Success is often measured by growth, wealth, and market leadership. Yet many CEOs eventually encounter a more difficult question: What happens when you've achieved everything you set out to accomplish and discover it isn't enough?
For Scot Cohen, that realization became the catalyst for the most consequential decision of his career.
After building a successful business in financial services, Cohen had reached the level of success many entrepreneurs spend decades pursuing. But instead of satisfaction, he found himself questioning whether financial achievement alone was a meaningful measure of a life spent building businesses.
That question led him into an industry he knew little about but one that presented an opportunity to solve a problem with significant societal consequences. The company he would found, WRAP Technologies, wasn't created to improve policing through greater force. Its purpose was to give officers better options for resolving encounters safely while reducing the need to use force in the first place.
His journey illustrates a challenge many scaling CEOs eventually face. Building a successful company is one achievement. Deciding what your success should be used to accomplish is an entirely different leadership decision.
Many founders begin with a clear sense of purpose that gradually becomes overshadowed by the demands of scaling a business. Cohen's path unfolded in reverse.
His decision wasn't driven by business failure or personal frustration. It came from recognizing that success without purpose had become an insufficient goal.
For CEOs, that distinction is important.
Purpose is often discussed as a cultural initiative or an employee engagement tool. In reality, it functions as a strategic filter. It shapes which markets deserve attention, which opportunities are worth pursuing, and which tradeoffs leadership is willing to accept when growth, profitability, and mission inevitably collide.
Leaving a familiar industry to build a company in public safety meant surrendering years of accumulated expertise. It required learning an entirely new ecosystem, understanding unfamiliar stakeholders, and earning credibility in a field where trust cannot be assumed.
Experienced executives rarely choose to abandon their competitive advantage.
But purpose has a way of changing how leaders evaluate risk. When the mission becomes compelling enough, uncertainty no longer feels like something to avoid—it becomes the cost of pursuing work that matters.
One of the defining characteristics of WRAP's growth was its commitment to understanding the problem before designing the solution.
Rather than beginning with technology and searching for a market, Cohen and his team immersed themselves in the realities facing law enforcement agencies. They listened to officers, trainers, department leaders, and public safety professionals to understand where existing tools failed and where additional options could improve outcomes.
That distinction fundamentally changes how innovation occurs.
Many companies seek customer feedback to validate ideas that leadership has already decided to pursue.
Customer-obsessed organizations use those conversations differently. They allow customer experience to challenge assumptions, redirect investment, and reshape product strategy long before solutions are finalized.
That approach requires discipline because listening often slows the pace of execution. It is far easier to build around internal assumptions than to continually adapt to external reality.
Yet for companies solving complex problems, speed alone rarely creates durable advantage.
The organizations that remain relevant are those willing to let customer insight influence not only what they build, but how they think.
Public safety leaves little room for unsupported claims.
Products intended for high-consequence environments must demonstrate measurable value, not simply compelling narratives.
Throughout the conversation, Cohen emphasized the importance of evidence over opinion. Rather than relying on marketing language or executive conviction, WRAP focused on validating its approach through research, testing, and measurable outcomes.
That philosophy extends well beyond policing.
As organizations scale, leadership increasingly shifts from making intuitive decisions to creating systems that allow assumptions to be tested objectively. Experience remains valuable, but experience alone is rarely sufficient.
Evidence-based leadership doesn't diminish judgment.
It strengthens it.
Data informs decisions. Judgment interprets context. Together they reduce the likelihood that confidence is mistaken for certainty.
Perhaps more importantly, organizations grounded in evidence create healthier internal cultures. When decisions are anchored in observable results instead of organizational hierarchy, better ideas have a greater opportunity to emerge regardless of where they originate.
Public conversations about policing are often framed as binary debates. In practice, the situations officers face are significantly more nuanced.
Cohen's objective was not to simplify those realities but to expand the options available within them.
That reflects an important principle for executive leadership.
Many strategic challenges are presented as either-or decisions: growth or profitability, innovation or operational discipline, speed or quality.
Experienced CEOs eventually recognize that these are often false choices.
The more valuable question is whether leadership can create additional options instead of simply choosing between limited ones.
Organizations become more resilient when they invest in expanding strategic flexibility. More options create better decisions. Better decisions create better long-term outcomes.
Leadership is often less about selecting from existing choices than about creating new ones.
Purpose is relatively easy to define when an organization is small.
Maintaining that clarity through years of growth is considerably more difficult.
As companies scale, new investors, market pressures, operational complexity, and financial expectations compete for leadership attention. Each introduces the temptation to drift away from the mission that originally justified the company's existence.
Cohen's leadership reflects a consistent effort to reconnect business decisions to organizational purpose without sacrificing operational discipline.
The two are not competing priorities.
Purpose without execution becomes aspiration.
Execution without purpose eventually becomes directionless.
Enduring companies require both.
Purpose determines why the organization exists.
Execution determines whether it can continue fulfilling that purpose over time.
Scot Cohen's story is not ultimately about developing a new public safety technology.
It is about what happens after conventional success has already been achieved.
He chose to leave familiarity in pursuit of greater meaning. He entered a difficult industry with humility rather than certainty. He built by listening before leading, by validating before claiming, and by remaining focused on solving customer problems instead of promoting products.
None of those decisions guaranteed success.
They did, however, establish the foundation for building a company around a mission larger than commercial opportunity alone.
For scaling CEOs, that may be the enduring lesson.
Markets change. Products evolve. Competitive advantages eventually fade.
But the leadership decisions that define an executive career often begin with a simpler question:
What problem is important enough that you're willing to dedicate your next chapter to solving?
Jeff Holman is a CEO advisor, legal strategist, and founder of Intellectual Strategies. With years of experience guiding leaders through complex business and legal challenges, Jeff equips CEOs to scale with confidence by blending legal expertise with strategic foresight. Connect with him on LinkedIn.
Intellectual Strategies provides innovative legal solutions for CEOs and founders through its fractional legal team model. By offering proactive, integrated legal support at predictable costs, the firm helps leaders protect their businesses, manage risk, and focus on growth with confidence.
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The Breakout CEO podcast brings you inside the pivotal moments of scaling leaders. Each week, host Jeff Holman spotlights breakout stories of scaling CEOs—showing how resilience, insight, and strategy create pivotal inflection points and lasting growth.
Listen and subscribe on your favorite podcast platform:
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Want to be a guest—or know a scaling CEO with a breakout story to share? Apply directly at go.intellectualstrategies.com.
TRANSCRIPT SUMMARY:
00:00 From Financial Success to a Mission
01:58 Building a Pain-Free Restraint Device
04:06 How the BolaWrap Works
06:00 The Hidden Cost of Excessive Force
08:11 Why Technology Alone Wasn’t Enough
11:36 Leaving Wall Street to Find Purpose
16:47 America’s Police Training Problem
21:37 Rethinking De-Escalation and Officer Safety
26:14 Going Viral—and Raising $200 Million
29:31 Why Early Adoption Failed
36:58 Saving the Company and Finding the Breakthrough
47:58 Drones, Threat Detection, and the Future of Public Safety
FULL TRANSCRIPT:
Scot Cohen (00:00)
I had the worst 10 years of my life following that success. I left the hedge fund and I left it all to start this business that did not use pain to bring a subject into compliance. Making a bunch of money wasn't fulfilling. And I looked at the data, I looked at the body cam, and it was culture and they trained themselves. Gave me the courage to know that it was gonna be it could be repeated. And when you base it all on purpose and base it with the human, that's key.
And I thought I was at the top of the mountain, I wasn't.
Jeff Holman (00:31)
Welcome back, everybody, to the Breakout CEO podcast. I'm your host, Jeff Holman with Intellectual Strategies. We're a law firm that helps startups and scaling companies with their legal needs. I talk to a lot of CEOs who are dealing with things behind the scenes that not everybody gets to see. I can't tell those stories because those are confidential. So we so we reach out and we connect with other successful CEOs who have also, you know, done all these cool things, got these behind the scenes moments and and they're willing to share them with us on the show so that.
our audience of scaling CEOs can can listen and learn and maybe sympathize at times with with the path that that our guests are going through. Today we've got Scott Cohen from Rap with us. Scott, it's really good to have you on the show.
Scot Cohen (01:14)
Thanks for having me, Jeff.
Jeff Holman (01:15)
Yeah, glad to glad to be here. Man, I'm excited for this full episode because we we we were talking in the icebreaker segment earlier. and and it's clear to me that that this business is more than just a business for you. This is I mean, maybe maybe it started as a business, I don't know, but it it's it either started as more than a business or it's become more than a business. clearly tied in with your purpose and things like that. I've been on the website and I've looked at your company a little bit. but I
I don't wanna I don't wanna screw up what this is, so I'm gonna let you explain what rap is. it's you started it ten years ago and you're you know, what were you building and and trying to achieve when you launched this business?
Scot Cohen (01:58)
My family came from public safety. My brother was a police officer. My father worked for the government. both in service. I wanted to do my part. I watched them do their part. I wanted to do it was time to do my part. And I I left the hedge fund that that I started in two thousand. And at the time, the hedge fund became a we had multiple private equity funds that I was running. And I left it all to start this business.
and the business was the creation of a non-lethal device that could fit on an officer's belt that did not use pain to bring a subject into compliance. That simple. No pain to bring somebody into to to compliance because I'm looking at the tools on the belt. You're talking about a gun, a taser, a baton, and pepper spray, all pain based tools.
Jeff Holman (02:55)
Right, right.
Scot Cohen (02:55)
So if we could do something that did not have to use pain to get you to comply, that's something I was very interested in. So I tapped an inventor who I invested with in the past when I was running the fund, Woody Norse. And he came up with we after multiple ideas, I was really f very bullish on sound waves to bring someone into custody. Okay. He was kind of getting me off of that. And we landed on a something that restrained.
A subject, something that could shoot out of a a starter pistol or maybe it was another, maybe it was a a flashlight. But something that was small, compact, didn't wait to didn't take a lot of belt space. But the most important is didn't use any pain to get you into compliance. That was the whole thing.
Jeff Holman (03:44)
So physical restraint of some sort. Is that what you're saying? Yeah.
Scot Cohen (03:47)
Kevlar cord, seven and a half feet long, with we started with glue, then we went to magnets, then we went to wrong prong, two prong, four prongs on each side. Yeah. So have you seen the device?
Jeff Holman (04:00)
I've not seen it, but I I unless I I mean it sounds superhero to me. You know, this is this is like Spider Man stuff.
Scot Cohen (04:06)
A lot of people say that, plenty of coverage in the news, but the size of our this phone right here, maybe a little thicker. safety button, Kevlar cord goes out, hits bolo the name of the company's bolo wrap, so it wraps around the subject's legs, secures itself and and restricts. well. In the beginning, very t you could imagine 800 moving parts.
Pretty clumsy. We didn't have a laser on it. But with capital and RD and a really committed engineering team, we just figured out problems and fixed them and got it just kept advancing it and can kept advancing it. And the technology works really, really well. It's actually quite simple, but we learned a lot around it along the way. We learned that the the site itself, the laser that was learned that we
installed on it because we needed to put it on the target so it could be more accurate on the subject. Turns out the laser is a big distraction for people. So when the laser comes on, it actually distracts your oodaloop. So you see when the laser comes on, people think that they they don't know what to think. So it they look down.
Jeff Holman (05:23)
We're talking about the target. The target is like so this actually confuses the target or something. It puts him puts them in a they're like, Wait, what's going on?
Scot Cohen (05:30)
Bit
of a warning. Yeah, yeah. It's a bit of a warning. And and and the and then and then we then if the subject's still not complying with verbal commands and and and the laser, then we deploy and it now a loud sound goes off, which is more distracting and startling. So now you've distracted the oodle loop, you've confused the subject, and we're now training to
Go for the legs, take out their base, and then go get hands. Close the distance with hands. Okay. Something you probably don't know. Most people don't. There's 25,000 arrests a day in this country. 20% of the time the subject resists. Yeah. 97% of the time they're unarmed, they're not violent, and they're passively resisting. Okay. Those are the numbers. So it's 4,500 times a day, passive resistance. The problem is.
How do you close the distance? How do you if you can't de-escalate somebody that doesn't want to be de-escalated? You can't do it. So you've got to do what? Well, 20 years ago, show a force. Gun, taser, baton, strikes. Right. Not anymore. Body cam courts aren't having it. Supreme courts have ruled. Barnes v. Felix, totality of circumstances, no more. You can't do it unless they're a threat, unless the subject's a threat. And you can do it, but that's your choice.
officer decision. And if you make the wrong decision, someone gets hurt. You're going to be in court defending yourself in an excessive force case, which could lead to if someone passes, all kinds of problems. It actually costs the country three and a half billion dollars a year just in settlements on excessive force cases. So we're talking about and then it has more damages because psychological damage for the the officer, people get hurt.
It's a it's a it's a much bigger number than three and a half billion in terms of to this country just excessive force. It's it's that's just the settlement number. That's the
Jeff Holman (07:29)
Direct
direct settlement cost.
Scot Cohen (07:32)
Yeah, no, I could tell Memphis that we were just with Memphis PD. They have a five hundred million dollar excessive force case right now that's that was not thrown out of court. And it's so it's just it's a tragedy. But it's because of the tools and training that the availability of the tools and training. They just that's what we have. Those are the same tools for the last thirty years, Jeff. The la there hasn't been any innovation for all on anything that has traction.
on the officer's belt for thirty years.
Jeff Holman (08:03)
For non lethal
Scot Cohen (08:05)
Until we came until we came along. No, for anything. Nothing. There hasn't
Jeff Holman (08:08)
Anything, huh?
Scot Cohen (08:11)
been anything besides a gun, a taser, a baton, and pepper spray. That's it. Projectiles. Okay. That used paint. So this is the only thing that's hit the belt that doesn't use pain to bring a subject into compliance. This is it. So kind of a big space, right? And it's kind of a big problem. Yeah.
That we're solving. And we've had all kinds of you can imagine launching a product where people just don't like to change, period. And bringing this into policing is even more difficult. And now you're talking about 18,000 apartments, which is unusual. We're in a thousand, by the way, which is fine, but very hard to train a thousand departments. Yeah. So it turned out to be not technology. I thought we hit the I thought the tech was everything and we were just gonna
It was all about the tech and tech and tech and solve all our problems. Guess what? Completely wrong. Adoption. It's about the training and the mindset that goes with the tech and the purpose, the purpose, the purpose that goes with all this. What are we doing this for? Now it's really, really important that you really think are we really trying to hurt the subject that's unarmed and not violent? Because they're not threatening. They're just not complying. So
What is the purpose around this? Well, that person doesn't sometimes deserve, many times doesn't deserve to be hurt. Maybe they're just having a bad day at that moment in time. So this is a very important area that we're talking about here. It's it's the talk of the country right now. You see it on every news channel. They're talking about excessive force and people have watched everything that's happened at with DHS and the uncomfort with that. And it's not just with them, it's with
Departments all over the country. It's it and it's actually just not a domestic issue. It's a global issue. In fact, most of our accounts, most of the volume we've we've sold maybe fifty thousand of these devices around the world. Most of those sales are overseas. More than half. So
Jeff Holman (10:14)
probably some cultural things with that.
Scot Cohen (10:16)
Yeah, definitely.
Jeff Holman (10:17)
I'm I'm curious, Scott, like I I mean, I I know that I'm trying to f I'm trying to envision the link here because you had, you know, the this Wall Street background, your hedge fund, and and I know that purpose is important to you because you're you you mentioned your father and your brother. You know, they're doing very purpose oriented or they were very purpose oriented roles.
What w what was was there a moment when you said to yourself, Huh, I think I I think I gotta make a change. I like like I've got this success that I'm having in in this, you know, finance role. What what was was there was there a moment that prompted you to say,
Non-lethal defense, that's where I'm headed. Like where help help me make that connection. Just a quick note about our guests. I host the Breakout CEO podcast to share behind the scenes insights from scaling businesses. As an attorney, I see the real challenges leaders face long before success becomes public. But clients' stories have to stay confidential. So we invite guest CEOs to share their own moments of struggle and success.
I'm so grateful to our guests and my team at Intellectual Strategies for making this show possible. Now, let's get back to the
Scot Cohen (11:36)
Yeah. It was going after something my whole life that I thought was where I needed to be. I was just wired that way. I just needed to be this successful financier that that had all this stuff and controlled all this money and deployed all this money. That that that was my that was what I knew. That was what I was going for. That that my my mind was wired that way. And
When I got there, I got to the top of the mountain. I I did it. And look what happened after I did it. It was a absolute disaster for for me personally. And I I wasn't in any I had done no work on myself. And it was very scary, unstable. And and and it was motivating once I was able to it was motivating to make a change.
Jeff Holman (12:33)
Yeah. So
Scot Cohen (12:34)
So
that transition right there got me to to just at least know that making a bunch of money wasn't fulfilling.
Jeff Holman (12:43)
Sure. And so you you're like you're like, Okay, I need to look for something else. Like like what else what else can I do?
Scot Cohen (12:50)
What what else am I gonna do? I had just come off of a very bad experience, from
I running two energy funds in private equity just was not fulfilling at all. Okay. so I d here here I so another one of those. so enough of that. And I had started to step up my charity work with my dad. we were we were him and I were looking for veteran foundations to to support. So we we did, we some supported a number of veteran foundations and and then I started my N FR. We were giving out grants to veterans that were coming back from the war.
They needed scholarship, technical scholarships, so we could put that that we could get jobs. And we actually put getting them jobs in the oil field. It was very fulfilling. I loved doing it. And it it sparked the it's spark it was sparking me giving back. It was sparking
Jeff Holman (13:43)
It was it was hitting here for you, I I imagine.
Scot Cohen (13:45)
It was hitting here. It reminded me of what my dad was kind of ingraining in my head. And it just w seeing my brother and his friends and what they talk about and what they how they think and that higher purpose was just ready to go somewhere. And I learned early when I was running the fund that if I could marry up my charity work.
with my business operations. Like it scales really nicely. So yeah, I can write checks, but my checks only go so far. My friends checks and my checks go a lot further. So I was able to raise quite a bit of money for initiatives and and and get behind people that were doing higher purpose work and I loved it. And it was super powerful because when I combined it with my business, I was able to
Do things in in a in a pretty big way and give lots of money away and bring great people together for really important causes. So when rap started, I am I went right back to that playbook and started my foundation and repurposed the Veteran Foundation for helping police officers with training and tools and resources. I actually started a coach, we I launched a coaching practice that my wife was a coach and
And and we wanted to give coaching to cops because there was lots of suicide by cops going on and I I just it was making me sick to my stomach and I wanted to do something for So I I I put a whole coaching program together and then COVID happened. We're never able to launch the program. We were I was looking to launch it at an NYPD and life went on. I had my first child and
thank God a couple more, and it's really put me in an probably the most blissful and joyful place in my life. and now, that that was eight, nine years ago. I'm now getting back to that charitable work. But it turns out, Jeff, that this all this this body of work is way beyond dollars. There's so much more to this. It's it's got so much purpose.
To it because it's not okay for our officers to have limited tools on their belt, which I can't use in most of the situations, because most of the situations, the subjects are unarmed and they're not violent. They turn into violent situations if you're not well trained. And to be well trained, yeah, and unfortunately, policing is a
I hate to say it, but it's a lot of check the box training. Sure. De escalation training. Have you ever looked at de-escalation training? It's just check this box, check six hocks, your de-escalation training, it's certified. Go get That's what it is.
Jeff Holman (16:42)
I in the middle of a bunch of probably very physical training that goes on too, right? So the default is probably
Scot Cohen (16:47)
Everybody's
not running to get de-escalation trained and certified. It's very check the box. but look, training is limited in this country. You know, just to be a pet co hairdresser requires 900 hours of training. The average training in this country for police officers required is seven hundred and twenty-five hours. There you have it.
Jeff Holman (17:10)
Right.
Scot Cohen (17:11)
Yes. A security guard, do you want to know what their training requirements are?
Jeff Holman (17:15)
Security, I bet it I bet it's very sparse.
Scot Cohen (17:17)
They don't have.
Jeff Holman (17:19)
zero. That is very sparse.
Scot Cohen (17:22)
We have a training issue, Jeff. We really have a training issue. So again, here I go, knowing that and knowing and seeing bull rap's limitations was in our training. It wasn't technology works great. I mean, you press the button and it will wrap if the subject's not flailing legs. And even if they are, it's still and if it doesn't wrap, you're still able to get hands and have an advantage that you didn't have from having to take a suspect into custody with just your hands. Using sight, the laser.
Sound, the distraction, and the restraining device, we'll call it a resistance device. And what I'm referring to is sight, sound, slow down. We're not we're actually not stopping. We're just slowing down so the officer can t have the advantage. Cheat to win in this case, because we want our officers to be safe. many people don't know this. 50 per the most
The most active trend in public safety right now is to take somebody in custody is hands, because you can't use the tools on the belt because of policy. It's changed. Post-Floyd policies have changed. Barnes v. Felix, Supreme Court 9-0 decision 18 months ago. That's passing down the lower courts. Everything that officer does in on a on the scene now is absolutely evidence. It only used to be the two-second rule. Just two seconds before the encounter was evidence. Now it's every
It's even their training. It's how they speak on the scene, is all evidence. So if you, the officer, does anything out of policy or anything that is controversial and there's damages, someone gets hurt, someone gets killed. There's lawsuits. The officer could be held liable, could be civilly and potentially criminally, it depends on if someone dies or not. So this is not.
Fun and it's not good for society, to be quite frank. It's a tragedy when a life is lost. So I feel really, really driven and purpose filled with purpose on this mission because we need our officers to be safe and we need our communities to be safe. We need those subjects to be taken into custody safely. We shouldn't have to use pain to bring them in compliance.
And the officer shouldn't have to risk his or her life by taking him into custody, going hands, because every time they use hands to close the distance, 50% of the time, either the subject or the officer get hurt. That's the red zone. When the officer's closing the distance, that subject can grab his gun, his or her gun. That's right. That that could absolutely happen. And also, you don't know who you're messing with. You don't know if they're a
Have fighting backgrounds, what their background is. And 50% of the time, a third to 50% of the time, you're dealing with a mental health issue.
Jeff Holman (20:15)
Yeah, yeah.
Scot Cohen (20:16)
So come on, man. It's a, it's a, it is not a pleasant situation, but we have to be first, we got to talk about it, awareness. And then we got to do something about it. And that's what I chose to do. I'm doing something about it.
Jeff Holman (20:31)
Yeah, I love that. You're you're painting a picture for me that's a little bit different than what I've maybe casually thought in the past, you know. It i there is there's kind of this trend, right? It's it's either if there's police action, then somebody's safety is at risk. And and the maybe the newer trend, or at least it feels like a trend, is well maybe we just shouldn't have police action and and
thieves just get away with whatever they want to a large extent, it feels like. And maybe if you're on the thieving side, that sounds like a good thing, but for the rest of us that that's like, wait a second, non policing doesn't seem like a great answer either. So we gotta we gotta figure out I think what you're doing, right? And that is how do we have how do we have engagements where where safety of the people involved, the police, the
perpetrator, whatever you the accused, whatever you want to call them, how do we have how do we have these interactions that don't necessitate safety risks to one or both people? So I
Scot Cohen (21:35)
Jeff here.
Jeff Holman (21:36)
haven't viewed it that way before.
Scot Cohen (21:37)
Look, look, listen to this. This is interesting, right? It's an interesting topic. So what happened post FOID? Defund the police. Let's defund the police. Bad narrative, but that caught on and became a big thing. And I think everybody realizes we're not trying to defund the police. Maybe de-escalate or or re and then it went, well, no, we need to retrain. Let's bring in training. De escalate. This is where de-escalation training just really started to get.
It actually they came up with the de-escalation act and it was a funded with a quarter billion dollars for people to be able to be certified in de-escalation, check the box. To be honest, it in my opinion yes, it's good that we're talking about. So I'm honoring the step, but without policies. Without
Jeff Holman (22:22)
Right.
Scot Cohen (22:23)
policies and tools, yeah. And training that sticks, because I've there was a study that was done by four scientists that looked at the six biggest police academies in the country.
And they went through their training and they assessed the tr the officer, the rookies that went through the training. How much do you think that was retained in the first six weeks? It's a multi million dollar study, by the way.
Jeff Holman (22:47)
Ten percent.
Scot Cohen (22:49)
Good guess, fifteen percent. Okay. Okay. So it's a disaster. Here we are spending billions of dollars training. Right? It ch it costs 150 to 210, I think the number's up to two hundred and ten thousand dollars a year to train a rookie. That's a lot of money. And they retain fifteen percent. Horrible. We have to do better than that. Training's too long. It's done in eight hour s blocks, it's done with a hundred and fifty page deck. Stop it. Doesn't work.
We took that training and put it into a learning management system. We didn't do eight hours. We did one to three minute burst training sessions. So it's repeatable, it's accessible, and you can practice it. We're delivering it on their phones. We married it up with our device. So now we have a better shot at reaching people. We know, I know why the device didn't take really catch in the beginning. We weren't training it right. And it's really hard to train 18,000 apartments in this country. You know, the average.
Department size in this country, how many what do think the average officers per department is in this country?
Jeff Holman (23:51)
Like
in a like in a city? Like if I looked at my city where I live, I don't know. There's probably twenty people maybe. I I don't I have no idea.
Scot Cohen (23:58)
Yeah,
average is ten. So it's you know, so it's it's fairly small. Okay. and so it's hard to train, you know, when somebody's, you know, off the map Georgia and and and you gotta train them. And and so, and by the way, people could be walking zombies when you're training It just so I know that the learning management system's working and it's good and it's gonna work and we need to spread it around. And we're putting really good content with force groups like force science. Another one you'll be interested is storm training.
They've they have an arrest and control class. It's a hands class. It's that uses it's a it's a whole curriculum that uses Brazilian Jiu Jitsu as it's it's based in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, how to use your body to control another individual. This practice is taken off in the Midwest. They've got St. Paul, they've they're training the city of Minneapolis, the whole Midwest, the businesses. Chad's done a great job. Trav and Tom leading that and and driving this growth.
But we went to them, I was so impressed by it. Let's digitize it. Let's get in the LMS. We we put a hundred core a hundred different methods together in the LMS. And now we can serve it serve their training where you don't have to roll around the mats with them. So you have to go to Minnesota to get trained. No, we can do it right there on your phone.
Jeff Holman (25:14)
Repeat it.
Scot Cohen (25:15)
I think it's we're gonna see where the breakthrough comes, but it might be from that. And they will tell you.
Who train their experts at using their bodies to get you under a subject under control, but they believe the boa wrap gives them an advantage that they never had. If they can get a subject confused and startled, and they can take their their fighting base from them, all three of those elements at once, you're a better outcome than me having to come up to you and get you under control because I don't know what drugs you're on, how strong you are. It's
That closing the distance is super that's a danger zone. Lots of the bad things happen in that in in that zone. It's complicated. It's really complicated, but we've gotta kind of we've gotta deal with this because it's when things go wrong, it's super costly. And you're talking about lives on the line, careers on the line.
Jeff Holman (26:14)
total human element here i as to what you're doing which is which is both very unpredictable but also you know feeds into it feeds into having that kind of that objective that you know deeper purpose. I if we get into the business of it, you know, when you first launched this with your with your inventor and you're you know you're building a team, what what types of things were did you see that were working well and what types of things did you see that were maybe maybe stuttering
That you were trying to get going.
Scot Cohen (26:44)
It's a great question. And I have a app I know the answer. So it's the awareness on it. There was a video that I made out of my out of my office or might even be my house. I think I paid a guy a couple hundred dollars to put to prototype any little storyline together. We're talking about, you know, twelve years ago or so. that video, which I sh I need to s find that video, the thing went viral. There was
Hundreds of millions of video downloads on that video around the world. The thing went around the world viral.
Jeff Holman (27:18)
Just a training video? What was what was it?
Scot Cohen (27:20)
It was just a video of the device that started off with showed that officer cops like in this forties and fifties were using fire hoses to disperse crowds and kind of these really early police methods and you know, then the gun and then the taser and the baton and pepper spray and all the the evolution of policing and then yeah it it showed the bowl wrap there. And that was it it was just a prototype. Didn't even work. I mean, that was just the first ver just had a drawing of it, really. But it went viral. So
The media, the people understood it right from the get from from from right from the beginning. They it connected with people. It this video went viral. And then I started a website called nonlethalnews.com. And I just started reposting articles that were going out there that were all around the world, just online, put reposting it and just putting it out there. And tens of thousands of people a day. It said this site still exists, apparently. I haven't looked at it in a long time and I still own it. But
The amount of traffic I was getting was ridiculous. I wasn't spending any money on it. I just put it out there. I was just reposting and and the traction I got. So I saw the interest. That worked well.
Jeff Holman (28:27)
Yeah.
Scot Cohen (28:27)
So that that that now, so I knew there was something there. I knew there was interest. I knew there was a real interest and real drive for for something different for change. So I took it on and I wrote my first, you know, million dollar check with with with the inventor. and then it was another
Couple million dollars and then I went to some friends and then then it was ten million dollars and then we then then we've actually taken in almost two hundred million dollars on this thing. Wow two hundred million from from that tet from ten years ago. I think that's very close to the number. I've I've lost track, but it's pretty damn close. We're public comp we're public trade on the NASDAQ, so it's all the information's out there.
Jeff Holman (29:11)
Yeah. So so you're out there with his video, the public responds, you you invest in the in the development and you take it out to the market and you're like, Everybody's gonna buy this because of course, you know, we've already proven that the public wants it and you go out there and is that what happened? Yeah. And everyone just zo
Scot Cohen (29:31)
Everybody,
everybody, everybody and everybody wanted to meet us. I mean, major cities, small cities, we're all over the news. I mean, if just if you just you can just look, you'll see. I mean, it was endless. I think we had like 2,000 TV shows that were, I mean, we were there were TV shows, there were news stories, national, international. The world was reporting on this. The world. I'm not sure. I mean, look it up in every language, all over the world. This was big news.
But we failed, Jeff. We really failed. We failed on be able to train this thing. We weren't talking about right. We let the media drag us into a competition with Taser. It's not a competition with the Taser. It's a completely different device. That is on the use of force continuum, it's right up there with a gun. It just is. It
Jeff Holman (30:19)
Yeah.
Scot Cohen (30:19)
just, it, it has, it's a, it's a, it's, it works really well, but when you incapacitate somebody, it's a a lot of pain that you're putting through somebody and a lot of bad things can happen. This is not that.
Never been compared. And everybody was put bringing us into this conversation. well, it's either the bowl wrap or taser. I don't have enough belt space. Wrong conversation. And I'm going to tell you what just happened. This is new news as of two weeks ago. The ATF, two weeks ago, just ruled this a non-firearm. And they have not made a ruling since 1980, I think two, when they ruled the taser a firearm.
They nailed they ruled and said this was a non-lethal device. It was intentioned to be non-lethal. It doesn't use pain to bring and they sp the director of the ATF posted on X, we got a phone call. And that just opened the whole world up to us, Jeff. It it finally it finally somebody finally stepped in and said, Hey, this is not abuse of force.
Jeff Holman (31:23)
So it's not a gun. This is not a comparable to the gun or the taser. Did so when you so when you started selling these things, it sounds like this was everybody wanted one. They wanted to buy some for the the for the department, but then it kind of got shelved because they didn't know what to do with it. Is that is that what you're saying?
Scot Cohen (31:39)
I am saying it. We went through distribution. We were our page on page eighty of a 200 page catalog. we didn't we lost complete contact with the we couldn't even begin to be contact connected with the with the with the police department. So we had no we weren't leading it the right way. There we look, it was a startup. It was it was all new. I mean, nobody's done this before. I mean, so it it was truly like we had very competent people from the industry. Just was hard. And
The expectations were so high because the market cap was so high, because we took in so much money that everybody's like, this is gonna be huge. We were getting looks from countries talking about hundred million, two hundred full deployment bowl wraps. You know, we thought, and I and I d I I I am not I believe deep in my heart and soul, this device is gonna be on every officer's belt in this country, both federally and state and local.
And it's gonna be a global, there's no doubt about it, Jeff. It's gonna be a global product. I've seen enough. I could take you through the numbers. I have the deployment data. I'm watching our deployments just keep going up and up and up and not one serious reported injury, not one fatality, and not one lawsuit. That is unheard of for what we're doing here. You get sued looking at somebody the wrong way. I'm telling you right now.
What I'm seeing, the data I'm sitting on, I'm watching departments deploy this more than deploying anything else on their belt without and and they're not even being recognized for it. See,
Jeff Holman (33:16)
Yeah.
Scot Cohen (33:17)
public safety has a real branding problem. They're their own worst enemies. I see it. They're talk. Why are we even reporting on force? We should be reporting on force avoidance. We're just reporting on force. We're talking about things that the media just jumps all over. Now, I'm not suggesting not reporting on it.
Some do, some don't, but the consistency is not there. They're not advocating for themselves, which
Jeff Holman (33:40)
Yeah.
Scot Cohen (33:40)
is upsetting and something I want to take on through my nonprofit, but I do think there's a place for this in what we do. We need to stand this up. We need to lead on change. I'm talking about human-centered safety platforms that we're creating. All about the human, not about the tech. You start off asking about the tech. I used to think it's tech, it's not.
It's here. It's totally here. And everybody's AIing up and these AI models and AI reporting and AI on the body cam and AI on AI on the drones and autonomy going right to the targets, right to the subject. All this tech and we're it's all getting connected and it all sits right here. We better just catch ourselves a little bit and ask the question like, is this really where we want to go? Because when that that could backfire.
And I think we're seeing examples of it. Yeah. I just saw three just in the last week where the AI took over another AI. I read about that yesterday where I think it was anthropic and it hacked another AI company. I saw we've been watching these robots that are just misbehaving and turning on the human. You see flock safety. I mean, look at what's going on with flock safety, right? They're pulling the cord in cities all around the country, right? And they're pulling them out.
Of the cities because the surveillance. And it's and it's it's they're making the it's it's it's not accurate in some cases, or it's just privacy invasion. People are really starting to wake up to this, Jeff. And and they're scared, man. They're really scared. It's scary. It's really scary. This is real what's going on right now. I'm telling you, I feel called, very called, to shed light on this, spread awareness.
And pound on this message because I'm not gonna do it. Who is? I don't see anybody else doing this. You've never heard a talk track like this.
Jeff Holman (35:42)
No, I love the I love the passion behind it. I love that you're tackling the human side of the problem. You know, the tech is cool, but the human side is is is cooler. I wanna if I can, I wanna know a little bit because and congratulations on the A on the ATF, you know, letter or the ruling. That's big deal. I'm curious in part if you guys prompted that. But before we talk about that, I I wanna kinda step back. how did you navigate because you've got this
You know, you've painted this picture where you've got this cool tech, you've launched, you've got all this publicity. but there's this training gap and and so adoption didn't happen like you wanted. You know, meanwhile, you're the founder, you're the chairman of the board, you're funding it, you're you know, you're you're either funding it directly or gathering funding. Those are tough years to navigate, right? How how did you navigate? What were the conversations on the team like for you?
your board members, your investors, your your CEOs, like like how did you navigate that? Because that's d I mean, that's the there there's all this promise, but but you can only you can only talk about the promise so much, right? Before somebody in the meeting says, wait a second, we're not there yet.
Scot Cohen (36:58)
I do not know your background, but the fact you're asking that question, I I'm very interested in and we could get to that later because that's a that's a that's some awareness right there. Yeah. I financed my way out of it, to be honest. I I r I led with, you know, at least ten million since the just forgetting about the initial investments and all that. I'm just talking about
In the last three years since I took on the job. It's it's a number, something close to that. So I just financed my way out of that. I dealt with so many different lawsuits. We've we let go. I mean, we had to have gotten rid of a couple hundred people. all of it, you know, all of it was just on me, you know. And I'm starting a family, you know, I'm you know, I'm starting a family. I'm being, you know, this is I I didn't do this for the money. And, you know, so I was but I felt
I felt I was actually pushed out of the company too. It's public. I'm a co-founder. They they he he he he actually filed an activist suit on me and and wanted me gone. That's a the little history to that. and I I quietly left. but I did maintain my board seat to watch. And I watched three CEOs, four COs, and I just couldn't take anymore. And I I just had to step up. I had to step into it.
And I feel like you want to talk about the breakthrough moment. I mean, here it is. Yeah. So like this thing was not gonna survive without me. Who the the company was unfundable. When I took it on, come to find out that our CFO probably shouldn't be saying this, but let's just say that our auditors walked on me and think
Jeff Holman (38:44)
Yeah.
Scot Cohen (38:43)
Hey what
I was they they said, hey, we can't do this anymore. I was like, Your book, you have no books. That's delisting territory right there. So, you know, you talk about like I mean, it came on me fast. Yeah. Then there was some other things that I'm not gonna go into detail on, but you can imagine you know, and we're also we're publicly traded. You I have quarterly calls. I had never done this before. I'm I I I started an investment bank when I was young and a hedge fund and a private.
I had never done this. I never operated a p any company except for my fund, let alone a public traded public safety company. So yeah, it was really hard, really hard. And and but I got through it, man. And and and the thing is to be able to I think you understand the magnitude of what we're talking about here.
Jeff Holman (39:34)
Yeah, no, this is I mean, startups are chaos to begin with. You add public publicly traded you know, requirements and obligations on top of it, and you add money and investors on top like all of these are additional complicating factors on top of an already complicated, chaotic process.
Scot Cohen (39:53)
And I'm trying to learn the the constitution and what Barnes v. Felix means and Graham Connor and understand the magnitude that I'm trying to and and very simple. Right when I got in the job, I'm gonna go meet every customer that will talk to me, every police department, every chief, every trainer.
Jeff Holman (40:09)
When you took the CEO role. That was your that was your first initiative.
Scot Cohen (40:11)
I want to do and you what? Okay. Just to me, I'm still blown away by this. None of them wanted to see me because everybody had left told them that company's going out of business or we're done. I mean we're public.
Jeff Holman (40:24)
They
just said they so they've got your tool they've got your your device, they've bought it, and they just said, Yeah, I don't not not really priority.
Scot Cohen (40:31)
Couldn't get a couldn't get a call back from anybody. Now I don't know, I still don't know to this day if that was intentional or was that just people didn't want to talk to me. I don't know. Sure. But I have a th feeling it was a little bit of both. I think some of it was planted, not sure. Doesn't matter, but there's a chief that I admire in New York. He's a stand-up guy. He was actually the person I approached when I was launching the coaching program with my wife and into NYPD.
I was trying to launch it anyway and give them training as a philanthropic gift. and he said to me, Scott, you gotta find out if their device works or not. And I go, How how how? And he's like, You gotta get the data. I go, but nobody's talking to me. He he's like, You got you just gotta do it. So I got, I started doing planes, trains, and automobiles and going to see these sheriffs and
Chiefs and head trainers and and
Jeff Holman (41:30)
Talk
about their experience with the device or
Scot Cohen (41:33)
Yeah. And most of them told me it was a piece of shit. Didn't work. Yeah. Didn't work.
Jeff Holman (41:38)
Wait, you're wait, this is this is like three years ago. So this is six or seven years after the business started, and you're like, Wait a second, the data seven years in and however many millions of dollars in, the data doesn't say what we want. The data from the from the horse's mouth.
Scot Cohen (41:54)
Right. From the horse's mouth. We had like 200, 300 body cams. but but but but but I couldn't get anybody to talk to me. So here's what drove me. Okay. It was about a year ago, deep, deep dive with about four departments. Okay. And I and I looked at the data, I looked at the body cam and I'm like, wait a second. Remember this one department in Colorado where they're using it.
10 times more than anything else on their belt. They had just as many tasers as they had bowl wraps. And the bowl wrap was deployed at a 10X what the body, what the what the taser was. I said to myself, what are these guys doing different? And it was culture and they trained themselves with a little bit of help from us, but they were connected and they were led the right way. And
Jeff Holman (42:43)
Yeah.
Scot Cohen (42:43)
I knew it was repeatable, but I had to digitize this and I had to build the learners, I had a partner it. I had to just
redo it. But that just the fact that it was working there and that decent size, call it 150 officers there,
Jeff Holman (42:57)
Yeah.
Scot Cohen (42:58)
gave me the courage and the strength to know that it was going to be, it could be repeated. So I dug in and I started the work. And I started a real work. And yes, I had to write a couple more. I think we'd finance another 15 million bucks. So yeah, more money had to come in. But
Here I am. And you know, we're working very closely on the hill with both sides of the aisle. This is a bipartisan issue. I think there's gonna be real support in Washington for this. I've attended we've we've we we're we're having lots of meetings there and it just feels really good. People know it's it's pretty obvious. You see, you can see we we take them through the data. It's pretty obvious what this tool is and what it does. So I think we're on a really good path now, Jeff.
Jeff Holman (43:46)
Yeah, that's exciting. I i is color is the Colorado experience is that is that where you first realized training was the issue? Or had you known that before and and they just validated it?
Scot Cohen (43:56)
I knew if you look at the early videos of the bow wrap, like when we first launched the company, you could see every officer just went and pressed the button and there was no closing the distance. It was just pressing. Today it's totally different. We're training to cl you use it, you deploy and you close one it's one movement. We weren't training that. That made all the difference in the world. People understood it better. And when you understand at this in a hands, we're a world of hands on. That's just what's going on now. So
You can't use pain tools when someone's not armed and dangerous not violent. You just can't do it. You can, but it's, you know, you're you're triggering a fourth amendment and and and you could there could be a lot of liability with with that movement. And there is. So once I realized that, I just knew that it's time to back. I I'm gonna I'm gonna finish what I started. And
Jeff Holman (44:50)
Yeah.
Scot Cohen (44:51)
that's what we're doing now.
Jeff Holman (44:52)
I love it. you know, this whole talk about data, it really sh really rings about with me right now because I I just got off a call yesterday with an old friend of mine who's running a company. We're doing another episode for the podcast. his name's Romney Williams with Dry Out and they they do they essentially, you know, created this stuff, this I don't want to minimize it here. They created this material that helps to wick and trap moisture out of call it, you know
gun safes or, you know, sensitive equipment enclosures. And he talked about getting data. He said, Jeff, you know, one of the things we had to do is we went, we had to get the data because I didn't know how much better this was than the other than the other products that we were up, you know, silica gel packs or whatever that we were up against. So they went to a university, they had university testing done and and I and I had remember seeing this on his website, the data that they posted after this study was done.
It was thirty four hundred times, I think I hope I'm getting that right. Thirty four hundred times better than a silica gel pack, you know. And it and I'm just like, that's startling that the difference is so huge. And so when you s we when you said, we gotta get the data, you know, I I'm like I I started cheering. I'm like, yes. I mean, I know this in the past and all that, but I'm like, yes, that that's the that's the path that I just talked about with with Romney that that that they were on that made it such a huge difference for them.
'Cause now they can go out to their customers and they say, here's it's not just not just this is what we've done, this cool tech, but like there's data behind it. It works when you do it the right way or whatever that data is that that you gather. So that's I don't know, that's a I I think there's a lot I think there are lot of people, a lot of CEOs and businesses who don't necessarily ever extract that as its own step in the kind of the evolution of the business. And they just say, We just
started selling more and you're like, No, there there's probably something that happened where either you deliberately got the data or the or maybe maybe your target customers got the data desp despite not getting it from you. Maybe they got the data.
Scot Cohen (46:58)
Well, a lot of a lot of our trainers would say, Scott, why do you nobody asks for the data? Like do you think any of the other vendors are asking for deployment data? Nobody does it. And I go, I I I it's imperative. I I I I I I I will not stop until I get it. And I'm yeah. And I think that's what drove me. But I I I just want to say this too, Jeff. I really appreciate you having us on because the word's gotta spread.
The awareness needs to happen. People are very much in the dark on this subject. And I feel like they're lost. I was lost. And you know, it's kind of hard when we're on the hill talking to the the the policymakers. That n I'm telling you, none of them know there's any alternative to what's on the belt right now. So we come in, they're just almost no pun intended in shock. Yeah. So it's just it's in in and and and it's such a easy.
straightforward conversation with the data and the results. So just to give you a look into the future, what we're doing. We put the same device, the the bull wrap system, so the cartridges on a drone. So drone is a first respond.
Jeff Holman (48:09)
Wondering about that.
Scot Cohen (48:10)
Drone comes right on the target, on the subject, can start lights. So with the light dazzler for confusion, can deliver independent sound. And if there's if the subject's still moving
Put one up to nine wraps on the subject per drone. All right. That's rolling out now. We've also just launched a shoulder mount where we're using enhanced light and sound, and we have up to six shots on the shoulder mount. So that's for crowd control, that's for schools, that's for hospitals. we've also that same system actually takes down drones. So we're really investing heavily in our netting systems. So we're shooting not only our same cords at drones.
But we're also, you're going to be seeing much more elaborate netting systems to really secure parameters and protect buildings through these nets that you'll be seeing. And the thing that I'm most proud about, what we not the most, but I'm excited about, is we invested in a threat detection system where we're using a layer beyond thermal. We actually added a polarization layer to it so we can see heat signatures and materials.
To detect targets so we can differentiate between birds and drones. Yeah. this is something we invested in through Israel. We got exclusive rights for the US and NATO countries. We think this is a critical piece of of of of d threat detection that, quite frankly, is beyond anything that our government or anybody else's government's seen. It's been tried. The US Armies had been written, there's been lots of research on this. No one's operationalized it.
This group did, we're bringing it into the States. And hopefully this will be a a pivotal and most critical piece of threat detection going forward. So you can't respond to what you can't see. Yeah. So finding the threats early on so you can respond to them and we're being able to respond to them non lethal because these threats are coming to a city near near you and I, stadiums, cities. You're not going to be able to have lethal threats or lethal.
Lethal responses on those drones. Just not. Autonomy, the public's never going to be okay with threats that are kill that have kill shots. They've got to have another mechanism. So we think our non-lethal structure, our infrastructure, our our ecosystem really applies. And when you base it all on purpose and base it with the human, that's key. If you don't have purpose doing this and you don't think about the human first,
It's all shit. It's imperative that that happen. And I you know why I know that? Because I went through it and I thought I was at the top of the mountain. I wasn't. I was at the low point of the mountain. And I'm not going to do that again. This has purpose to it. It's going to save a lot of lives. And I'm going to thank you for exposing our company to you. Our websites, www.rap.com, W-R-A-P. We're publicly traded. So everything that I've discussed with this audience, with your audience, is
is public. You can see. you can follow us. There's tens of thousands of articles have been written about this. And and now we gotta get it out there. We gotta execute our plan and we're we're we're we're on that right now.
Jeff Holman (51:34)
I love this. I I I normally ask CEOs something like, you know, where do you see this business in three to five years? I don't think that's the appropriate question. I think you're looking way beyond that, aren't you, Scott?
Scot Cohen (51:44)
I am. I I I want the world to be a safer place and and I think I I I'm not gonna be able to do that for everybody, but I think I can I think I think this company can really can really help officers close the distance without using pain. And I feel like that just that alone, that that that that function can also apply to
Other things like drones and other ways to take people into custody, but right there is a pretty historic move that I think can change the way it could have a big impact on public safety for generations to come, which results in our families being safer, us being safer, our country being safer. This is not just a New York problem, a Miami problem or where you're from or your audience is from. This is a global issue.
This is happening in Japan, it's happening in South America, this is happening all over the world. It's the same problem.
I feel really called to do this. I am in service for th those that service us. And I I think about them, I think about my dad, I think about my brother and what they did, and this is how I'm giving back.
Jeff Holman (52:59)
I love it, Scott. I think we'll end it there. That's a that's a great way to conclude this from the heart. So Scott, I I really appreciate you coming on. Again, your website was rap.com, W A R P dot com, right? really cool technology, but even cooler, even cooler human story behind the technology, I think. So thanks for coming on the show. It's it's been a real pleasure. so glad we connected and glad to hear the company's on the right track.
Scot Cohen (53:27)
Appreciate you, Jeff.
Jeff Holman (53:29)
And for our audience who joined us on this episode of the Breakout CEO, thanks again for coming. Hope you got some insights, and we'll see you next time. Be sure to follow or subscribe on your favorite podcast platform. And if you enjoy the show, a rating or a review goes a long way. Our mission is to promote the stories of breakout CEOs in scaling SaaS, e-commerce, and tech companies to equip peer CEOs with valuable perspectives and confidence.
Thanks again for joining us on this episode of the Breakout CEO. I'm Jeff Holman, and I'll see you next time.
