Brent Robinson, Aurora Digital Signage
Gail Chiasson, North American Editor
“We are sort of a hybrid boutique,” Brent Robinson, CEO of Aurora Digital Signage, located in Fayetteville, Arkansas, told us when we interviewed him this week.
Aurora has only been in full operation for a little more than two years, but already has clients in high schools, museums, hospitals, hospitality and – in a sector we don’t usually hear about – retirement communities.
“Our newest move is to partner with Harrison Energy Partners, which specializes in minimizing energy use in commercial buildings by tuning up the mechanical systems,” says Robinson. “They will be using our signage in buildings to track annual energy savings as well as promote all energy conservation efforts in the facility. The first place where Harrison Energy Partners plans to use our signs is Mercy Hospital in Rogers, Arkansas.”
Brent, with a background in sales, and his wife Susan Robinson, with specialization in entrepreneurship, are Aurora’s founders and owners. (Susan, COO, handles development and production.)
“We looked at digital signage about five years ago, when it was still in its infancy, and decided that’s where we wanted to be,” says Brent. “But we looked around at software companies and found that none we looked at met our requirements. Companies we talked to said that they found existing software hard to implement and work with, a real nuisance. They said that the user interface was too complicated, and while software companies would come in and train people, they often charged for the training.
“So we decided to develop our own software. Most of our clients want simple, easy-to-use, clear signage, messages that are uncluttered – no weather, no news on the sides or bottom – and without interactivity in terms of touch screens. That’s especially true for the corporate clients that make up a large portion of our business.”
The Robinsons were lucky to find developers in their own area to put together the software package it required.
Aurora also has an in-house graphics department.
“Usually, when we have a new client, we ask its management to provide us with information about the business, company logos and other material, and then we custom develop about 30 templates for their use.
“We have a real mix of clients,” he says. “For example, we converted Lakeside High School in Hot Springs from paper messaging to digital screens. The students just weren’t reading the paper messages posted. We put in 55” and 70” panels and the students no longer miss the messages.“
Not all Aurora clients are corporate. It does have advertising-supported clients and even handles advertising for some small ad networks that are not Aurora’s.
We mentioned to Brent Robinson that we hadn’t really heard of Aurora until he was named as one of the ’40 Under 40’ Class of 2014 by Arkansas Business newspaper last June.
“Our focus until now has been to spend our money on development rather than marketing,” he says. “We did a competitive analysis and found that some companies were spending more on flash rather than bang. That’s not what we wanted to do. But now that we are growing bigger, we’ll become more known. And we are going to have start doing some hiring.
“However, the good thing about our platform is that we don’t need a large head count. We are more customer service people. We get 60% of our leads from Twitter. We already outsource for certain things, such as our hardware. To date we haven’t seen the need for venture capital. But that’s not to say that, to grow, we won’t need it in the future.”
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