225: Jenny Thompson on SafetyPin Technology to Keep Your Family Safer

The Wellness Mama Podcast

00:00 / 00:44:07

I always love to sit down with a fellow female entrepreneur, plus I count today’s guest a friend too, which is always fun. Her name is Jenny Thompson and her talents include natural health advocate, fearless business strategist, and expert marketer, among others.

She took a leap and started a new technology called SafetyPIN. Like a TSA pre-check for the web, SafetyPIN is a way to ensure the person on the other end of a digital transaction is trustworthy and reliable. As you can imagine there’s a great need for this in today’s world when we are often trusting strangers through the use of services like AirBnB, Uber, Lyft, Care.com (and the list goes on).

With SafetyPIN holders currently in 39 states, Jenny is working to build awareness and make “Do you have a SafetyPIN?” part of every conversation in the sharing economy.

Episode Highlights on SafetyPIN

Jenny’s amazing story of personal reinvention as a businesswoman and entrepreneur
The dog-sitting transaction gone bad that gave her the idea for SafetyPIN in the first place
The shocking reasons a traditional background check isn’t all it’s cracked up to be (you’ll never think of one the same way again)
How Jenny teamed up with financial experts, forensic psychologists, and criminal investigators to design a better safety check
Ways to use SafetyPIN in your own home, and safe practices when interacting online
Jenny’s advice to other entrepreneurs thinking about taking the leap
And more!

More From Wellness Mama

Did you enjoy this episode? What other questions do you have about online safety? Please drop a comment below or leave a review on iTunes to let us know. We value knowing what you think and this helps other moms find the podcast as well.

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Child: Welcome to my Mommy’s podcast.

This episode is sponsored by Kasandrinos Olive Oil. I love family owned companies with a mission and that are dedicated to making the highest quality products and supporting sustainable agriculture and this olive oil fits the bill. Founded by an active duty marine, Tony Kasandrinos, and his sister whose family is from Greece, this company is dedicated to the absolutely highest quality olive oil with the most amazing flavor. With all the controversy over some olive oils being adulterated and diluted, they go above and beyond to test for purity. In fact, all of their olive oil has 3 independent chemical analysis tests done by 3rd party labs. Two are conducted in Europe before it ever arrives here and another in the United States. These tests confirm the freshness, oleic acid levels and that the oliv oil is organic. They use cold press extraction to retain the beneficial properties and use Koroneiki olives which contain very high levels of polyphenols, which are the well-studied beneficial component of olive oil. Their olives are harvested within 50km of their family press in Lakonia Greece and are all non GMO, USDA certified organic, and PGI certified. Learn more and check out their products at kasandrinos.com/wellnessmama and use the code wellnessmama for 10% off your order!

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Katie: Hello, and welcome to “The Wellness Mama Podcast.” I’m Katie of wellnessmama.com. And I’m here today with my friend Jenny Thompson to delve into a new technology that I’ve been personally using and excited to share with you guys. Jenny was the CEO at a massive company for over 20 years, and in her first year there, she tripled their profits. And on the heels of that success, the owners asked her to take over of the fledgling health side of the business. After just 10 months in that role, she had increased the bottom line by 500%. So she definitely knows business.

And in 2016, the business hit 70 million the decision to let the next generation take over and to go out on her own. We’re gonna talk a little bit about that story today. But after a few months of consulting, she decided to start something new, and knowing nothing about technology, she focused all of her energy on a new startup software that we’re gonna talk about today. So it’s called SafetyPIN. We’re gonna delve into it more. I won’t explain it all in the intro. But needless to say, Jenny is a brilliant woman with a lot of expertise, and I can’t wait to share her with you today. So Jenny, welcome and thanks for being here.

Jenny: So Katie, thank you so much for having me. I’ve been a fan, and a friend for such a long time. And I am thrilled to be here talking to you and your audience.

Katie: I am thrilled to have you here and to share your brilliance with the world because your story is pretty incredible on multiple fronts. But to start for a little bit of context, could you talk about your business journey. I touched on it a little bit in the intro, but I’d love for you to elaborate on that.

Jenny: Yeah, it’s interesting because my very first job actually had nothing to do with business. I was a bailiff in a courthouse in Hyattsville, Maryland, and it was just this strange unfolding how I got there, but it kind of led the rest of my career for a short time. When I graduated college, the first job post-graduation I worked at the American Correctional Association, representing law enforcement officers. And then I went to the American Motor Vehicle Administration Association, representing people who were very involved in the motor vehicle laws in their states.

And it’s something a lot of people don’t know and it wasn’t really that relevant in how my journey continued until I got to my most recent gig. But for a long time, I was the CEO of Agora’s health business, and I kind of stumbled into it. I answered an ad in the newspaper. For those of you that don’t know what a newspaper is, it’s a thing where it used to be where you could find jobs. And I went to work in one of the financial groups at a company called Agora, where I helped market direct to consumer newsletters, and financial information for investors who wanted something other than what was in “The Wall Street Journal” every day.

And after that, as you said in the intro, I had a great first year there. I tripled the profits of the company that I was representing, and the owners of the company asked if I would come run the health business. So really knowing very little about natural medicine at all, I literally knew echinacea, that was the only thing because my mom had just taken it to fight a cold, they put me in charge of this business because I was a good business strategist and marketer. And over time, I really became an advocate for natural medicine. I became very concerned about the over vaccination mentality in the country, and very concerned about the way that the FDA approved drugs and spoke out against natural cures.

And so starting out as a marketer, I became a pretty significant advocate in my time there, and I spent 18 years at the helm of the health business. And in 2016, I just made a decision that it wasn’t making me wanna get out of bed anymore. And there wasn’t a negative, it just wasn’t inspiring me. And I felt like it was really time to let the people that had done a great job working with me and for me, give them the opportunity to step into leadership roles, and to see what they could do with the business, and where they could take it rather than just kind of continue as a hamster on that wheel because it was easy and I was good at it, and I was making really good money.

And I decided it was time to challenge myself and force myself to do something else. So I left my job without really knowing what I was gonna do. And I consulted for a little while. And I like to share with people that when you wanna make a change in your life, there are two real ways that you can jump. You can jump out of an airplane like skydive, you don’t know what’s gonna happen next and you just go for it. Or you can paraglide where you kind of run off a mountain until there’s no mountain under your feet anymore.

And so I consider my journey more of a paragliding one where I took the knowledge that I had, and the network that I had, and I created an opportunity for myself to do some consulting while I figured out what my next step was. Instead of continuing to stay until I knew what it was gonna be, or taking a more aggressive jump and having no idea what I was gonna do next. Then I took a vacation for my 50th birthday, I treated myself to a week in Tahiti, and while I was there I had hired this pet sitter off of Craigslist, to watch my dogs.

When I got home, I looked around the house and I realized that there were stains all over the carpet, and then I realized that my dogs’ beds were missing. And that the fitted sheet was still perfectly folded and I’ve never been able to successfully fold a fitted sheet let alone refold one. So I realized she had never stayed in my apartment at all. I had actually prepaid her for the following week, so when she brought the dogs beds back I told her she couldn’t work for me anymore, and that she had to pay me back the money I paid her in advance, and it was $150. And instead of paying me back $150, Katie, this girl faked her own death.

Katie: That is bizarre.

Jenny: And she didn’t just like have someone text me and say Sarah died, she had someone text me pretending to be her dad, giving me these extraordinary details of a horrible accident she had been in. And then every day for the next four days, I would get some update that her kidneys were failing, and there was swelling on her brain, and they’re not holding out much hope. And I knew it probably wasn’t real because she had not…her Facebook page wasn’t showing any messages from friends. I googled the description of the accident and nothing had come up, and I googled her name and nothing had come up. So my BS detector was definitely going off.

And then on the last morning of the charade, I decided to text her phone number and ask her if she could come walk my dogs. And then I quickly texted the person that was pretending to be her father, and said, oh, my gosh, I’m so sorry, she’s still in my phone as dog sitter I hope I didn’t disturb you. And they wrote back in the most classic response you can imagine, I mean you’re a mom obviously you know if something horrible happens to one of your children, God forbid, you would not be reacting this way. They wrote back and said, “You’re fine, she passed away this morning.” And that’s when I knew that someone actually had faked their own death, instead of paying me back $150, or by the way, just blocking me from their phone. And that’s what led me to create SafetyPIN.

Katie: That is wild, that story boggles my mind. That seems like a lot of work than just paying you back. And I feel sorry for your dog who didn’t get any attention for that week. So then can you give us some background on SafetyPIN and what it is for context?

Jenny: So the idea behind SafetyPIN is that every day millions and millions of people are interacting with people that we meet online. There are so many sites where you can hire a babysitter, you can hire a dog walker at TaskRabbit, a driver, anything. And all you know about that person is a profile that they’ve written themselves, a series of ratings and reviews that may be genuine, but may also be gamed. And there’s also something in the sharing economy where ratings are very reciprocal. So I always give my Lyft or Uber driver a 5-star rating, because I wanna make sure they give me a 5-star rating. And I think that happens a lot with Airbnb, and with babysitting, and dog walking.

Everyone’s rating is so important to them that unless you have a truly tragic experience, you’re probably gonna rate that person a 5-star. So we’re interacting with these people and we’re letting them come into our home and around our children, and be alone with our animals, be alone with our elderly parents in some cases, we really don’t know anything about them. And so what we’ve created at SafetyPIN is a virtual trust badge that someone can sign up for. The screening we like to compare it to TSA pre-check.

So you sign up, and you authorize us, we run a criminal background check, we run a financial history screening. We don’t hit your credit score, but we do look at the patterns in your financial past. We do an identity verification, and then we’ve developed this behavior review with a forensic psychologist who was the lead psychologist at Leavenworth Prison, and a clinical psychologist from one of the premier universities in the world, and two criminal profilers from the NYPD so that we can identify behavior that would make you likely to put somebody else at risk.

And if you don’t meet all of our requirements, you can’t get a SafetyPIN. If you do get one, it’s actually a virtual badge, it’s an eight-digit identification number. We keep all of your information very protected, we never share anything but your first name, city, and state, and your eight digit number. And if you don’t qualify for a SafetyPIN, we never tell anybody that you didn’t qualify, it’s only a positive indicator. Again very much like TSA pre-check, you either have it or you don’t. But it’s a great way to know that somebody has met these requirements and that they don’t display victimization behaviors or victimizing behaviors.

And I’m really cautious to use the word “psychopath” because in our society we think of Jack Nicholson in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” or Scott Peterson killing his wife when she was pregnant, but really people who are on the scale of psychopathy, what it really means is that you just lack kind of standard emotions of remorse and empathy, that you have a poor inner sense of right and wrong. So these questions are based on that scale. And somebody who has a poor inner sense of right or wrong, and a lack of empathy and remorse, is not somebody that you want to leave alone with your children or to have access to your home.

There was just a story in New York City a couple of weeks ago, where a family hired a babysitter off of Sittercity, and the person had good reviews and good references. And she ended up kidnapping their son and taking him to set her ex-boyfriend’s car on fire, if you can imagine…

Katie: Oh, my gosh.

Jenny: …something horrific. And then the babysitter lied to the police about the child’s name. So he was 30 miles away from home, I think he was 2-years-old and the parents couldn’t even find him to get him back initially. And so here’s somebody who didn’t have a criminal background, but when something set them off, they didn’t have the judgment about what they should and shouldn’t do, and they couldn’t make the right decision, and that’s what we screen for.

Katie: Wow, I know all of us have probably heard those horror stories of you know, babysitters or house sitters gone wrong. And that’s a really interesting piece that you guys are tackling, because like you said, we have had…like most places have ratings and reviews, and I know people are really good and diligent about reading those, and like the next level would be you know, word of mouth referral from somebody you actually knew. But in an increasingly digital world, I feel that’s harder and harder to like find those connections organically.

So I love that you guys are de-stigmatizing this. And I’m curious there are other sites that do like even just like babysitters sites, I know they do background checks. But basically, you guys are going above and beyond that, right, with behavioral analysis, like what aspects does that really delve into?

Jenny: So I wanna back up, Katie, and just ingest the background checks. Because one of the things that most people don’t realize is how flawed the background check system is. And for example, there’s no such thing as a national background check. And people think when you run a background check…if you ever go to any of those online sites, and it says that they’re doing a national scan, they’re scanning for what data is available nationally. But actually, only 16 states report 100% of criminal activity up to the publicly available databases, and 22 states have 0 automatic online reporting.

So that’s a pretty shocking number, the rest of the states, some counties report and some don’t. And the other thing that most people don’t realize is other than the national sex offender registry and the state sex offender registries, and an actual federal charge, almost all criminal activity is recorded at the county level. And so literally, if you live in New York City, and somebody is running a criminal background check on you, they won’t even check in Brooklyn because it’s a different county.

So one of the philosophies we have is that most background checks stop at the county line, but most criminals don’t. And so we’ve developed a radial way of reviewing where people spend time, and how to maximize the number of places that we’re looking at their record. And then we’ve created a larger radius from that. And so it’s… Even a standard background check misses so much. And we’ve worked with a federal investigator who does high-level security clearance for DOJ, Homeland Security, the Department of Defense, and he said that other than high-level security clearance, he hasn’t seen anyone doing background checks as thorough as what we’re doing.

So we’re very proud of the way that we’ve approached the background check, and tried to create a much better mousetrap than what is already out there. In addition to that, we look for patterns of behavior and the underlying psychology of a crime. And so if you were arrested for public drunkenness when your NCAA team won the national tournament back when you were 19 years old, and you shouldn’t have been drinking. But now you’re a mom, and you’ve been responsible and there’s nothing else on your record, that is an easy thing to overlook.

The exact same experience but you were stalking a boyfriend, exact same timeline, exact same experience since, but you were arrested for stalking somebody, that would disallow you from getting a SafetyPIN. And so we look at what types of behavior people exhibit, and the pattern of behavior, not just how many hits there are or if there are zero hits.

And then beyond that, is this idea that there are people who are… About 8 to 12% of the U.S. population is on the scale of psychopathy. And some people also call it sociopaths and psychopaths, they’re used interchangeably, and then there’s also anti-social personality disorder. And these are the people that when they need to do something to benefit them, they don’t think at all about how it’s impacting somebody else. And there are several personality traits that are very clearly and distinctively associated with people who are on this scale.

And so we’ve worked with these four professionals, a clinical psychologist, a forensic psychologist, and two criminal profilers, to develop, and then…to develop the questions, develop the scoring, and then have them validate each other because they’ve all come within one point of each other actually which is pretty remarkable. And because of that, we’re able to say that if someone is not within this scoring threshold, they exhibit traits that could lead to them victimizing somebody else. We try to be really careful, we’re not diagnosing anybody, we don’t want to be in the reputation management game, which is why there’s no negative indicator, we just can’t give them a green light.

Katie: Got it, that makes sense. And it’s…I’ll say like this is something I’ve actually personally used. I recently hired someone who was gonna be an…I needed an assistant, but she would also be in my home at times interacting with my kids potentially. And so since we were new to the area where we were, I wasn’t able to like really know the area, know her family, so it’s something I used. And I was fascinated like just how much detail that you guys go into. And I’m really curious how were you able to, since there is no national background check system, like how were you guys are able to connect the dots so thoroughly? Were you working with like consultants and experts to help with that?

Jenny: We have worked with some of the most remarkable experts, and I will say I’ve been personally gratified. The former chief of White House security who was on the Secret Service under four presidents, and he’s now a global director of security for a billionaire, he saw what we were doing and said, “I wanna be a part of this. I think what you’re doing is really important.” And in his role in the Secret Service, they literally have three seconds to decide if someone is delusional or really dangerous.

Apparently, and this is just an interesting side note, dozens of people walk up to the White House every single day and just kind of knock on the door and say like, “Yeah, I’m here to see the President,” no matter who the president is. It doesn’t matter. They just think that’s normal. And so this team has to decide very quickly is that somebody who presents a danger. So we’ve been able to work with people really of the highest caliber in the law enforcement world, who looked at what we’re doing and said, “What you’re doing is important. It is the absolute missing link in all of this.”

And then we worked with this federal investigator that I mentioned. We actually hired him to audit all 3,200 counties in the U.S. and tell us where we could get digitally-available data and where we couldn’t. And we accessed over 10,000 sources of data, and then we have three independent vendors that we work with, to go get us the information that we need. We actually had somebody a few weeks ago that had to go to a small municipal courthouse in Georgia, because Georgia is one of the states actually that doesn’t even report up its motor vehicle violations, so you have to drill down.

And there are five states that don’t report motor vehicle violations up to a national database. And so we had to drill all the way down. And somebody… There I was on the phone with this courthouse trying to get this person’s record. And sometimes, we have to send a person on foot, and we leverage that network to do it. And we continue to look at different database options, and how we can get the best combination of data to make sure that where there are gaps, we’re filling it in with another relationship.

Katie: Wow, that’s an incredible level of detail. And so most of the people listening are parents, most are moms, some are just you know, moms with pets. But I’m curious can we talk about the best use cases for moms. So if moms are listening and have kids, and are occasionally looking for babysitters, or house sitters, or even just any kind of person who’s gonna come into the home, what are you guys seeing as the best use case right now for moms? Like how is this integrating with moms?

Jenny: So we have a couple of babysitting apps there in the startup world, one is called Nanno, one is called Napp, and to be on their site, they require a SafetyPIN. That was actually never our intention, our intention was it was kind of an added bonus that you would have a SafetyPIN, and you could put it on your profile. But if you are in one of the areas that they serve… We have SafetyPIN holders in over 39 states already and we’re excited about that. But to apply for a SafetyPIN is only a dollar, so if you wanna hire somebody to be in your home, be around your children, and they are not willing to spend a dollar to apply, I think that should be a red flag.

If you want to do it for them we have a mechanism for that. And essentially, what we tell people is ask them to apply if they don’t have one. And as soon as you know that they’ve received one you can verify their SafetyPIN. It is a membership-based model, because this is the other thing I haven’t mentioned is that we re-screen people regularly. And the badge is actually a live badge, there’s a date and time stamp, so you know the person is in good standing. And we can revoke the badge physically on the internet if they are no longer in good standing.

If you verify somebody’s SafetyPIN, if you went to the site and typed in your assistant’s SafetyPIN and we have a record that you verified it, at that point, if she ever got it revoked we would notify you that it had been revoked. If it was canceled for nonpayment we would give you an indicator that you should check, but if it’s revoked we will let you know. And revocation happens because of a law enforcement decision or a criminal conviction. So it’s an active thing for us, it’s not a one and done like most of the other sites’ background checks.

So we highly recommend that moms, and parents, and pet parents ask people who are gonna be around their families to get a SafetyPIN. The website is getasafetypin.com. And the application process, most people can be approved in less than 24 hours, there are some states that are a lot slower and take a lot longer. If you’re in Massachusetts, it can literally be weeks, that’s the worst jurisdiction hands down. But we have tried to streamline the process as much as possible, but safety is our number one concern, so we won’t shortcut it, but if we can streamline it we will.

Katie: That makes sense. And from a personal side what I love about using technology in ways like this is, first of all, it’s voluntary, people are consenting to this. But secondly, like, I’ve said for years, I think a lot of parents today are overprotective in some ways. Like kids do need to be outside, and they need to be able to ride their bikes and climb trees and play outside. And there’s actually less danger there than we often think there is, because we only see the bad stories on the news.

But at the same time, there are very real dangers especially when you’re talking about the world either social media, which I talked about that in previous podcast episodes with people who rescue children, who were basically kidnapped into sex trafficking through social media. But the second most kind of dangerous area for kids is through hired caregivers of any kind that are coming into the home. And so I love that you guys are giving parents a way to tackle that in a way that’s both respectful of the caregiver because they can consent to it, and it really goes deeper than anything else available, but also that hopefully gives parents peace of mind to allow their kids more freedom and independence in safe situations and to be able to know that those situations are safe. So I love so much that there are options like this available.

Is there a good starting point? I know like there’s a website for it, if you can talk about it. And people are even…you can request this of any kind of caregiver or pet sitter, or house sitter, or even like I know you’re saying Uber drivers and any kind of service provider can use this technology, is that right?

Jenny: It is. Uber and Lyft it’s not really available right now because we would have to integrate with the app, but literally any other person. The way it works Katie, actually… And I’m so glad you brought up the privacy issue in protecting the caregiver, we really wanna respect them. And so it is voluntary and we don’t share any information. And if somebody doesn’t get a SafetyPIN and somebody asks us, you literally can’t go to the website and search for somebody to see if they have a SafetyPIN, you have to know their number.

And we do that so that we can stop some of the cyber spying. I hate the idea that somebody can go to one of these online databases and type in what little information they know about me, and get more information than they’re entitled to. And so we feel very strongly about that. But the other thing is in addition to the things that you listed it’s also great for Airbnb. If you’re bringing your family to an Airbnb, or if you rent your home… For people who use online dating. I’m online dating and I won’t be alone with somebody who doesn’t have a SafetyPIN, because I know that…I see the horror stories every day, they’re my Google alerts now.

And it’s shocking what happens, and there are a lot of situations now with even sites like Letgo where people are selling things. And they’re being lured to crimes where people know that they’re coming with cash, and they’re holding them up at gunpoint instead of selling them whatever they had listed on the site. And so our philosophy is, just ask the person for a SafetyPIN. It’s so quick to apply, and anybody who won’t apply for a dollar, you probably don’t wanna be around that person or meet them in a parking lot to sell them something.

But the other thing is once you have a SafetyPIN, you can use the same SafetyPIN everywhere. So it’s your membership, it’s kind of like your driver’s license getting you into every different bar or on to every flight. So it’s an ongoing membership, we rerun people regularly as I mentioned. You don’t pay any more when we re-screen you, it’s our decision about how often to re-screen you that we use based on objective data. And as long as your SafetyPIN is in good standing, you can share it with as many people as you choose, on as many platforms as you choose.

The other thing is while we feel very strongly that this should be a data-driven and technology-driven decision, we also know that there are people that have not committed crimes, and who…or have not been charged with a crime or convicted of a crime, and may not technically be on the psychopath scale, but make people feel like they could put them in danger or be uncomfortable. 40% of crimes go unreported, 30% of crimes that involve a weapon or an injury go unreported. And 70% of sex crimes go unreported.

So we’re very aware that criminal background checks are a Swiss cheese situation no matter what. And that’s why if you meet a SafetyPIN holder and they make you uncomfortable, or there’s an incident…not like the guy didn’t pay for dinner, but he’s just not somebody I felt safe around, we actually will put someone’s SafetyPIN back under review. And we can access our law enforcement, our psychological professionals to go in and do a review, whether that’s a Skype meeting with the person or having them answer more questions in our questionnaire, or going back and putting them into the…review their criminal background more frequently column. So we are taking user feedback because all of our professionals have agreed on one thing, that it’s your gut is actually one of the best ways to prevent crime.

Katie: Yeah, that’s such a great point.
This episode is sponsored by Kasandrinos Olive Oil. I love family owned companies with a mission and that are dedicated to making the highest quality products and supporting sustainable agriculture and this olive oil fits the bill. Founded by an active duty marine, Tony Kasandrinos, and his sister whose family is from Greece, this company is dedicated to the absolutely highest quality olive oil with the most amazing flavor. With all the controversy over some olive oils being adulterated and diluted, they go above and beyond to test for purity. In fact, all of their olive oil has 3 independent chemical analysis tests done by 3rd party labs. Two are conducted in Europe before it ever arrives here and another in the United States. These tests confirm the freshness, oleic acid levels and that the oliv oil is organic. They use cold press extraction to retain the beneficial properties and use Koroneiki olives which contain very high levels of polyphenols, which are the well-studied beneficial component of olive oil. Their olives are harvested within 50km of their family press in Lakonia Greece and are all non GMO, USDA certified organic, and PGI certified. Learn more and check out their products at kasandrinos.com/wellnessmama and use the code wellnessmama for 10% off your order!

Katie: So if there ever is a negative situation, so basically, someone who’s hired a professional could report if there was a problem?

Jenny: Yeah, exactly and we default to safety, we’re not required to give anybody a SafetyPIN, there’s no promise of a SafetyPIN, nobody has a right to one, and we can revoke at any time that we want if we just feel like you’re not…we don’t wanna have this verified badge available for you, and we will revoke it if people give us reason to. At the same time, we don’t wanna do it based on like I said capricious things. Like she left dishes in the sink when she left my house, that’s not a safety issue, that’s a quality issue, and that’s not our lane.

Katie: That makes perfect sense. And another use case I’m curious about, somewhat selfishly, I’m gonna have kids who are old enough to babysit pretty soon, and if they’re going to be babysitting and/or if like someone, for instance, who is gonna babysit for a family, could she ask for a SafetyPIN from them so that she could feel safe going into that?

Jenny: I’m so thrilled that you asked that because we’ve always seen this as a two-sided relationship because trust is a two-sided thing. And the idea that you’re sending your children into a house… we don’t run SafetyPINs on anybody under 18 right now, we do have a future plan for SafetyPIN Junior. But obviously their records are sealed and it would be handled a little bit differently, but for the parents, absolutely.

And actually for a lot of your listeners, one of the areas we’re trying very hard to delve into is youth sports leagues. We would love any connections there, we think that where you have volunteer coaches and they’re traveling with the kids, and often their parents, but sometimes they’re not. And even parents can still put other kids at risk. And so you know, it’s awful but we hear this all the time, and so we think that’s a really important area as well. Camp counselors. Anytime you’re going to have access to other people’s children and time alone with them, we think having a SafetyPIN gives everybody the peace of mind and reassurance they need.

Katie: Absolutely, that is so important. And definitely, I can think just as a parent, I would feel safer sending my own child into someone else’s home knowing that the parents have had like some basic level of screening like that. Just because you do hear that most…unfortunately, most of these scenarios that can be dangerous for kids, happen with someone who they know. It’s not a stranger in the park, it’s someone…a relative or a friend or someone they babysit for.

So I love that… I feel like this is one of those great uses of technology. We always complain about EMFs, all these potential problems with technology. I feel like this is one that’s really using technology responsibly to provide another level of safety, especially for kids, which I love. I love that you tackle this, and also you, literally left an extremely lucrative job to do something that you just felt was not because you wanted it to be like your biggest financial success, but because you just felt like it was needed, I have a lot of respect for that.

Jenny: Thank you so much. Yeah, financially, I’ve made every wrong decision because I was making good money and now I’m not drawing a salary, and I’m investing a lot of money in the business. But I think it’s such an important thing. Obviously, it’s easy for me to say I wouldn’t do this if somebody didn’t have a SafetyPIN, but it’s because I know what goes into it. It’s not because I’m brand hawking, it’s really the concept of interacting with somebody for a few minutes, or having them come to your house once and meet your dogs, and then going away for a week and letting them stay there. In hindsight, I realize how irresponsible I was to do that and that I’m lucky that something worse didn’t happen to my dogs. And I always point out… And I’m so relieved I didn’t leave this person with children.

And I think that when… It’s such a tricky thing because I see how many people say you should only leave them with family, and to your point, that doesn’t always leave them safe. And it’s tragic that that’s true, but it is true. A lot of children are victimized by people that they know and should be able to trust. And in some cases, that situation is even worse because the kids are more afraid to tell the parents what happened. And so we feel like… Obviously, I wish everyone could trust their family, you know that there are people in your life that you can. And I don’t want to make this a scarier or bigger conversation than it is, but we’re talking about your children’s safety.

The idea of everybody having a SafetyPIN like to me that’s the ideal, that if your children are gonna be alone, or someone’s gonna be alone in your home, or have access to your home and your things, your family, they have to have a SafetyPIN.

Katie: Absolutely. And I feel like this is a ripple effect type too, because you know, the kids’ safety, obviously we also as parents need to talk to our kids and make sure that they know that they can always speak up about these things, and teach them about boundaries, it’s an important conversation as well. But I feel like the SafetyPIN side, at least in my recent experience, it’s kind of a ripple effect because when I asked my assistant to do this, she realized she could use it for babysitting other families or house-sitting. She could offer that as a level of verification to other people as well.

So it’s not…like you said it’s a subscription, it could be used anywhere, it’s not even just a one-time thing. And it can actually be something that I feel like helps these caregivers in their marketing as well. So just again back to it like supporting both sides, I think that’s super important as well.

Jenny: We look at it as the, you can choose me because you can trust me, and you can trust me at a glance. I’ve been fast-tracked, and I’m being regularly screened. I think that’s an important part of it that if it’s there you know that the person is… You know, we certainly don’t screen people every day it’s not that automated, but we screen people regularly.

And that idea that… There was a school teacher that had gotten a background check 11 years earlier when he applied for the job who had been victimizing children for the last 5 or 6 years. And that concept of the behavioral combined with continuing to look… And we also, even though we really are concerned with convictions, we do look at arrest records. And if we see a pattern we know that that is an issue. And again because we default to safety, if we see a pattern of arrests for something, we can revoke someone’s SafetyPIN without worrying that they haven’t been convicted yet. Because we all know that the court system is the best we have, but it’s an imperfect place and we wanna keep kids and families as safe as possible.

Katie: Absolutely. I definitely share your passion on that. So let’s talk practical level for a second. For people who are coming into their home, or people who are caregivers or babysitters or nannies, people who clean homes, anybody in the service side, what’s the best way to get started and to learn more about this? Because I know you said it’s super affordable and it’s a passion project for you, but where can people jump in?

Jenny: So you go to getasafetypin.com, and that will get you more information. From there you can click on apply for my PIN. The whole process only takes about five to seven minutes. Everything is encrypted and hashed, so your data is extremely secure. Most decisions are reached within 24 hours. Like I said there are some jurisdictions where it takes longer. And if you have any questions, you can contact us through the website and we’re happy to answer them.

Katie: Awesome, well, Jenny, thank you so much for the time today. I know that you are busy. Any company at startup mode is always a full-time job plus more. And I also…I really value you as a friend and your business expertise, so I appreciate you sharing with us today. I feel like this is an important thing for families especially, and that’s why I wanted to make sure to have you on to talk about it. And it’s something that I personally now look for and use. And so I wanted to share that with other moms and just be able to give them the peace of mind that I found with it. So thank you so much for your time today.

Jenny: Thank you so much, Katie. I really appreciate your helping us spread the word. Our whole goal is to make the internet a safer place for families, for moms, for everybody. And I really appreciate your help in us getting the word out there.

Katie: Absolutely. And thank you to all of you who joined us today. I really appreciate you sharing your most valuable asset and your time with us, and I hope that you will join me again on the next episode of “The Wellness Mama Podcast.”

If you’re enjoying these interviews, would you please take two minutes to leave a rating or review on iTunes for me? Doing this helps more people to find the podcast, which means even more moms and families could benefit from the information. I really appreciate your time, and thanks as always for listening.
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225: Jenny Thompson on SafetyPin Technology to Keep Your Family Safer

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