Among our co-founders, one common dream is to build a global technology company. So after our tech startup's seed round was completed, with the product stable and initial customers back home in Singapore deployed, we moved our HQ to San Francisco while keeping our current Singapore office fully staffed.
This arrangement allows us to support both existing base of customers in Singapore, and new customers in San Francisco. We also decided to get our first few customer installations up and running around our new home as soon as possible. After all, we are now in a city full of tech startups who are no stranger to crazy ideas and strange products.
Rent is ridiculously expensive to live in SF for certain. With that out of the way, it is actually a nice place to stay. Winter here is a refreshing change of weather from what used to be hot and humid daily at our hometowns. The technology culture here is really fun for geeks like us. Everyone seems to understand or appreciate technology. On most of my rides on Uber or Lyft, the driver usually understands when I talk about our Internet-of-Things (IoT) startup we are working on. In fact, one of the driver I talked to yesterday is a founder trying to raise a seed round for his own startup while driving part-time to make a living!
Being passionate about technology and loving what we do alone does not pay the bills, so we strive to be always aware of underserved needs of our customers, and figure out ways to align our product features with such needs for a good fit. One thing immediately became clear to us. No one is actively trying to improve office access and key issue challenges for mainstream use. We attended some events in downtown after work, and often needed to call up or text the host, or ring the office doorbell to get in. The host seldom has the time to check or keep track of who has entered the property when. For some offices, the admin needs to make several trips a day between her desk and front door just to open the door or collect deliveries every time the door bell rings. That is a lot of waiting involved for everyone, and we are all about doing less waiting.
With GTRIIP, hotdesking tenants can simply receive a digital key on their smart phone for daily access without having to manage physical keys after a biometric verified check-in using Apple TouchID or Android (Marshmallow 6.0 or higher with native support for) fingerprint scanner. The admin can also simply press a button on her smartphone from across the office floor for a remote unlock. We are also exploring additional features such as in-app door-bell button with video streaming from guest smartphone’s front-facing camera. We can also pre-issue one-time use keys. (Yes, we can provide integration with delivery service’s or property’s app or web site as well. Drop us a mail at sales@gtriip.com to talk to us about integration or collaboration.)We just finished our first installation in town today. Hats off to the SF team who toiled through this weekend just to get it up by Monday morning office hours. It is going to be an exciting year ahead for us in SF!
