Starting a company or building anything new is really tough.  Why?  Because of the herd mentality.  The other day I brought my kids to their weekly swimming lesson, but this time something was different.  For some reason, two-dozen parents were packed into the pool area, standing or sitting right next to the pool.  I asked the owner if something was wrong with the standard waiting area, and she replied, “No, it’s just that we have a new student and when her parents decided to stay, all the other parents started copying them.”  That’s what happens to us all, every day, many times a day.  There’s another known phenomenon called “anchoring” that guides our thoughts and decisions in one direction or another based on some pre-determined subconscious anchor that we think is approximately right.  Often, this anchor is completely random, and yet it still affects our thinking.  Why do we do this?  Because human beings have a really hard time thinking about anything in true isolation.  We usually adjust up or down from some other starting point.

Ok, now back to starting something new.  The goal is to create a new way of thinking and find the early adopters that can help guide the herd in a better direction.  But that’s easier said than done.  I don’t have the answer, but I believe the key is to have conviction.  If you’re trying to get someone to try a new drink, or game, or style of clothing, it may be difficult to have that conviction if society tells you that “you suck.”  However, at Punch we have a lofty goal of a much, much safer world.  This drives us with conviction through any adversity because we are working backwards from a better outcome.

So what’s our mission?  To create a much safer world where response times are so fast that most people would never even consider committing a crime.  Remember the Tom Cruise movie, “Minority Report?”  Just imagine murders or rapes being stopped before they even start.  But we don’t need to put three psychics in a pool all drugged up to predict the future with a special rolling marble.  There is a real way to do this.  In fact, I’ll state flat out that it’s going to happen.  How?

Well, let’s start with 911.  Do you really think we’ll be dialing 911 fifty years from now? Do you remember 411?  Who still uses that when you can just say “Ok Google” or “Hey Siri.”  Punch Alert is our first step towards creating a better way to communicate during an emergency.  We are empowering organizations like schools to better protect themselves, and the early adopters have come on board.

That was the start, and stay tuned for what’s next.  We’ve got something very special up our sleeves and the world might just never be the same!