Entrepreneur brings valley security to new heights with DVR

If there's theft or vandalism happening in Las Vegas, Jonathan Fine wants to see it.

Fine is founder and president of Sting Surveillance and Sting Alarm.

He left a job at Maxim magazine in Los Angeles to start a business in his hometown of Las Vegas in 2003.

The idea was to sell a technology product that used a digital video recorder to create high-quality, low-cost security systems.

It didn't work out exactly as Fine imagined it would, but more than six years later Sting employs 55 people and does business in Nevada, California and Arizona.

The company has products that allow people to watch home security images from their cell phones and others that link DVR systems to alarms.

Fine also has ownership in the Rockhouse nightclub, three entertainment companies and a credit card processing firm.

Question: How did Sting grow from the product you learned about working at Maxim?

Answer: The first thing I did was I took this product. I thought it was pretty cool. I took it to all the alarm companies because I didn't want to be a security company. I just thought I would be a distributor of this product. I kind of got the door slammed in my face a dozen times. I decided I would set up a demo and I would invite some friends that own some small businesses and see what everyone thought. I needed some IT people, so I brought my good friend in, John Perry, I gave him a piece of the company and he set up all the computers. That was the model of the company for probably the first year. We were doing $10,000 to $15,000 a month and we thought we were on top of the world. It was an exciting time.

Question: What is digital video providing that is an upgrade from videotapes?

Answer: Remote access, a better management tool, better images of robberies. Tapes record about three hours. They would record a frame every three seconds. When there was a robbery, if you ever see the video, you see a guy standing in the middle of the room and he disappears. (Digital) is almost full-flow video of what happened.

Question: How does Sting use digital technology to help customers?

Answer: The most basic explanation is you throw a rock through a window of a Starbucks and it takes three minutes for ADT to make a phone call to the manager of Starbucks. If no one answers the phone or the manager is not there, they send a guard out, which takes 45 minutes. If the guard gets out there, the robbery has already occurred, there is no immediate threat, the police take two, two-and-a-half hours to respond just to fill out the paperwork.

We tied the DVR to the alarm panel. So if you throw a rock through the window of the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf we will see the video before the rock hits the ground. The camera looking at that area pops up. We call Metro, say we've got a guy in a red hoodie and a guy in a black hoodie running through a window. And Metro responds in about two minutes. We catch about 85 percent of the crime while it is happening.

Question: What did you learn building Sting, and your other businesses, from scratch?

Answer: I've learned the same lesson twice. I thought I was on Easy Street. I had the newest, coolest product at Sting and I was just going to show it to the world and everyone was going to buy it. I did the same thing at the nightclub. I found a very cool concept and great location and I trusted other people to run with it. And both times I ended up either selling and installing the product or standing out on the street handing out fliers and mopping floors. Research exactly what you are doing, find out what the market is and give it everything you've got. If you are starting a new business, you are going to lose a lot of sleep.

Question: How is the recession affecting the company?

Answer: We were very fortunate because we started the alarm company. People are still buying the alarms. The residential market is up. It wasn't a market we were targeting before, now it is a market we are targeting.

Question: What about business from big companies? Can they save money or time with higher technology surveillance?

Answer: The large business has picked up. We have one client that has more than 1,000 cameras. The 1,000 cameras are managed by a single person. In an old security room you would sit at a desk and look at 1,000 screens. If something happened in the parking garage it would be very hard to catch. You actually had to be looking at that camera. (For nightclubs) the video is databased on the transaction. I can type in "(an employee name)" and "Diet Coke" and every time (the employee) rings a sale it queues the video.

Question: As technology improves and gets easier to use, will more people install and maintain their own security systems?

Answer: There are going to be a lot more people doing it themselves and we are anticipating that. We've got products we sell that will allow people to do it themselves. We are going to have wireless cameras that you plug and play. You stick them on the wall and they attach to your computer.

Question: Besides capturing break-ins on video, can you provide an example of how else good surveillance equipment can help businesses?

Answer: I was just watching one of the girls serve beers (at Rockhouse). It is pretty easy to tell which ones of the bottles are aluminum which ones are glass. The glass are $6, the aluminum ones are $7. She was taking the aluminum ones and selling them for seven and she was ringing them up for six. Every time she would do it, she would take a paperclip, and stick it in one of the drawers. At the end of her shift she counted the paperclips she had in there and she would put that money in her tip jar. It was $300 a day.

Question: Has dealing with theft, crime and the recession changed your view of the Las Vegas community?

Answer: We're in desperate times and it makes people desperate. It is scary. Neighbors are breaking into neighbors' houses. It is very sad to see.

It also has given us the opportunity to become more involved in the community. There are major economic problems at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. It gave us the opportunity to step up and give a donation. We're redoing the entire infrastructure on the campus and making it so they are in the 2000s, not in the '80s anymore. We're going to rip everything out and add an all-digital system.

Question: Who in Las Vegas stands to benefit the most from the eventual recovery of the economy?

Answer: The window is now open for the small-business owner to start a business and compete with the bigger guy. The giant companies in Las Vegas have been hurt so hard it is the time for an entrepreneur to start a business. It is time for the little guy to shine. It is probably easier for a small business like this to get a line of credit than for MGM Mirage. It will bring up an entirely new group of people.

Contact reporter Benjamin Spillman at bspillman@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3861.