Last Call

Quinn Fitzgerald and Sara de Zarraga, Flare founders

Veer Mudambi

Worcester Magazine USA TODAY NETWORK

When it comes to unusual missions, Flare has probably the most uncommon of them all. The company openly states on its website that its mission is simple: to put themselves out of business and create a world where Flare is not needed. Flare manufactures a personal safety device that looks like a piece of jewelry and works with an app that allows an individual to discreetly reach out to request help, without drawing unwanted attention. Founder Quinn Fitzgerald, a Holy Cross graduate, along with her co-founder, Sara de Zarraga, sat down with Last Call to discuss how it all came about.

Where did the name Flare come from?

Q: Flare is a double entendre: you send up a flare for help and flair is about having style. We chose the name because we believe safety shouldn’t be about fear and vulnerability, it should be about tapping into your own confidence and agency to live out loud and bring your full self to every situation.

How did you get the idea?

Q: Sara and I are both survivors and our story is, frankly, not at all unique and that’s a huge problem. We were fed up with an industry dominated by men that created devices for stereotypical situations — emergencies like someone approaching you in a dark alley. But most assaults are by someone you know. We knew there was a role that tech could play in providing people with better tools to tackle these everyday situations, because they don’t always feel like emergencies. What do you do when someone touches you in a weird way and you don’t know what their intention is, or you get a weird vibe? Or if your Uber driver takes a wrong turn. We want to empower people to feel safe both in those situations and clear-cut emergencies. So we created Flare.

Could you tell me a little more about what it's like to break into an industry with a completely new product philosophy (not escalation)?

Q: We are firm believers that you don’t have to already be an expert in a specific industry in order to disrupt it. Our expertise comes from our personal experiences. We overcame a lot of naysayers, people who didn’t value our perspectives, and people who didn’t see the impact that Flare could have. But we always kept our customers front of mind and that has made the biggest difference.

Tell me about how you settled on the idea of a bracelet.

S: When we looked at other personal safety devices on the market, we found they only escalated the situation like weapons or alarms. It was clear people needed more options — with pepper spray, it can only do one thing. It’s hard to anticipate what you’re going to need, so we created Flare and the heart of our product is our mobile app. It allows you to reach out to people if you need backup. Instead of reaching for your phone, dialing a number, which is incredibly obvious, we made a bracelet that can trigger it for you. The app can let us reach out to 911 and share your location — or a live location if you’re moving — and share that you need help.

The other thing you can do is have us send your location and a request to friends and family, letting them know that you need someone to check in. The third feature is you can request a “fake phone call” — a recorded conversation — that can be an interruption and an excuse to leave a situation that doesn’t feel right. Sometimes, you don’t need anyone to know but you need a way to leave.

How did you start working together?

Q: Sarah and I both met at Harvard Business School and began working on Flare while we were there. We spent four years doing deep research, product development, iteration, making pilots, and we spoke to literally thousands of other people about their safety needs. One of the reasons that the industry was stuck was the notion that safety equals emergency, but it isn’t always that kind of situation. We designed what we would have used or needed so nobody else would go through the experiences we did. We’re very grateful to all of the survivors who shared their stories with us — I hope it is empowering for them to know that their story went towards the creation of a product that would help other people. And now that product has been on the market for about two years.

Was it difficult getting survivors to share their stories for the focus group?

Q: To be honest, it was not difficult because we always start by sharing our own stories first. As soon as people understand that it is personal for us too there is a shared understanding and connection.

What have you learned since the launch?

S: We found that we were getting a lot of interest from customers of all ages and all genders, so we started thinking a lot more broadly about the product. Initially, we were targeting college students — Boston was a nice little testing ground during development. But like Quinn said, COVID happened the same time we launched so it was not a good time to market a product. So, we began to sell it to different kinds of people. A really powerful thing happens when you have a multi-generational customer base — a senior citizen who wants to age in place, a woman in her forties, who wants it for herself at work or her children, women deal with this problem in a lot of different ways. We built a community out of these customers through the website and app, so they could share information, safety tips and support.

Q: Flare is only one tool on your tool belt. What we find is your ability to utilize these tools really comes down to the individual — who you have been exposed to in your life and how have they talked about safety to you? Have you learned about self-defense or not? We think it’s really important that our users not only have access to tools but knowledge on how to use them, like how do you handle a stalker? How do we bring them together so they can learn how to use Flare better, as well as give them more tools? We provide free training and workshops for our community to participate in as well as a safe space for them to share with each other.

Do you think it’s hard for people to talk about issues of safety? Perhaps because the idea of being unsafe implies some fault of our own?

Q: Maybe because we view safety as being reflective of ourselves and our own strength and vulnerability and not on the world or the people perpetrating these acts. That idea alone, that it’s your fault, is what stops people from taking action. There’s a larger culture of victim blaming around the country and the world.

Where do you see it going forward?

S: We definitely see the product growing and expanding because there are so many people who need safety devices in so many different ways. Right now, we’re geared towards the U.S. but obviously this is a problem around the world. We want to expand on the responses as well as different ways to trigger the response. Presently, we have three kinds of bracelets — the leather is more gender inclusive since safety knows no gender. But the actual technology can go inside a lot of different things.

Tell me about your biggest challenges.

Q: Last year, we sold out three times and at the same time there was a global supply chain shortage. Managing the demand with the supply has been really challenging. We’re a really small team. We have tried to be proactive in addressing that so we didn’t sell out even more.

I read that your stated goal was to

go out of business — meaning a world

where devices like Flare aren’t needed. What do you think needs to change for that to happen?

Q: Safety is a problem that everybody experiences in their life and it’s affected not just by our environment but our culture, institutions, justice and education systems. Real change needs to affect all of those institutions — and we’re lucky enough to partner with nonprofits working on that.

S: The problem is the actions of the perpetrators and how we keep ourselves safe but we as a society, have not done a good job of holding perpetrators accountable. Defending ourselves is what we have to do today so Quinn and I thought, what can we do right now to enact immediate change so people feel safe, because the larger systemic change that is needed will not happen right away.

Sara de Zarraga, left, and Quinn Fitzgerald, founders of Flare. FLARE