Learnings from Michael Bettua, CEO and Co-Founder of Volan Technology

HackerNoon Reporter: Please tell us briefly about your background.

Prior to becoming the CEO & Co-founder of Volan Technology, I was an early executive at two fast-growth enterprise software startups, Silknet Software ($4.2B exit) and BladeLogic ($900M exit).

What's your startup called? And in a sentence or two, what does it do?

Volan Technology has created a new micro-location network technology that enables organizations to dramatically improve the safety and security of people on-site, decrease operational costs, and increase workforce optimization.

The technology is an AI–powered “people positioning” platform that intelligently captures and anonymously analyzes 3D location positioning of thousands of individuals in and across buildings, in real-time and historically. Volan’s software and sensors automatically form an independent self-healing wireless mesh network with no dependency on smartphones, GPS or Wi-Fi. This makes it easy to implement anywhere, incredibly precise, protective of user privacy, and not vulnerable to network or power outages.

What is the origin story?

When I saw the available options for emergency response in schools and businesses, I knew there had to be a better way. As a father with two school-aged kids, I was concerned that solutions using GPS, video surveillance and RFID lock systems were inadequate for indoor location identification and response effectiveness. In most cases, they have just been retrofitted from existing tech and don’t provide accurate enough location or incident information and don’t meet sufficient privacy standards. Even more concerning, they stop working the moment there’s a network or power outage.

I developed Volan from the ground up, creating an entirely new way to provide accurate people positioning both in real time and historically. The data the system collects has multiple applications, from emergency response, to instant and precise contact tracing reports to workforce optimization and digital barriers. Volan’s revolutionary technology is providing schools and businesses with a system they can rely on, designed specifically to protect their people and streamline their operations.

What do you love about your team, and why are you the ones to solve this problem?

I love that our team consists of highly experienced professionals from across the country and around the world, each of whom has passion to make a real impact on workplace safety, security and efficiency. Each person brings an intimate understanding of the pain points our varied customers face. While team members act as experts in their respective verticals, collaboration between people from completely different backgrounds brings fresh perspectives to develop creative and innovative solutions. A highly dynamic and intelligent team allows us to leverage micro-location data into game-changing solutions for customers.

If you weren’t building your startup, what would you be doing?

If I weren’t building my own start-up, I would be helping other entrepreneurs build theirs.

At the moment, how do you measure success? What are your core metrics?

Success to us is really about ensuring product-market fit that solves customer problems and scales. This is measured by a number of parameters, including customers won and more importantly retained, how valuable the metrics and ROI are that they achieve with our technology, annual recurring revenue and year-over-year revenue growth.

What’s most exciting about your traction to date?

It is especially exciting to witness the impact of our technology across a diverse group of customers and needs, from Fortune 500 firms, to airports, stadiums, schools and hotels. The company started with a focus on fundamentally improving emergency response effectiveness in schools using new micro-location technology and AI. But early customers and partners urged us to also apply this new technology to address additional pain points across their company and industries.

For example, schools asked us to adapt our location analytics to make contact tracing instant and accurate, enabling them to avoid mass quarantines and shutdowns, and save significant money on manual tracing. An airport is applying our technology to improve safety on construction sites and to reduce the high-cost of monitoring workers and compliance audits. A manufacturing company is using Volan to unlock new workforce analytics to dramatically reduce operational cost and improve efficiency. Seeing our core technology validated in so many use cases is very exciting.

What technologies are you currently most excited about, and most worried about? And why?

I’m most excited about digital twin technology. It bridges the physical and digital worlds with a virtual model of properties and data that can reveal game-changing efficiency improvements, revenue opportunities and safety and security advancements.

Volan’s unique people-positioning technology is at the heart of that initiative, enabling companies to unlock new areas of cost savings and operational improvements.

What drew you to get published on HackerNoon? What do you like most about our platform?

Hackernoon is a resource to gain exposure to startups and emerging technologies. Hackernoon’s community is inclusive yet honest, encouraging a wide variety of perspectives for technologists of all backgrounds.

What advice would you give to the 21-year-old version of yourself?

Focus. Don’t stress. Buy #Bitcoin.

What is something surprising you've learned this year that your contemporaries would benefit from knowing?

2021 has been a tumultuous year for many startups, however embracing challenges of innovating during the pandemic has been incredibly rewarding. It teaches flexibility and adaptability in meeting the needs of customers and team members alike.

Customer challenges shifted during the pandemic, opening new markets and driving us to explore new solutions like digital contact tracing. Flexible remote work connects experts from around the world into a team with a culture focused on innovation and execution to best serve the changing needs of customers.