your company name originate from?
Mark43 draws its inspiration from Tony Stark’s Iron Man super suits. Mark42 is a real technological wonder, so we’re trying to be the next iteration! And we like to think we play a small part in turning heroes into superheroes
2. What was the inspiration behind starting your company?
In the spring of 2012 at Harvard University, we (the Mark43 co-founders) were working with the Massachusetts State Police to help them evaluate the efficacy of a new policing model they had deployed in Springfield, Mass. During that work, we realized that public safety technology was not up to the standard that we expected, so we started down a path of trying to build better tech for our first responders. After working with several agencies early on, we realized that the real problem was how much time it took to write reports, and how unusable agency data generally was. We felt these problems could be addressed with a new, cloud-native, modern RMS.
3. What is your signature product and how does it work?
We build a CAD/RMS/Analytics platform. It’s completely native to the cloud and is developed with only the most modern, reliable technologies. The applications are fully integrated, which means somebody arriving at an incident via CAD will be served information from the RMS, and when all is said and done, any member of an agency can use Analytics to see how things are changing or if the agency initiatives are proving to be impactful.
We also consider our implementation and customer support experiences to be part of our revolutionary products. The support we provide our customers is just as good – and just as important – as our revolutionary products.
4. Why do you believe your products are essential the police community?
Our products are the “operating system” of any public safety agency. We manage all dispatching (CAD), data capture (RMS) and analysis (Analytics). If an agency wants to know how it’s been performing or the biggest problems it faces, those answers would lie in the Mark43 platform.
5. What has been the biggest challenge your company has faced?
We are constantly trying to move faster and iterate more quickly for our customers. We’ve increased the size of the company by 50% this year alone (at the time of this writing), and we have had to scale a lot of our internal processes to make sure we remain nimble and responsive to customer needs.
6. What makes your company unique?
Our products are cloud-native and our support experience is second to none. You cannot successfully support a customer without both of those and we invest in each equally.
7. What do your customers like best about you and your products?
Our customers love that our products are updated in real-time. The products evolve over time, just as our customers’ missions do. And those updates to the product are included as part of the entire Mark43 subscription. They don’t require extra fees for upgrades, changes or bug fixes. If our customers’ missions change over time, so should our products.
8. What is the most rewarding part of serving the first responder community?
We are so fortunate to come to work every day and have a real, meaningful mission to pursue. The Mark43 mission is to empower communities and their governments with new technologies that improve the safety and quality of life for all. In supporting first responders and communities, every Mark43 team member can create impactful, genuine change every day.
9. Do you support any charitable organizations within public safety or the community? Tell us more.
We partner with several non-profit organizations that support the academic and community sides of public safety. These include The American Society of Evidence-Based Policing, The NYU Policing Project and MEASURE.
10. Is there any fun fact or trivia that you’d like to share about you or your company?
Every year, we fly all our employees to NYC to participate in a week of planning, setting strategy and solving company-wide challenges – we call it “Roll Call.” We also host an annual talent show during that week, where employees showcase dance routines, original songs, crafts and hobbies, and a ton of other outstanding talents that contribute to a rich, diverse and impressive culture at Mark43.
11. What’s next for your company? Any upcoming new projects or initiatives?
We look forward to supporting agencies around the world, starting with the New South Wales Police Force in Australia. We also have an upcoming slate of new, exciting products designed exclusively for the challenges public safety is facing in 2021.