Drive Spotter's Chris Augeri Offers Thoughts on Success at Startup Stories

"The upshot is that you have to focus, at a very tactical level, on your daily successes," said Chris Augeri, CEO and co-founder of Drive Spotter. Augeri, who is also a graduate of the Global Insurance Accelerator's inaugural class, will join Mike Colwell, Executive Director of Square One DSM for the January 2017 Startup Stories event.

Christ Augeri's Startup Story

Augeri, whose barely two-year-old startup has experienced a near vertical growth curve in late 2016, eschews the typical entrepreneurial tendency to focus on failures. Instead, he hopes to impart his vision and practice of focusing on daily successes to those in attendance.

Drive Spotter, a software company that uses dash cam video and machine learning to provide insights to enterprise fleets, was a finalist for the Silicon Prairie's 2015 New Startup of the Year award. Since then, the company has gained recognition in the Midwest, across the United States and even in some international circles as part of the next wave of technology that includes driver assistance, autonomous vehicles, and traffic data acquisition.

Drive Spotter's web platform and mobile app enable fleet managers, vehicle manufacturers, insurers, city planners and others to gain valuable insights about driver behavior to reduce accidents and increase fleet efficiency. The platform's dynamic mapping solution for fleets, insurers and vehicle manufacturers, which takes in the surrounding environment and road conditions, is also of interest to map providers.

In 2016, Drive Spotter, headquartered in Omaha, expanded by opening an office in Des Moines. A few short months later, they were one of twelve companies invited to spend the summer in Detroit to join the 2016 Class of the Techstars Mobility accelerator, based out of Ford Field. During Techstars, Augeri and his team discovered that customers and partners were incredibly excited about the dynamic street maps they could create from the dash cam data. This shift fundamentally altered their sales and distribution model and moved the company from pre-revenue to post-revenue within several weeks of completing Techstars.

"We are actually creating a blueprint of the planet," Augeri explained, offering that this revolutionary approach to aggregating data from individual vehicles in real-time provides the dynamic mapping ability that has sparked conversations with most vehicle manufacturers and many of the Top 10 map providers.

"Today we have end-to-end products. We are closing sales and crafting very significant distribution relationships on a week over week basis," Augeri said. A big difference in the Drive Spotter of today versus just a few months ago and a strong testimony to his philosophy of focusing on success.

"I know Chris and his team have had an incredible year and I believe that experience along with his strong mentoring skills and unique background will provide our attendees with a robust lesson," Colwell said of Augeri's deep well of experience as an entrepreneur, data scientist, veteran, and public speaker, who is known to juggle when stuck on a problem and also competes as an amateur power-lifter.

Event Format

While Colwell will interview Augeri initially, the luncheon and networking event will allocate considerable time for questioning from the audience, which is bound to include a few classmates and associates from the Global Insurance Accelerator. If time allows, you just might see some juggling or maybe hear the quasi-famous back-flip story.

Event Info

$15 admission fee (includes lunch) or free (if you don't want lunch).

11:30 a.m.
January 18, 2017

Greater Des Moines Partnership
700 Locust Street, Suite 100
Conference Center (street level)

Contact us at info@squareoneDSM.com for more information.

Reasonable accommodations for persons with disabilities will be made if requested at least two weeks in advance. Contact Square One DSM for details.

About Square One DSM

Square One DSM's mission is to connect entrepreneurial needs with qualified community and state resources and to provide guided professional and business direction. Square One DSM helps entrepreneurs maximize their successes by helping them navigate resources, strengthen knowledge, improve skills, form strategic alliances and secure proper capitalization. Learn more at SquareOneDSM.com.

About the Greater Des Moines Partnership

The Greater Des Moines Partnership is the economic and community development organization that serves Central Iowa. Together with 22 Affiliate Chambers of Commerce and 5,800 regional business members, The Partnership drives economic growth with one voice, one mission and as one region. Through innovation, strategic planning and global collaboration, The Partnership grows opportunity, creates jobs and promotes Greater Des Moines as the best place to build a business, a career and a future. Visit DSMpartnership.com for more information.