Nixle's "Elevator Pitch"

We wrote not long ago a post about Nixle, the notification tool that public safety agencies use at no charge to push out text notifications. In our post, we pondered how they make money.

Well, flipping through Inc. magazine this month, we find an article that sheds some light. Nixle is not making money. In fact, the article says Nixle generated no revenue last year, and is trying to raise 7.5-million-dollars from investors. In the "elevator pitch" in Inc., Nixle says that, along with offering the free service to law enforcement and other public safety, it intends to use its "secure text messaging platform" to charge businesses a fee to send messages to their customers.

Several investment experts weighed in. Mostly they said Nixle needs to show how they're going to get lots of small businesses to pay for the service in large enough mass to make money.

Meantime, the Nixle public safety customer base grows. According to Inc., there are now nearly 4,000 agencies using Nixle including Los Angeles and Chicago police departments.

Whether Nixle can make money and survive remains to be seen, but having 4,000 agencies using Nixle is no small feat. It's difficult to get agencies to adopt a program, even when it's free.

All the best,

Rick