Security fears put spring into Sitesec
NEXT month’s Commonwealth Games are proving a boon to Alex Harmer’s startup Sitesec.
The 21-year-old Griffith University graduate has seen a 78 per cent increase in sales of his Sitesec platform, which offers a construction site monitoring unit that includes cameras, motion detectors and mobile monitoring apps.
Mr Harmer attributes the sales spike to fears among developers, builders and architects, that vandals may take advantage of the surge in visitor numbers to break into construction sites and cause damage.
“Work will be slow, foot traffic will be high, we’re all trying to establish whether there will be dodgy people in the streets. My customers just want to take precautions,” he said.
Mr Harmer established Sitesec two years ago after conversations with builders and developers who expressed frustration with vandalism and theft on construction sites.
He completed a commerce degree, majoring in finance, at Griffith University, but found he wanted to do something left field, rather than apply for jobs in the finance industry.
“I did not really want to be a stock broker. I wanted a technology start-up.”
Mr Harmer said the platform, which took three months to develop, was being constantly altered and improved.
“We’ve added a lot of other features to the traditional monitoring and security system that clients can use,” he said.
“You can live view and play back footage from the construction site at your own discretion. Say, you have a building site and you live in Brisbane and you want to see how it is going but you are busy, you can login to the platform and see what is going on live.”
Mr Harmer said that was paired with timelapse footage that could be used in marketing materials. “It is also a surveillance camera, alarm and intruder detection system at the same time,” he said.
Mr Harmer said other companies did similar things, but not to the same scale and extent as Sitesec. “It is like comparing a Nokia to an iPhone. They both make calls, but one has much better features,” he said.
The business has 20 clients so far, who pay a quarterly subscription fee for the service.
Mr Harmer does not have any employees, but rather uses a team of contractors to install the system.
I DID NOT REALLY WANT TO BE A STOCK BROKER. I WANTED A TECHNOLOGY START-UP ALEX HARMER