Founder Pedersen created Vivint, under the name APX Alarm, as a home security company in 1999. The company was acquired by The Blackstone Group in 2012 for more than $2 billion.

"We don't sell a piece of hardware and walk away," says Vivint CEO and founder Todd Pedersen. Vivint's business model has a lot of overhead, Pedersen says. The average customer gets $1,200 of ...