Her Business Is Solving The $12 Billion 'porch Pirate' Problem — Here's How A $300 Product Can Keep Your Packages Safe

So-called "porch pirates" were responsible for astir $12 cardinal worthy of stolen instrumentality successful 2024, per accusation from Security.org, and astatine slightest 1 successful six U.S. adults (17%) reported having a package stolen past year, according to a study from CNET.

Serial entrepreneur Melissa Kieling's boy Brennan Naylor was a predominant unfortunate of package theft erstwhile he lived successful San Francisco. "I couldn't alloy point to him without having it stolen instantly disconnected of his doorstep," Kieling tells Entrepreneur.

Image Credit: Courtesy of hyve Security. Melissa Kieling.

Related: Porch Pirates Stole 119 Million Packages From Doorsteps Last Year Alone. Here's What You Can Do to Make Sure This Doesn't Happen to Your Customers.

The problem motivated Kieling and Naylor to commencement a business: hyve Security, shaper of nan hyve smart location proscription pod. The product, disposable successful slate grey and dove achromatic and priced astatine $299, is connected measurement to statesman shipping this June.

"I decidedly personification this either blessing aliases curse of recognizing nan things successful my life that are a awesome inconvenience, [and then] I personification to find a solution."

Kieling was nary alien to processing an innovative merchandise and company. In 2009, she founded nan $12 cardinal freezable luncheon instrumentality and instrumentality marque PackIt. "I decidedly personification this either blessing aliases curse of recognizing nan things successful my life that are a awesome inconvenience, [and then] I personification to find a solution," she says.

This clip around, Kieling wasn't starting from scratch: She had a "Rolodex afloat of contacts" astatine creation firms she'd worked pinch to create prototypes successful nan past. The first thought was for a soft-sided, collapsible pod that "could turn magically" erstwhile a package was put inside. But nan imagination evolved during a year-long betterment process pinch Michigan-based creation diligent Tekna.

Related: 3 Simple Product Development Lessons All Entrepreneurs Should Remember

Other anti-theft products connected nan marketplace are "bulky" and "heavy" to forestall packages from being carried away, but hyve's pod comes pinch a "universal accusation tether" that threads done nan backmost of nan merchandise truthful it tin clip to an anchor point, specified arsenic a doorway aliases obstruction post, Kieling explains.

Image Credit: Courtesy of hyve Security

"Hyve is looking to activate communities successful existent clip to forestall theft."

The merchandise too pairs pinch a Bluetooth and WiFi-enabled app. When you group up nan app, you're prompted to induce your neighbors and statement to subordinate nan "hyve." An accelerometer incorrect nan pod detects if personification is tampering pinch nan device, which sounds an siren and notifies "hyve" members of nan imaginable theft.

"Unlike a video doorbell that catches nan show, and astatine nan extremity of nan day, you tin watch nan packages beryllium stolen and past show your neighbors what happened, hyve is looking to activate communities successful existent clip to forestall theft," Kieling says.

Related: Amazon Will No Longer Allow Law Enforcement to Request Footage connected Ring Cameras

Additionally, nan app features a vendor page preloaded pinch immoderate of nan astir communal proscription providers: Amazon, Instacart, Doordash, etc. When you unfastened nan vendor page, you tin transcript and paste nan unsocial codification generated for each vendor and adhd it to nan "special proscription instructions" field. Upon arrival, nan proscription personification inputs nan codification and places nan package inside; then, nan personification gets a notification that their bid was delivered.

Image Credit: Courtesy of hyve Security

"We find it truthful funny that proscription is still truthful archaic [compared to] everything successful our life."

As Kieling looks to hyve's future, she's not only excited to prevention homeowners headaches and retailers money but too by nan opportunity to support waste-free proscription efforts. If deliveries tin beryllium secured astatine customers' doorsteps, past it's easier for Amazon and different companies to prosecute sustainable practices specified arsenic eliminating outer boxes successful favour of brand-only packaging.

Hyve intends to style strategical partnerships pinch brands that fto customers to opt into waste-free deliveries, Kieling says.

Related: Want to Grow Your Business? Here's Why You Need Strategic Partnerships to Succeed.

The sustainability information provides yet different opportunity for Kieling to revamp an manufacture that hasn't needfully kept gait pinch nan innovations transforming truthful galore others.

"We find it truthful funny that proscription is still truthful archaic [compared to] everything successful our life," Kieling says. "[You can] aftermath up successful nan morning, locomotion down nan stairs and say, 'Alexa, please commencement my coffee. Alexa, please move connected my greeting music. Alexa, please unfastened my blinds.' Yet nan proscription driver is still chucking a package connected [your] doorstep, turning astir and being like, 'Good luck pinch that.'"