sah0605

Hey Jon, thanks for doing this AMA! I'm a huge fan of Bar Rescue. I was lucky enough to meet you back in July at On The Rocks Las Vegas. (Such an amazing event!)

I mentioned a startup company I recently founded called BreathAdvisor. In an effort to break away from the hokey breathalyzer machine reputation, we have created the world's most accurate breathalyzer kiosk designed to save lives.

We cap the readings to deter people from using BreathAdvisor as a game, and users can even request a cab directly from the kiosk. (We’ve already seen this save bar staff time.)

We've had great feedback so far, but I was wondering… As a bar owner, would you have any concerns that we haven’t addressed?

EDIT: Found a picture of us in Vegas! http://i.imgur.com/tB4c0Wt.png

Our budgets are tight as a start-up, but we’ve been dreaming about the Nightclub & Bar convention in Vegas for over a year now. We’re doing everything we can to be able to make it this year, so hopefully we will see you there!

Thank you for your response, that’s the feedback we need in order to make this product serve its true purpose and allow people to make informed decisions.

When we first launched our product, we had no cap on how high people could blow which as you said, inspired a few people to use the kiosk as a game. Since we’ve placed the cap on the results, we’ve seen that type of use decrease dramatically. We also don’t keep any record of what people are blowing, our kiosks are fully anonymous.

Now while we don’t reduce the bars responsibility of their patrons, we do reduce the chances that someone unknowingly drives away from their establishment over the legal limit.

Every owner we’ve spoken to so far (We’re currently only in 6 locations), has said they’ve personally seen people change their mind about driving after using the machine. I think informed patrons are becoming increasingly important with the popularity of mixing energy drinks and alcohol as this gives the patrons a false perception of being sober.

You’re the man Jon; I hope we can talk again soon. I really think if we do this right, it will greatly decrease the occurrences of DUI’s in our communities!

Also, here is the brochure that we give to bar owners

Thanks! We've had our eye on them for a while :)

It's a similar product, but not nearly as accurate. We utilize the same breathalyzer as law enforcement agencies, but we can't compact that kind of technology into a smartphone size (yet...)

Semi-conductor breathalyzers (like the smartphone ones and previous breahtalyzer kiosks) are thrown off by temperature, smoke, vapor, etc. We're actually going to do a comparison video soon highlighting the differences.

Thanks again for mentioning this!

Currently the machine costs $1.50 per use, and we take all major credit cards.

We also frequently distribute promo cards/codes through our social media outlets and events.

We have experimented with the free model, and plan to move that way when we have the volume to fund it with advertising.