ResponderX, a recent competitor at the Texas A&M University – Mays Business School’s MBA Venture Challenge has been admitted as the latest client company at Startup Aggieland.
The company, which was founded by volunteer firefighter Andrew Jarrett, is a collection of technical, non-technical and emergency service providers, working to make safer solutions for firefighters throughout the country and beyond. Jarrett founded the company to promote the use of his patent-pending technology TaskForceTracker, a small device which attaches to the top of firefighter helmets and can provide crucial information like location and status of personnel on the ground.
Jarrett and co-founder Jerry Lozano were inspired to create the technology after two local fireman lost their lives in February 2013. “Someone got lost in the fire and we had to go search for him,” Jarrett commented on the 2013 rescue. “When the dust settled, we realized that the guy they came to rescue was very close to an external door to the back building. That’s when it came to me that there is a better way to do this.”
Jarrett and Lozano took their idea all the way to Mays’ annual MBA Venture Challenge in February of 2016. During the intensive two-week competition, they worked alongside two Texas A&M MBA students who helped them to perform an in-depth analysis of the business and market segment of ResponderX.
“Armed with the research provided to ResponderX by the MBA team, we were able to approach serious investors for the first time with a truly accurate depiction of our business valuation and well-documented market research,” Jarrett said. The research wasn’t for nothing- armed with the information from the MBA team, Jarrett raised almost $200,000 in funding for his company.
“The MBA Venture Challenge may have been one of the single most important things to happen to our startup in the past year,” said Jarrett. “The research, projections, and recommendations provided to me by the student team we partnered with were priceless, and we continue to use the materials they created to help us in our projections to this day.”