LEFTA Systems set out almost two decades ago to make tracking police activity more accurate, more accountable and more safe.
Now, the Jacksonville-based company is growing exponentially in clients and revenues selling software services for law enforcement agencies.
CEO Bryan Selzer started developing the software the company sells as a side gig in 2006, when he was a senior sergeant at the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office
“We had 12-hours shifts. We had five days on, five days off. So, I built the business on my off days,” he said.
He kept that up for a decade until retiring after 20 years with JSO — and then went into growth mode, increasing the number of employees from six to 30, with remote workers logging in from North Carolina, Indiana, Nebraska, Texas and Florida, as well as contractors in India.
Revenue grew as well, going from about $500,000 a year in the early days to $4.5 million in 2022.
Selzer said he sees that figure growing each year with about 600 clients now in multiple states and in India.
The programs and software are designed to eliminate substantial hard-copy paper work and keep everything accessible in data through computers.
“We received a lot of requests from our clients, agencies, to automate some other training, to automate use-of-force incidents [records[, internal affairs, vehicle pursuits, [and] complaints. So we just kept adding more and more applications to our offering," he said. “The platform that we developed is basically a platform of software applications that police forces need to document most of their internal processes."
One of the more profound elements of the LEFTA software systems is the ability to cross reference data points. An officer who has repeated issues in multiple reports will be automatically tracked and indicators will be compiled by the software and can alert law enforcement managers to potential issues with an employee.
“When an officer starts doing little things wrong, it will catch a manager’s attention,” Selzer said. “If an officer is starting to have some increased activity, it would be flagged and a [manager] would be able to look into that.”
The LEFTA software automatically compiles the data and maps out trends, Selzer said. That’s a huge advantage over traditional hard-copy records in law enforcement.
“Even if agencies still use paper, they’re still documenting everything. But you don’t get any statistics from it. It’s difficult to pinpoint or look up things. Our system, because of that statistical analysis we have, does that,” Selzer said.
The LEFTA software is so sophisticated, Selzer said, the company has patented many features in the program including the capability to analyze demographics and the program could even determine if agencies are resorting to controversial racial profiling.
While he’s managed to generate $4.5 million in 2022, that’s been growing about $1.5 million each year. He said he plans to increase annual revenue in excess of $10 million by 2026 and he already projects he’ll have more than 700 clients by the end of this year.
Much of that is a change in Selzer’s business tactical approach. Initially, agencies would pay an up-front cost for the software. But Selzer said about four years ago, he switched that approach to a subscription model that includes technical support services.
“It’s just an annual recurring fee,” Selzer said. “We grow about 25% to 30% each year and that’s why I keep growing.”
With nearly 600 agencies now using LEFTA Systems software, it would seem Selzer has a unique marketing approach for such a niche market. But he said there is no such marketing plan.
“I do zero marketing. Our applications are very user friendly… . It’s almost entirely word of mouth,” Selzer said.
His company has maintained about a 98% retention rate for all their clients.
Selzer said his company and software is so advanced, he recently spoke at a conference in Washington D.C. organized by President Joe Biden’s administration. Biden has pushed for use of more data collection for government agencies as part of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy resulting from an executive order signed in 2022.
“I was kind of surprised [to be invited] into the project because there were a lot of big companies,” Selzer said, who attended the Criminal Justice Statistics Vendor Engagement Session event March 15th. “But the reason was because of our reputation in the industry.”
