Gabriela Diaz

Updated March 2014

Having worked for her father’s car dealership, American Express and Avon, where she managed more than 2,000 women, Gabriela Diaz is an experienced businesswoman. She only started her own company two years ago, however, when her eldest son, Ignacio, was planning to go travelling after graduation. ‘He has a heart condition that requires special care in a crisis. We wondered how we would know if he had problems during the trip and how to help the doctors who would take care of him.’

Gabriela canvassed others for a solution and discovered that she was not alone. ‘Many people with elderly parents or children with medical conditions worry about the same thing. We spoke with emergency workers and paramedics and learned that the two biggest challenges of helping someone in an emergency situation are a lack of information about his or her condition and the inability to contact a relative or friend.’

Lifesaving SMS

Gabriela decided to solve this problem with a simple but efficient product and service – ProTextion. ProTextion users are assigned an individual code on stickers they carry on a business card, notebook, etc. or wear on a bracelet. Texted via a dedicated freephone number, number, which is also present on the sticker, the code links to an online user profile stored on ProText’s servers. Users are free to include any information they feel would be relevant to administering emergency care: blood type, allergies, medication, etc. The profile also includes contact information for a relative or friend. In case of an emergency, anyone on hand with a standard cellphone can send the user code to ProTextion, who will respond by sending all the information in the user’s profile and notifying their contact via SMS. Users in Argentina can purchase the service on an annual basis (US$18) or for single day use for special events (70 cents), such as sporting marathons or school trips.

Gabriela has striven to keep her product and service inexpensive, low tech and secure. ‘There are mobile applications for emergencies that only work on smartphones or ID bracelets that require special technologies to read. If you are in danger, we want anyone on the street with any type of phone to be able to text the code,’ she says. User names and medical information are stored on separate servers for confidentiality, which are both replicated in two different places for failsafe backup.

First movers

In only two years, ProText has amassed 10,000 active users. Turnover in the first five months of 2014 was double the yearly sales for 2013. Gabriela is hiring a sales force and aggressively exploring new markets with hopes of reaching 220,000 users by the end of 2014. ‘We are reaching out to closed groups like schools, corporations and events. Recently we provided our service to 6,000 people running the Four Stations marathon in Buenos Aires. Over 50% of the runners set up a profile.’ ProTextion is now working with sports clubs and a ski resort and is set to expand internationally, beginning with Colombia and Chile. ‘We are first movers seeking to snap up a big piece of the market,’ says Gabriela. ‘Any new competitor will have to work twice as hard to compete.’