David Mamo once worked as an electrical contractor at the General Motors Proving Grounds in Milford. It was a job that required everyone to leave their camera phones at the door due to corporate espionage concerns. Mamo found a middle ground and turned it into a business, PICpatch.
"It (cell phones that happen to have cameras in them) is an important tool," says Mamo, president of
PICpatch. "There needed to be a solution to take your camera phone to work."
PICpatch is small red sticker users can put over the lense of their camera phone. The patch makes sure any photo, accidental or otherwise, becomes a red screen. It has a residue-free adhesive and becomes crumpled and easily detectable if it has been removed and reapplied.
Mamo created the prototype of PICpatch about five years ago and shortly after General Motors became his first customer. Today it has 200 customers, including some of the world's largest corporations. Sales have doubled each year and Mamo notes that "half of our customers are abroad."
The Milford-based company now has a team of seven people after adding one new person over the last year. That team is now working on a new iteration of its sticker technology called
PICpatch Chaperone Seals, a small strip that parents and chaperones can put on the hotel room doors of children to make sure they stay put. Many adults do this with masking tape but Mamo notes its is easily defeatable and PICpatch Chaperone Seals will solve those inadequacies. The product launched a few months ago and Mamo expects it to gain traction this year.
Source: David Mamo, president of PICpatch
Writer: Jon Zemke
Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.
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