Capturing the past to inspire the future

Chris Villar and Aaron Shumaker founded Frontpoint in 2007 with the goal of disrupting the home security industry. Their business model was built upon the idea of leveraging emerging technologies & a DIY self-install model while putting a premium focus on providing a best in class customer experience. Over the last 10 years, Frontpoint has executed against this plan; with a mission-focused approach on making families feel safe, more connected, and inspiring the world that great service still exists.

As the organization has grown from a few guys in a basement to 500+ employees, Frontpoint has evolved into one of the leading providers of interactive home automation technology. Along the way, Frontpoint encountered a challenge many growing companies face: how to keep employees and new hires grounded in the values they were founded on while continuing to strive for future growth.

So in the spring of 2017, Frontpoint enlisted Stories Inc. to help make that happen.

Where else to start than the beginning?

While Villar and Shumaker may no longer be manning the phones or personally making each and every hire, their business is anchored still in the mission and values that drove them to create the company in the first place.

To make sure each new employee to the company knows the Frontpoint story, Stories Inc. went to the Vienna office and sat down with Villar and Shumaker to capture it firsthand.

What did we find? The story of how Villar and Shumaker met while working at the student-run credit union at Georgetown University. Volunteering at the credit union not only led them both to careers at Goldman Sachs, but also, in the words of Shumaker, is “really where I found my passion for being an entrepreneur.”

Flash forward five years and Villar & Shumaker are moving into the latter’s uncle’s basement in Georgetown, which would serve as their home and office for the next six months.

Villar and Shumaker reflected fondly on the craziness that is starting your own company: doing everything from creating a prototype to finding investors to buying office furniture. As they looked back on moments like creating their first self-install model and landing their first customer (who, as it often goes, didn’t know they were the first customer), a common thread emerges:

Dedication to the customer experience and their mission to keep families safe.

Ten years and thousands of customers later, these cornerstones continue to drive them as they become leaders in the Security-First Smart Home market, always looking to continue to improve their service by the customer.

What we did next

After talking with Villar and Shumaker it became clear that the people-focused culture wasn’t limited to only Frontpoint customers: the employee experience was central to the success of the company, too.

So after sitting down with eight Frontpoint team members, the Stories Inc. team found that a lot of the stories centered around the three core values: Build Trust, Be Awesome, and Dream Big.

In the resulting 3-minute careers video, Chief Operating Officer Syed Zaidi remembers one customer who was purchasing a security system because her ex-partner was stalking her. She didn’t feel comfortable having anyone come to her home to help her install the system, so the customer care team had to walk her through the installation process over the phone, slowly getting her comfortable and building her trust.

How do they know they were successful? That customer wrote a three-page letter of thanks for helping her feel safe again. That’s just one of many stories captured that day that demonstrate the connection employees feel to the company’s mission and values.

How the content was used, and looking ahead to impact

From the day’s interviews, we created two videos: The Frontpoint Story and Frontpoint Careers. The security company has shared the stories on their various social channels, with over 250 views in the first month.

The content is also being used to onboard new hires to help them understand what it means to be a part of the Frontpoint team and adjust to the organization more seamlessly. To find out more about creating content like this for candidates and employees, check out our guide here!