Meet Redfora, the start-up making ‘earthquake bags’ to prepare people for disasters

By Salvador Rodriguez

For Miller and Hallgren, that moment was a realization that they were not prepared to deal with crisis, and neither were most people. It was the foundation for the duo’s bootstrapped start-up Redfora, makers of “Earthquake Bag” emergency kits.

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The two put together earthquake-preparation kits for themselves and their friends, and as an experiment, they also decided to buy enough supplies to build extra kits they could sell. Hallgren and Miller targeted the kits to Facebook users in San Francisco, and within a few weeks, the pair sold 50 of them that they personally drove and dropped off to their customers.

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What started as a side project has grown into a full business. Hallgren and Miller worked on Redfora on nights and weekends from 2015 through 2017, but by early 2018, the company was generating enough revenue that both of them quit their day jobs. Redfora claims it has driven eight figures of revenue and been profitable since its launch.

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The COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak, for example, has been a boon for Redfora. The company has seen an increase in its sale of emergency kits, especially its recently launched “N95 Mask Protection Kit,” in correlation with the outbreak.

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