Kristen Bolig

When Kristen and her husband moved from Philadelphia to North Carolina, they bought their very first home. A month after moving in, a security system salesman knocked on her door selling a system that she had seen signs for all over her new neighborhood. Although she hadn’t ever purchased anything from a door-to-door salesman before, Kristen had been thinking about a home security system anyway and, with her husband going away on a business trip, she was concerned about being alone in her new home for the first time. Plus, she figured, if everyone in the neighborhood used this company, it must be the right choice. She felt pressured and ended up signing on to a two-year contract on the spot. Even worse, she ended up purchasing pretty much every safety feature that the company had to offer (and insisted that she needed.)

Months later, she noticed that much of the safety equipment she had paid for was available for much more affordable prices online. She started tallying up just how much they had overpaid with their contract — it wasn’t pretty.

It turns out that she wasn’t alone. After talking to a few friends, she realized that none of them really knew what a home security system was supposed to cost. Everyone just chalked it up as something you needed to have and picked a package that seemed reasonable because doing the research on their own seemed too intimidating and confusing.

This is exactly why Kristen wanted to launch SecurityNerd. It’s her goal to make sure that others have access to the information she and her husband didn’t have when they signed that contract.