The “Trade Heroes” series highlights Edmonton Region companies who have ‘exportitude’ — the mindset and commitment to think globally when it comes to their business.
Dan Haight describes Darkhorse Analytics as “generalist analytics consultants.” He’s the co-founder and president of the company, as well as a master of understatement. Darkhorse has a significant impact through its data visualization work, whether it is helping to coordinate ambulances and fire services in major cities in Canada and the U.S., or helping academics and NGOs visualize research to help influence policy. “What we’re doing, is we’re creating the tools that allow people to discover the answers that are already there.”
On the emergency services side of the business, Darkhorse has worked with most major municipalities across the country and has found success in the U.S. too. The company’s biggest client is the Western Fire Chiefs Industry Association: essentially a tech incubator for the U.S. fire service. Darkhorse’s research client list is equally impressive, including well-known institutes from Harvard, Stanford, Brown, and many others.
Today, about 80% of the company’s business comes from the U.S. The first big U.S.-based client Darkhorse landed was Procter and Gamble, which wanted to pursue visualization work after seeing the company’s Breathing Cities project.
Getting that first customer was critical for expanding south of the border. “If you can get past that, ‘well, do you have any American customers?’ piece, then in general, if you do quality work, they will actually make decisions more quickly there,” Haight said.
Darkhorse is focused on the U.S. because the opportunity is much larger, with more municipalities and larger foundations and NGOs that just don’t exist in Canada. “The opportunity is there, the cultures are so similar,” Haight said. The company is eyeing further expansion in the near future as well, with Australia, New Zealand, and the U.K. all on the radar.
Haight said Darkhorse learned several important lessons throughout its export journey that will make entering new markets easier. Like utilizing support organizations earlier in the process to better understand the market. “We spent a long time not realizing that there were both government and non-governmental support organizations,” Haight said. “We didn’t realize that a lot of this was available early on.”
He would also be more willing to ask for help. “As an entrepreneur, you kind of think it’s you against the world, and you don’t recognize that there are people who been there and done that,” Haight said. That collaborative, helpful spirit is particularly prevalent in the Edmonton region, Haight said. “I found in Edmonton [Region], and Alberta more broadly, people are very generous with their expertise.”
“People have actually done this in other companies and are looking to give back to the community,” Haight said. “They’ll sit down over coffee and give you potentially six-figure advice just for a $5 latte. They want to see you succeed.”
The Edmonton region’s post-secondary institutions and access to talent and technical expertise have also helped Darkhorse grow. Today the company is about 32 people, split between the two sides of the business.
As for the future of the company, Haight said Darkhorse has several exciting things in the works, including a new product that could transform the emergency services industry. “In a couple of years time, I think there’s the potential that we can actually point to and measure lives saved or emergencies averted before they even happen.”
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