Herd

Dear parents,

The Herd safety app is insurance. We hope your child never has to use it, because using it means they are somewhere without a working phone, without their friends and family, and unable to reach the people they need. At best that is inconvenient. At worst it puts them at risk of being robbed, assaulted, or taken - or forced into decisons they wouldn’t normally make.

It happens far more than we realize.

The first time it occurred in our family, our 13-year-old went to the mall to meet friends and his battery ran out. He walked around alone looking for his friends for an hour and a half before borrowing a phone to call us. Ours were the only numbers he knew.

The second time, our older son took an Uber from his college in Santa Barbara to a block party, and his phone slid out of his jeans in the rideshare. By the time we tracked it, it was on its way to Hollywood. He borrowed a phone to call us because he couldn’t find the friends he was meeting and didn’t know their numbers.

Both times a good samaritan handed our son a phone. And both times the call he really needed to make was not to us. His people were a few hundred feet away. We were much farther.

Then, in March of 2026, our close friends lost their college-aged son, Jimmy Gracey. Jimmy's phone had been stolen and he was separated from his friends in an unfamiliar city. Nobody calls 9-1-1 because they lost a phone. But by the time it’s an emergency, it can be too late. Jimmy was looking for a safe place to wait for someone to come back for him. He lost his life that night, and the world lost a truly exceptional young man. He should’ve been able to borrow a phone and reach his local friends right away.

Since then the stories from parents have not stopped.

A 14-year-old girl whose phone was stolen in an amusement park bathroom. She walked alone at dusk looking for friends for two hours before borrowing a phone and calling her father to come get her.

A college guy separated from his new girlfriend at a music festival — she had his phone in her purse. He borrowed a phone to call his mom across the country because he didn’t know a number for anyone closer.

A high school senior on spring break - phone lost in the sand on a beach - classmates wandered away. She spent twenty minutes trying to remember her social media passwords and logins on a borrowed device, then gave up and called her sister in another country in a panic.

In a time of strong computer-generated passwords, automatic log-ins, contact lists containing hundreds of people, and no-dial phone calls, our memories don’t stand a chance.

And remember, a young person without a working phone also has no rideshare app and often no form of payment or ID. They are highly vulnerable.

Every one of the scenarios described above ends differently with the Herd safety app. The concerns about rides, money, and ID fade away, too. Borrow any phone, prove you are you, and your closest people are one tap away. “Here’s my location. I’ll wait here.”

Please participate in building the Herd safety app so we can earn sponsors. Sponsors will allow the app to be free in coming years, especially for young people.

Insure your kids now - and help protect everyone else's kids in the future.

Thank you, The Herd Team