BOUNTE ON HIS MIND

Steve Sinclair was 4 years old and sitting on the living room floor when he played with a Fisher Price toy phone for the first time.

Seconds later, after rotating the spring-loaded dial clockwise, he attacked the phone.

“I had to,” recalls the 52-year-old Sinclair, who grew up in Winnetka. “I had to take it apart. I just had to know why the rotary dial started fast and then slowed down. My problem was not knowing, so I took an engineering approach to problem- solving. That approach,” he adds, “is part of my DNA.”

But Sinclair’s calling wound up being something other than disassembling phones and putting them back together.

Sinclair put his perpetual curiosity and enterprising mind to good use, embarking on a software development career after college that preceded leadership positions in more than a few tech start-ups including a role as chief technology officer at Performance Trust Capital Partners, where he delivered technical and business solutions in a fast-moving, demanding financial services environment.

His latest position is founder of Lake Forest-based BOUNTE, which launched in 2019 to help hotels, airports, universities and colleges, and health systems manage their Lost & Found divisions through the start-up’s modern app.

Born from Sinclair’s personal experience, BOUNTE solves three key problems with lost and founds: poor customer satisfaction, staff frustration, and operational inefficiency.

“My family stayed at a hotel in Wisconsin and returned home when we realized we left one of our son’s two blankets behind,” says Sinclair, who has lived in Lake Forest since 2005. “I called the hotel, waited for a call back, spoke with the security office, and then with the front desk. I was told they’d found one of the blankets. I made more phone calls to the hotel and asked myself, ‘Why is this so difficult?’ I felt bad for the hotel’s employees.”

BOUNTE’s AI-enabled Lost & Found service uses AI image recognition to significantly reduce the time it takes to log, match, and protect guests’ lost items, greatly enhancing the guest experience.

“Our hotel clients (Four Seasons, Hilton, and Fairmont, among others) have their housekeeping staff take photos of the items left behind, and AI does most of the heavy lifting from there,” says Sinclair, holder of AI certifications from the University of Michigan and Stanford University. “The guest experience is so critical to hotels; AI augments the employees’ ability to deliver on a better guest experience.”

It helps in a college setting, too.

“Say you’re a student who left behind an $80 scientific calculator in a classroom on a Friday afternoon,” Sinclair says. “The professor takes a photo of the device, with the image ending up in an AI-enabled mobile and storage platform as part of a more efficient lost-and-found process that aids both the college and the student.”

A graduate of Loyola Academy in Wilmette and Babson College in Massachusetts, Sinclair, who had originally wanted to be an investment banker, used $1,200—what had remained from his college graduation gift—to buy a Dell computer. That purchase triggered the start of 25 years of software engineering experience in fields ranging from banking to commodity trading to insurance to professional football.

Yes, professional football—specifically the NFL.

“When (Chicago Bears great) Mike Singletary was coaching the San Francisco 49ers, he asked me to develop a software that would make it easier for his rookie defensive players to learn where they needed to be on the field in schemes,” Sinclair recalls. “Mike gave me access to his defense’s playbook. I couldn’t believe it. I then built software coding that allowed the players to use a touch screen similar to an ATM’s display screen.”

“The iPhone hadn’t been invented then,” adds the former Fisher Price toy phone mauler.

Sinclair’s hero is his father, also named Stephen, who served as president of Rubloff ’s real estate development division.

“My father, while I was growing up, had this uncanny ability to turn off his business side and instantly become an approachable, accessible dad for his three kids,” says Sinclair, the husband of Alyssa and the father of their children—Stephen III, Collin, and Sophia. “Recently, one of the most rewarding things of fatherhood is getting peppered with questions from my children about my journey with BOUNTE.”

Noting he’s in “the third quarter” of his work life, Sinclair, who’s on track to earn his pilot’s license in 2025, has high aspirations for his final quarter.

“I’ll be in my mid-50s then, when it’ll be time to direct all my energy to humanitarian projects,” he says. “I want to be behind the AI that will solve the most challenging issues, maybe even eradicate diseases. Why do people launch tech start-ups? Because tech start-ups solve problems.”

For more information, visit bounte.net.