While a student at Colgate, Alex Montgomery ‘11 worked as a volunteer firefighter with the Hamilton FD and during the summers worked as a Wildland Firefighter in Tucson, AZ. In both capacities, Alex became very familiar with the typical daily tasks of a firefighter. One particularly painstaking process involved checking all of the apparatus and equipment using pen and paper for reporting. The process was old-fashioned and time-consuming and given how annoying it was, inevitably resulting in either: not happening in the first place, getting oil on the report, forgetting to submit the report to an administrator on duty . . . or some other variation of things falling through the cracks – putting the safety of the firefighters at risk.
After Colgate, Alex began a career as a software engineer developing enterprise and SaaS software. Leveraging the skills and knowledge he developed in these roles, he wanted to revisit that nagging problem of the firefighter’s ‘truck check’ and see if he could develop a software solution for the ‘first response’ industry. He began talking to a few fire departments, and to his surprise, the problem of outdated reporting systems still existed, and actually went much deeper. It didn’t just affect the firefighters themselves, but also affected the administrative systems as a whole. At a base level, department administrators lacked easy access to actionable data about the status of their fleet and equipment.
Determined to finally do something about the problem, Alex recruited two trusted Colgate partners, Alex Krill ‘11 and Adam Pratt ‘18, and the Halligan team was born. They immediately got to work on rolling out the initial product while going through the TIA incubator. Then, using resources from the Colgate Entrepreneurs Fund grant, they launched the initial product in beta in Q3 of 2016.
During this time, the Halligan team constantly iterated on their go-to-market strategy and gained incredible insight from TIA mentors on how to find product-market fit. In January of 2017, Halligan made its first sale and hasn’t looked back. With nearly 170 paying departments, large strategic partners in the space, and a best in class software solution, what started as an annoyance about the ‘truck check’ process has turned into the dominant fleet and equipment management platform for first responders.
With the continued support of TIA, Halligan continues to improve the lives of first responders around the country by making their work easier, safer and more effective.
2017 Highlights
• 165 paying customers
• $160,000 booked of Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR)
• Strategic partnership with Emergency Reporting
• Negotiating with purchasing department for first large Metro customer
2018 Plan
• Deepen Emergency Reporting Partnership
• Investment in product to continue to push into EMS space
• Explore product fit for police departments
• Explore strategic partnership with another big player in the space
• Grow bookings to $550k ARR
• Raise a round of capital to capitalize on this opportunity and aggressively grow the business.
Thank you to everyone that’s supported, advised, critiqued, connected and more…we wouldn’t be where we are without you!!
