3AM Innovations co-founders Ryan Litt and Patrick O’Connor approached their board of directors earlier this year with an unusual proposal.
They wanted to transfer the CEO title to Litt, while O’Connor would become the company’s president.
That kind of move is usually the board’s idea.
But according to Litt, the shift emphasizes the strengths of the co-founding team, allowing O’Connor to focus on sales throughout the country.
And there are plenty of potential customers.
3AM spent the pandemic creating leads for its Florian tracking system, which helps specify the exact locations of first responders in times of crisis.
That required O’Connor’s team to spend months on the road, visiting up to 30 first responder operations per state.
“We have some really big departments that are live with our product right now,” Litt said.
One of those customers is the Buffalo Fire Department. Litt said the firm is hoping to expand its reach in Western New York.
3AM Innovations, which is backed by Launch NY, Rochester-based Impellent Ventures and other investors, has 10 employees out of its headquarters in the University at Buffalo’s downtown Gateway Building.
Litt said the company’s employee count could double over the next year as its business expands.
He said the primary focus is on partnering with first responder organizations to make their personnel safer. If it’s effective at that, the business will come.
“In our country and beyond, these emergencies are getting bigger, and the hard part is there are never enough first responders in that one region,” he said. “Disaster readiness is a larger affair than just one group. We think our technology can be that glue that helps everybody interact.”
Litt earned a bachelor’s in computer science from the University at Buffalo in 2005 and embarked on a series of technical, operational and managerial roles in Buffalo before joining 3AM in 2017.
He’ll lean on that experience in supporting the firm’s growth, whether that’s through recruiting employees, raising capital or managing the team.
“My philosophy is that the most important thing are the tools and the people,” he said. “In my experience, you get great people, give them the tools they need and great things happen.”
