Why I Built a Dollar General and a Neiman Marcus in the Same Category

I run two companies that both do home security, and people assume that's a mistake — surely one should absorb the other. It isn't a mistake. It's the whole point. Invictus is the Dollar General: commoditized, accessible, no-frills, no-monthly-fee security at a price almost anyone can hit. Safire Home is the Neiman Marcus: bespoke, high-end automation and premium installs for a buyer who wants the best. Same category, opposite ends, and I built them separate on purpose.

The customer-facing version of the accessible tier — affordable no-monthly-fee security and what you actually need — lays out the value case. This is about why running both tiers as distinct companies beats trying to be everything in one.

One brand can't credibly be both

The instinct most operators have is to build one company and stretch it across the whole price range — budget options at the bottom, premium at the top, same logo on all of it. It almost never works, because the budget offering drags the premium brand's credibility down and the premium pricing scares the budget buyer off. You end up muddled in the middle, trusted by no one.

Keeping them separate lets each be unapologetically what it is. Invictus can compete on price and accessibility without anyone wondering why the "premium" brand is selling cheap kits. Safire Home can command premium pricing and do genuinely bespoke work without a budget line undercutting its positioning. Each brand gets to be coherent.

They feed each other instead of competing

Here's the part that makes it more than just two companies: separated correctly, they're not rivals — they're a funnel. The Invictus customer who outgrows the accessible tier, or buys a bigger home, or wants real automation, has an obvious premium upgrade path: Safire Home. The Safire Home prospect who isn't ready for a custom build has an accessible option that keeps them in the family: Invictus. The same instinct that tells you not to muddy one brand tells you to connect two clean ones.

That clean separation, with deliberate connection, is how I think about positioning across the whole 2057 portfolio — let each company be exactly one thing, and let them reinforce rather than blur each other.

I'm Jesse Myers — Marine veteran, 32 years in enterprise IT, and I run 2057 Holdings, which includes both Invictus Systems and Safire Home Solutions.

Featured image: Photo by Alan J. Hendry on Unsplash.