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In our digital editions

Click here to watch a video on how to set up the React Sidekick. (See page 12 for details.)

IN 2002, AS a 21-year-old junior at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, Robb Monkman and his roommates were robbed at gunpoint. Student safety became a passion for him.

In 2003, the Costco member created
React Mobile ( reactmobile.com), a free app
for iPhones and Android. “Messages are sent
to a pre-defined network of your contacts
using email, text [and] social media, and our
app will auto-dial the local authorities,” he
explains. “Each emergency message is sent
with a ‘Help! This is ________. I need help now
and my location is ___________’ and we
include a link to the user’s GPS location.”
Monkman emphasizes that React Mobile
is intended to be a 911 enhancement.

“We want to call the trained profession-
als,” he says, “but we also want to issue this
emergency alert so a wide network knows
you’re in trouble and where you’re located.”
Early on, he recognized that, in many
emergency situations, it’s unlikely
that one’s phone will be unlocked and ready
to dial. “We needed to have [a] remote, dis-
creet, easy way to activate [the] widespread
React Mobile emergency alert. That’s why we
created the React Sidekick safety device.”
Monkman partnered with Rob Bangerter,
a hardware veteran with more than 25 years
of consumer product manufacturing experi-
ence, to develop the Sidekick. A small key-
chain-size device, the $79.99 Sidekick
provides a one-click button that pairs with
the phone to get your alert out.

“We got a lot of interest from the health-care industry, Realtors, runners, cyclists and athletes,” says Monkman. “And we also have international support. Our app will automatically dial the local authorities, based on where you’re traveling.”—Steve Fisher

Safe reaction Melisa Moroko (left) and Michele Kapustka

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Their business is having a ball

IMAGINE FINDING A colorful, bouncy ball in your mailbox or on your doorstep, instead of the usual bills or junk mail. Suddenly, checking the mail isn’t the chore it used to be.

Costco member Michele Kapustka started mailing balls to people in 2003. With a background in direct mail, she knew that pretty much anything with the correct postage can be sent through the mail. In 2006, she and her sister, Melisa Moroko, who lives across the street from her, decided to turn their idea into a business—SENDaBALL ( sendaball.com)—which is run out of Kapustka’s garage.

“The whole gist of it is [a ball] comes in the mail
and you can’t believe it,” Kapustka tells The
Connection from her Chicago home. She adds that
she likes hearing from people who “say things like ‘I
have not stopped smiling,’ or
‘The mailman brought it and
threw it at me.’ ”
The 10-inch balls come in
a variety of colors and they are
mailed without packaging—
only a few stamps and a label.

Preprinted balls feature mes-
sages such as “Bounce
back soon,” “Have a
ball on your birth-
day” or “Hope this brings a smile today.”
Blank and preprinted balls can be person-
alized with messages that Kapustka writes
by hand with a permanent marker. FYI,
curse words are not allowed, and