Thirteen years. Multiple pivots. One Mission: Keep People Safe.
Alpha Recon’s story started in 2014, shortly after our founder left the military. The original company was called Travel Recon, inspired by a personal event that made the mission unmistakably real: the founder’s mother and grandmother were kidnapped in Africa.
The question became simple and relentless: how do we use technology to help people anticipate danger and reduce vulnerability before it becomes a crisis?
Chapter 1: Travel Recon (B2C)
We began as a mobile app for travelers, and we successfully raised early capital for that vision. But we learned quickly what many first-time founders learn the hard way: a global B2C app doesn’t live or die on product alone. It lives or dies on a marketing scale.
Competing for attention worldwide required far more marketing dollars than we could realistically raise at that stage.
Chapter 2: B2B Travel Risk Management (TRM)
A few years later, we pivoted to B2B travel risk management, competing in a market dominated by established TRM firms like iJET, Anvil, and International SOS.
We believed AI could differentiate us, but at the time AI was still early and the market was entrenched. Raising capital in a “red ocean” proved difficult, especially without a clear path to dominating incumbents.
Chapter 3: Alpha Recon LLC and the rise of “risk intelligence”
We made a hard decision to pivot again, forming Alpha Recon LLC in Colorado. This was around the time ESRM was gaining traction and the industry was recognizing that security programs are fundamentally risk programs.
Our founder helped write early ESRM guidelines and became convinced that risk intelligence should be a core capability of any competent security program. During this period, he coined the term “risk intelligence,” a concept many organizations now use to describe the systematic reduction of vulnerability through timely, relevant intelligence integrated into operations.
Chapter 4: Protecting schools, and the limits of the market
We then focused on physical security risk intelligence for schools, driven by the reality of widespread school violence and the belief that early detection and risk management can prevent tragedy.
We learned how difficult that environment can be:
- bureaucracy and politics move slowly
- purchasing cycles are complex
- budgets are often dominated by incumbents selling physical hardware (armor, locks, cameras, metal detectors) rather than intelligence-driven prevention
Institutional investors also viewed the market as too constrained for venture-scale outcomes. With heavy hearts, and after years of effort, we pivoted away from a mission many of us cared about deeply: protecting children.
Chapter 5: Supporting security operators where they work
Over the last few years, we pivoted toward serving private security operators: guard forces, executive protection teams, investigators, and corporate security.
We expanded the platform to include operational features (guard force management, touring reports, time tracking, crowdsourcing), aiming to pair daily operations with integrated risk and protective intelligence.
And we learned another hard truth: most security teams do not want “another app” for daily patrol and management, especially when they already have entrenched tools and workflows.
The reality of building bootstrapped
On many points, we could have quit. We could have told investors and teammates it was over and walked away from the mission. Some would argue we should have. But we didn’t.
We’ve had investment rounds that advanced deep into due diligence and fell apart for reasons outside our control. We survived COVID. We pushed through a fundraising environment that often rewards founders with insider access or high ARR more than it rewards mission-driven persistence.
During lean years, we relied on a mix of employees, contractors, and mission-aligned entrepreneurs. That reality isn’t easy. In some cases, team members could only contribute part-time, needed training, or couldn’t stay long-term. We worked hard to be transparent about constraints, and for many people the experience translated into paid opportunities elsewhere after they moved on.
Our founder, a disabled Veteran, carried significant personal risk, debt, and sacrifice to keep the mission alive and keep learning until we found the right model.
What we learned: the business model was there all along
Through the pivots, one lesson kept returning: security teams fail not because they don’t care or aren’t competent, but because they can’t cost-effectively integrate risk and protective intelligence into operations.
The market is flooded with noisy “threat spam” products. What’s missing is intelligence that is:
- relevant
- actionable
- formatted for security workflows
- affordable for small and mid-sized security organizations
Insurance costs and competition are squeezing these companies. The only players who can afford robust intelligence programs are often the “big box” security firms that dominate the industry. That leaves most of the market operating without the intelligence backbone they need.
What we learned: the business model was there all along
With advances in AI, agentic workflows, and human augmentation, Alpha Recon Technologies, Inc. was formed in January 2026 to deliver a GSOC-ready, scalable risk intelligence capability at a price point and service model that helps security teams:
- lower liability
- improve margins
- add higher-value services for their clients
- compete more effectively with the largest players in the industry
We are already seeing early indicators of product-market fit.
This restructuring is not an attempt to run from our history. It’s the opposite: we’re embracing the lessons with a new code base, a sharper business model, a focused go-to-market strategy, and a new C-Corp structure built for scale.
Owning the imperfections
Did we make mistakes? Yes.
Did we bite off more than we could chew at times? Yes.
Did we disappoint people sometimes? Unfortunately, yes.
But our intent was always to do right by our team and investors and to keep pushing toward a technology platform that genuinely improves safety outcomes.
Bootstrapped innovation is messy. It often looks like mission impossible: build something hard, discover what doesn’t work, pivot, earn revenue fast enough to survive, and do it without the safety net that large incumbents have.
Still, we believe this mission is too important to quit on.
Looking forward
Alpha Recon Technologies, Inc. is building what we believe the security industry has needed for years: intelligence that operators can actually use, delivered in a way that improves decisions, reduces vulnerability, and ultimately keeps people safer.
If you’re a customer, partner, investor, or operator who believes the future of security must be intelligence-driven, we’d like to talk.
We’re grateful to everyone who contributed across this long journey: transitioning Veterans looking for a remote opportunity, OSINT professionals who wanted a mission, retirees seeking purpose, and early-career talent who needed a chance. Bootstrapped companies often give more than they take, and we don’t forget the people who helped carry the mission forward.
We’re here. We’re focused. And we’re building.
