The “Uber for Guns” app allows you to rent armed body guards like you – but does anyone need this?
In a video of Tiktok with more than 3 million views, a woman is located in a delicate coat in the back seat of luxury four -wheel drive vehicles, parked in the center of New York City Street. above 6 second video“We have made our personal guards Matcha”. The camera enlarges two frightening men who wear full allowances with red links, each carrying Matcha Latte ice as he returns to the car.
In a similar video clip, a young Chevrolet woman depicted an elegant in a suburb as she pulled in front of her home. A man wears a suit that opens the door to it before being transported away, surrounded by car by other men wearing professional clothes. They stimulate her mobile luggage while she enters the airport, and she is safely accompanying her flight while she is proud of the video.
These publications have strategically timed with the launch of a new application called protectorWhich first appeared last week in Los Angeles and New York City, allowing ordinary people to request security -like security details. But the videos were not organic.
“We have published 14 pieces of content [Protector] This led to 15 million views and more than 30,000 downloads, “women from Matcha Video, Fuzz and Fuzz, books In Tiktok, she revealed her employment to make these videos.
The other creatorCameel Hofcibian said, “The Techcrunch” spokesman said. Creative friend, serial business and infiltrated businessman Nikita Pierre, is advisor For the protector.
In Pier’s Playbook, which has received his own acquisitions dispute and FacebookThe anger of taste is part of the fun.
“Once you make 8 numbers, the rest of your life should not be lost in an attempt to get higher – such as the start starting B2B Saas,” Bir wrote in a conversation mail On X. “Instead, you should consider ways to cancel millions of people on the Internet every day by launching controversial application concepts, for the pure love of the game.”
Although Bier’s growth strategy has proven successful in generating the tanner. He recently advised a healthy application in which artificial intelligence works Change her name From most of the long days of death, tell the application by adding a poll that predicts exactly how and when users will die. Certainly, the application opened the number 6 on health plans in the iOS application store and got a trend in the late offer with Stephen Colbert.
“I am telling you to rename your application: $ 24,000/month,” Bier books On X. “Your application is in a joke on Colbel: Informed.”
But for the protector, which Bier describes as “Uber with Guns”, the idea is more weakened than adding the artificial intelligence feature to a healthy application.
The guard’s guards are the actual service or recently retired law enforcement, each with permits issued by the government to carry firearms and act as a guard. Employing safety details on the protector will cost at least 1,000 dollars for a period of not less than five hours, in addition to annual membership fees worth $ 129.
According to estimates from ApplicationsAnd the application intelligence company, a protector was downloaded by US -based IOS users about 97,000 times in the first week after its launch on February 17. About a third of these downloads came on the launch day, as it ascended to No. 3 on travel plans in the application store. This initial curiosity has slowed around the application; As of February 27, it is located on No. 70 on the travel scheme.
Although people download the application – perhaps motivated by extreme curiosity – these installations do not guarantee that people will actually push for use.
The target customer of the protector is unclear, because it is difficult to imagine any kind of people on board with paying more than $ 1,000 for such unnecessary service. Perhaps as another tactic to increase the participation, Protector has made calls for a very specific audience: executive officials who are concerned about their safety after the assassination of UNITEDHELTHARCARE Brian Thompson (likely to get companies ’security anyway).
“If the protector is present [when Thompson was killed]It was possible to avoid the crisis, “the company Claims In a video on X. The security guard passes through the video after three possible scenarios, where he claims that he could deter the attacker from the killing.
With the minimum potential customer base, it is not clear how the protector will be able to maintain itself.
But at the present time, the application is supported by owners investors including Balaji Srinivasan. Former A16Z General Press is known for his loss Public bet The price of bitcoin will reach one million dollars, and it has a special interest in Support “Startup Communities” and “Network Countries” like ProsPéra, Honduras. Last year, he strengthened this goal Island rental Near Singapore to host a 90 -day “Network School”, he described it as “Technical university city“For” everyone who does not feel it is part of the institution “and believes that” Bitcoin is behind the Federal Reserve. “
While “Uber with Guns” is less extreme than the adoption of carrots to be part of a larger Bitcoin Revolution, applications like “Protector” can have a direct impact on medium people.
The protector is not the first company to follow this concept. Blackwolf, an application that also offers armed Rideshare drivers, works in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Tennessee and Texas; Appfigures estimates that Blackwolf has been downloaded about 256,000 times since its launch in 2023.
Like the protector, Blackwolf bent over the exorbitant marketing of social media and Fear of promotionTake advantage of Waymo cars news without driver sabotage. Blackwolf Kerry Kingbrown founders urges viewers to use his service instead of taking Waymo, as if they were other more logical alternatives such as Uber and Lyft are not present.
These tactics remember the application of the citizen, which is the application to report the source of the source, the community that provides Service of 20 dollars per month Where users can contact a safety agent in the event of an emergency.
If these new applications are able to learn anything from the citizen, this is that public safety incentives and startup growth are not mixed. This was particularly evident in a terrible incident when the founder of Citizen and CEO Andrew led the framework of promoting the direct broadcasting feature by broadcast a Seven hours For a suspected burning, it provides $ 30,000 for information that leads to the arrest of the man. But after the notifications of all Los Angeles users to join the chase, it turned out that they had the wrong man – the Los Angeles police arrested an innocent suspect.
Although the citizen is still working – and the executive director remains – his mistakes are looming on the horizon as the protector is his next announcement. The protector not only works on “Uber for Guns”. It plans to launch an application called “Patrol”, where users can security guards in collective financing to investigate their neighborhoods. The more users donate money, the greater the level of safety they can open, including robots and drones to monitor the area.
It is a controversial step at a time when the Americans were “Americans” Confidence in the application of the law Run on the butt Domestic police killings.
“We are not policemen in shopping centers,” said a security guard in a promotional video. “We are real policemen.”
