This week, I had the chance to chat with Entrepreneur and CEO/Founder of Inside Access Control, Lee Oddess, about the Access Control Industry and the role Genea plays within it. This is part of a series of interviews Lee has done with new and innovative companies in and around the Smart Lock, Security and Access Control industry, and we were thrilled to be featured!
By Lee Oddess: I recently had the chance to catch up with Michael Maxsenti, Co-founder and COO of Sequr. Michael and Genea are a great example of some of the phase changes the physical access control industry is in the midst of. You are seeing smart and creative people from outside the industry, identify friction and come with an idea on how to fix it. What sprung out of Techstars in 2016 and was recently acquired by Genea (an OTHVAC and/or submeter billing software solution), is a clear focus on streamlining the purchasing and services needed by end users, property managers, or property developers/owners.
Putting aside the software itself (they did show me a full tenant and building access control and visitor management system), Sequr set out to vertically integrate the entire customer process. They sell direct and use a network of installers to service their customer base worldwide. They recognize that this scales slower than companies that use the channel to be their go-to-market strategy but they feel their customers get short term (price) and long term benefits (on-going support) not seen in our industry.
I am excited to see someone doing it different and appreciate what Michael and team are doing at Genea. I am very interested to see what they can do once they integrate the access control solution into the other systems Genea offers. At this point they turn into a full building management system (BMS) that is not only for large scale enterprises, but due to its flexibility, it can go down market easily. So with Sequr we hit two of the many phase changes we are seeing: (1) Vertical integration of channel and customer service and (2) Physical Access Control becoming a feature. Exciting times!
1. Tell us a little about your business.
Sequr is on a mission to automate physical security management for the modern enterprise. We are different in a few ways from the legacy software OEMs and new SaaS companies in the sense that we serve customers directly and demystify they buying and support processes around access control and physical security.
2. What got you into the smart lock / access control business?
We got into this business because we saw how outdated the callbox hardware and software was growing up using them! Through trying to solve the callbox pain points we were exposed to access control and saw a huge need for a modern, cloud-based product with a white-glove customer experience.
3. What markets and verticals do you serve?
We primarily serve medium to small enterprise companies (200-10,000 employees), and multi-tenant commercial office buildings. However, we have customers in the multi-family residential and coworking space as well.
4. What is one thing that you were surprised to find out about the security/lock/access control industry?
We were surprised by the lack of understanding and acceptance of cloud-based systems particularly in the access control side of the industry. Video has a longer history of cloud, but access control is still lagging way behind.
5. Where do you see your business in 5 years?
In 5 years, we see Genea as one of the premier brands in access control and physical security software. We hope to be leading the movement into the cloud and towards more open hardware systems to better serve customers and free people from the unnecessary manual work involved with security management and the tedious process for buying, installing and managing systems.
Read Lee’s full article on LinkedIn.
Learn more about how Genea’s Overtime HVAC, Submeter Billing or Access Control solutions can elevate the functionality and value of your property or portfolio.
