An interview with Darren MacKenna, CTO of Netmap
In the ‘fishing with…’ series, we spend a little time getting to know some of the amazing start-ups that choose to call Fishburners home.
This week we sat down with the Darren MacKenna to find out more about his start-up NetMap following his recent winning presentation at Fishburners’ Friday Pitches.
Congrats on your recent win! Can you tell me a little about NetMap? What’s your elevator pitch?
So, a big problem that retailers have is that as well as the general public stealing from them, their employees can sometimes also steal. In the industry this is collectively known as shrinkage, and it’s a $2.5bn / year problem in Australia alone.
Most retailers focus on external theft, and lots of money goes into loss prevention. But the equivalent amount does not go into stemming losses from employees. Some figures show that this internal theft is at least half of the total problem.
Staff often are exploiting loopholes at the point of sale. These loopholes, things like being able to give a refund without a receipt, exist for important reasons — usually to help customers. But you’ve got to be able to monitor and track who’s doing it, and that’s where we come in.
At NetMap we have built software, called DetectR, to help loss prevention officers or LPOs. Essentially it’s an analytics navigator. We take data from the retailer’s cash registers and points of sale, process it in the cloud, and present it to the loss prevention team in an intuitive platform.
It’s designed to help LPOs monitor areas of risk and gain insights into their point of sale data that can identify internal theft.
Our users, the LPOs, are investigators. Often they are former detectives or police officers. They have sharp minds and are quick at traversing a bunch of different topics. But they’re usually not data analysts or statisticians.
We give them the tools to be able to make informed judgements and analysis. We give them a convenient, streamlined experience.
Tell me about your team?
I work with John Gray our CEO. He has a long career in business development and was the founding partner of NetMap.
For me, I’ve been working in retail and loss prevention for the past six years or so. I have a technical background in analytics and software engineering. In my previous retail loss prevention roles, I noticed that because retailers focus on shoplifting, the systems for loss prevention from employees have not been as well addressed.
What inspired you to start NetMap?
The company is actually not brand new, but it has reinvented itself several times. John approached me a few years ago when we began focusing on this new business venture of DetectR.
We were excited about the idea because we felt it was an under-addressed market and we together had the business and technical skills, and the industry knowledge to make a difference.
What have you been up to recently?
We’re at an exciting point. We now have our first two big retail customers on board; David Jones and Country Road. Most recently we’re just coming to the completion of our implementation with Country Road.
So now it’s a matter of us going to market and growing both our team and our client base.
We’re still relatively unknown and we’re working on our approaches to retailers and getting the word out there about us.
How has Fishburners helped you?
I joined Fishburners about two years ago now. On a personal level, I did work from home for a while before coming here. And I… well, working here is much much better.
In terms of the environment, being surrounded by a bunch of really motivated, hardworking, driven people has been brilliant to help frame my own mind-set. It’s a really positive influence.
From a business point of view, it’s an incredible system here that allows me to work in such a fantastic office space at a very reasonable rate. It’s a huge help for small businesses trying to get up on their feet.
And I’ve made some good friends in here as well. There are some great people here of like mind and age, and when you’re working on your own or in a small team you otherwise just would not meet them.
I guess lastly, having access to the other people who have a clue about starting a business has been great. Hearing their stories, the pitfalls, the wins; it really helps you along. If you need to talk, people they are there to help.
What’s the ask right now / what are you looking for?
We’re looking for connections and introductions as we grow into the market!
If anyone has worked with retailers or any point of sale business, be it in loss prevention or management; or knows someone who can help make an introduction, we’d love to talk to you.
For more…
Check out NetMap at netmap.com.au, or contact Darren MacKenna at dmackenna@netmap.com.au
Fishburners is Australia’s largest startup space, dedicated to supporting entrepreneurs. Find out more about Fishburners at fishburners.org, and for more you can follow us on Facebook or Twitter.
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