When Christi Brown was four years old, her family lost their house after her dad broke his leg in a workplace accident.
She vowed to do everything in her power to prevent this tragedy from happening to others— and she has. In 2015, Brown founded iReportSource, a safety management software platform and app that that collects safety data to predict workplace threats. While working as a third-party administrator for workers’ compensation, Brown realized just how unorganized and inefficient paper records had become. She knew manual record keeping was not just outdated, but dangerous. She was ready to do something about it.
“What use is a piece of paper if you read it once and file it away?” Brown said. “And how do you see a trend on a piece of paper? You can’t. If you want to see how many injuries there were during the last three years and correlate that trend to trainings performed, the root cause and corrective actions, you can do that with iReportSource.”
“We’ve found a couple of traction channels that are really working for us and we’ve started to accelerate our conversion rates.”
Brown’s Pendleton-based startup was on to something. The company now has over 3,500 users from nine different countries. Once her team added different languages to the iReportSource software, they saw further interest from companies across the globe.
Workplace safety may fall to the bottom of a business’ priority list, but Brown says a light bulb goes off when clients see the financial opportunity. iReportSource monitors patterns and potential risks that, if corrected quickly, can reduce premiums and administrative workload (in addition to preventing injuries).
But the collaborative platform isn’t solely for the C-suite. On-the-ground employees can report their own concerns to help safety leaders fix threats before they cause issues. IReportSource also keeps HR leaders on the pulse of workplace risks and trends, while safety leaders can dig deep into data to solve the root of an incident so it doesn’t happen again.
Soon, iReportSource will bolster its platform even further with a new safety predictor score. This addition will help employers use a benchmark score in board meetings and annual reports, while employees can use the safety predictor score when determining whether or not to accept a job. The third target audience for the safety predictor score will be particularly enticing for business leaders.
“Insurance companies will use our score to underwrite insurance premiums for workers’ comp, property and casualty insurance, and general liability insurance,” Brown said.
As the company’s spot on Cincy Inno’s 2018 50 on Fire list indicates, business is booming for iReportSource. The future looks equally bright.
“Not only do we have a product market fit, we can see a clear path to scale,” Brown said. “We’ve found a couple of traction channels that are really working for us and we’ve started to accelerate our conversion rates.”
While product market fit is integral, Brown also credits the Cincinnati’s startup community for the company’s launch and growth.
“For one, we’re very fortunate to have a startup hub here with Cintrifuse; startups have many options to get connected,” she said. “My favorite thing? Cincinnati knows how to hustle. I continue to be impressed by our team as well as the people we interview. I’m convinced our team could do anything.”
