Protector “Uber for Guns” allows you to hire armed body guards as you would uber – but does anyone need it?
In a Tiktok video with over 3 million woman watched in a fluffy, maximum coat sits in the back seat of a luxury SUV parked in the middle of New York Street. On top of 6-second videoThe line of text reads: “Our bodyguards made us a match.” The camera is enlarged in two intimidating men in full -bodied suits, each of which wears an icy matte late as they return to the car.
In such a video, a young woman films an elegant suburb of Chevrolet as she pulls in front of her house. A man in a suit opens the door to her before she shakes, surrounded in the car by other stoic, professionally dressed men. They wheeze her luggage when she enters the airport, safely accompanied by her flight as she boasts in the video: “POV ordered security to take you to the airport.”
These publications were strategically defined by launching a new application called ProtectorWho debuted last week in Los Angeles and New York, allowing ordinary people to order a secret security detail that resembles service. But the videos were not organic.
“We released 14 pieces of content for (Protector), which led to 15 million views and over 30,000 downloads,” women from the video Matcha, Fuzz and Fuzz, wrote In Tiktok, revealing that they are hired to make these videos.
The other CreatorCamille Hovsepian also does not organically promote the application, a Protector spokesman told TechCrunch. Creator’s boyfriend, serial entrepreneur and growth hacker Nikita Bier, is advisor to a protector.
At Bier’s Playbook, which has won their own acquisitions of apps from Discord and FacebookFurious bait is part of the fun.
“Once you make 8 figures, you should not lose for the rest of your life, trying to get higher – like doing B2B Saas Startup,” writes Bier recently Post X. “Instead, you need to think of ways to explain millions of people on the Internet every day, starting conflicting concepts of application, for pure love for the game.”
Although Bier’s growth strategy is artificial, it has been successful in generating buzzing. He recently advised the AI health app Change his name From most days until death, he then told the app to add a study, which predicted exactly how and when users would die. Certainly, the app is shot to # 6 in the IOS app app store and received a water supply and sewerage system with Stephen Colbert.
“I’m telling you to rename your app: $ 24,000/month,” Bier wrote of X. “Your app in a Colbert joke: invaluable.”
But for Protector, which Bier describes as “Uber with weapons”, the idea is more acclaimed than the addition of a clever AI function to health health.
Protector guards are active on duty or recently retired law enforcement authorities, which each has permissions issued by the government to carry a firearm and to work as security. Hiring Protector security detail will cost consumers at least $ 1,000 for a minimum of five hours, plus an annual membership fee of $ 129.
According to estimates of AppfiguresApplication Intelligence Company, Protector, was withdrawn by US IOS users about 97,000 times in the first week after its launch on February 17th. About one -third of these downloads came on the day of launch, as he climbed to # 3 in the App Store Travel Charts. However, this initial curiosity about the app slowed down; As of February 27, he sits at No. 70 in the travel chart.
Although people download the app – perhaps out of pure curiosity – these installations do not guarantee that people will actually pay to use it.
The target customer of Protector is not clear, as it is difficult to imagine what kind of person would be on board, paying over $ 1,000 for such a demonstration, unnecessary service. Perhaps as another tactic to strengthen the engagement, Protector calls on an extremely specific audience: Business Managers who are concerned about their safety after the murder of UNITEDHEATHALCARE CEO Brian Thompson (who is likely to have access to corporate security anyway).
“If a defender was present (when Thompson was killed), the crisis could have been prevented,” the company of the company claims In X’s video. Then the security guard in the video goes through three possible scenarios, where he claims he can deter the attacker to commit a murder.
With such a minimum potential customer base, it is not clear how Protector can be maintained.
But so far, the app has support from angelic investors, including Balaji Srinivasan. The former A16Z general partner is known for the loss public pledge that Bitcoin’s price will reach $ 1 million and he has a special interest support “Start -ups” and “network countries” as Prosper, HondurasS Last year he achieved this goal from Hiring Near Singapore to host a 90-day “Network School”, which he described as “A techno -casapalist city of college“For” anyone who does not feel part of the establishment “and believes that” Bitcoin inherits the Federal Reserve. “
While “Uber with Weapons” is less extreme than island reception to be part of a larger Bitcoin-based revolution, applications like Protector can have a more direct effect on average people.
Protector is not the first company to pursue this concept. Blackwolf, an app that also offers leaders of armed Rideshare, operates in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Tennessee and Texas; Appfigures estimates that Blackwolf has been downloaded about 256,000 times since its start in 2023.
Like Protector, Blackwolf leaned against extravagant marketing on social media and FearTaking advantage of cars for vehicles without drivers vandalizedS Blackwolf’s founder Kerry Kingbrown calls on viewers to use his service instead of taking Waymo, as if other, more reasonable alternatives like Uber and Lyft do not exist.
These tactics recall citizens, the application for reporting crimes in the community offering a $ 20 per month service where users can contact an emergency security agent.
If these new applications can learn anything from the citizens, it is that public safety and startup stimuli do not mix. This was particularly clear in an outrageous incident when the founder and CEO of citizens Andrew Famm promoted the function of the application of the application by broadcasting a seven -hour For a suspected arson offering $ 30,000 for information leading to the arrest of the man. But after blowing up the notifications of all Los Angeles users to join the pursuit, it turned out that they had the wrong person – the Los Angeles police arrested an innocent suspect.
Although Citizen is still working – and Frame remains CEO – his mistakes are big as Protector prepares his next message. Protector does not only work on “Uber for Weapons”. He plans to launch an application called “Patrol”, where users can redirect security guards to explore their neighborhoods. The more money users donate, the more the level of security they can unlock, including robots and drones, to monitor the area.
This is a controversial business move at a time when Americans Americans Trust in law enforcement has fallen out as a result of High -profile police killingsS
“We’re not a mall cop,” a security guard said in a promotional patrol video. “We are a real cops.”
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