Venture Concept No. 1

Venture Concept Description

Opportunity. The opportunity my venture seeks to capture is a very unfortunate opportunity that has arisen out of the influence of the internet on society. The interconnectivity of the web is good for sharing valuable information across geographical boundaries but, on the flipside, it is very harmful when someone uses that interconnectivity to try and ruin someone's life. The opportunity I want to help solve is the issue of people having content on the internet that they don’t want out there. Specifically, when someone posts nude pictures or videos of someone in an effort to publically humiliate them.

 This opportunity is, unfortunately, huge. There are hundreds, upon thousands of victims of revenge porn out there with very little options or legal protection. Only 26 states in the US have laws criminalizing revenge porn. My market isn’t really defined geographically since anyone can post revenge porn from anywhere but this tends to happen in more developed countries, such as the US, Canada, and Western Europe. Demographically, the victims of revenge porn are overwhelming women, ranging from 14 years old to women in their 50s, though men can certainly be victims as well.

There are only a few options out there for survivors of revenge porn: ask the website owners to take down the content, report it as inappropriate to google, or get your nude photos or videos trademarked and issue the sites a DMCA takedown notice. (Or, if you live in one of those 26 states, take the person who posted the picture to court. Though that doesn't guarantee they will be taken off the web.) 
Since revenge porn can be on thousands of sites in the worst case scenario, the first option isn’t really an option. Reporting it to Google is a necessary step in trying to solve this issue, but Google can’t force sites to take down the content and there are many other search engines where the photos could still be lurking. Google can only make sure it doesn’t pop up on a search. Lastly, getting your pictures trademarked is an option, except that it costs 300-400 dollars a year to maintain that trademark and still some sites can host the photos without facing repercussions because of the anonymous nature of the web.

As of right now, I have found only one other company that is trying to solve this issue. More may arise so this window could be closing.

Innovation. My innovation is a service for victims of revenge porn whereby my company wages an online campaign on behalf of the victim to get their revenge porn taken down. At the same time, my company will be doing online reputation management by using search engine optimization to create a positive online presence on our client’s behalf. My company’s site will also host an online forum for survivors of revenge porn and will provide free legal information about victim's legal options.

The service works by using advanced technology that combs the web for the revenge porn’s unique address. Once found, Post Back’s employees contact the website owner and request it to be taken down or, with the client’s permission, issue a DMCA takedown notice on their behalf after the process for getting their photos trademarked is started. The service costs $150 and there is a crowdfunding option on the site so that other victims can help people who struggle to pay the cost. Post Back will also offer payment plans to help with the cost.

Venture Concept. My innovation attempts to solve this opportunity by providing a service to people who critically need it and are often times taken advantage of by scam sites that ask for money and never even try to get the photos taken down. My venture will actually help these people who have been violated for the world to see. There is only one other company trying to do what I’ve specified so there isn't a lot of competition but there is a lot of demand, from what my research has shown. The other options out there for survivors are very expensive or are downright scams. The competitor I mentioned does have a similar service but is not marketing as well as they could be and hasn’t sought the backing of organizations that are trying to end revenge porn. That is my only advantage over them.

My venture will be backed by 10-15 employees. Some of which will manage the technology and maintain the website and others will be people who wage the campaign. The customer experience is very important because I think that will also be a part of the value proposition that will give Post Back an edge over its competitors. The goal of Post Back is to give our clients peace of mind and to show them that someone cares about what happened to them and is doing something, anything, to make it better. 

Since the company will be entirely online, the location of it is entirely flexible. The roles in the company will include a CEO, a CFO, a VP of Marketing, and a COO who will also double as the VP of Technology. In 5 years, I don’t see myself still running this business. I think this is a limited time opportunity that will wane in the coming years. On the flipside, I could see this business transitioning into other services for women or anyone who has been harassed on the internet. Don’t know how to do this exactly, but that’s where I could see this going. As an entrepreneur, but really just as a person, I want to enact positive social change in the world. I see this venture as a start to this.

Growing My Social Capital

Hi Folks,

This was a very useful assignment because it forced me to actually contact people who could give me really useful insight into my business.

For the commenters, my business idea is to provide a support service to survivors of revenge porn that includes an online website with free information on legal options, a community forum, and the paid service that finds the revenge porn online and tries to take it down or attempts to bury it under other layers of info using search engine optimization.

So for the domain expert (1) I contacted Leakserv B.V., a company that is using highly advanced technology to track down revenge porn and issue DMCA takedown notices to owners of the sites where the revenge porn is listed. They also work with law enforcement to provide evidence of the revenge porn so as to prosecute the initial person who posted it. The person I got in contact with is Bart von Leewen, the co-founder of Leakserv and the owner of an Anti-Privacy company called Onsist. I started emailing him and just recently sent him an invite to connect on Linkedin.

The interaction I had with him was really insightful for my business idea. He told me how there is definitely a need for helping survivors of revenge porn and that people are even getting creative by using photoshop to create revenge porn when no content has ever been sent. The "favor" I asked of him was basically if his tactics to take down the revenge porn differed in the US since he's located in the Netherlands. Also if he knew of any other sites doing what I hope to do. Bart said he was glad to advise me so I will hopefully incorporate him into my currently nonexistent board of advisors. He even said that we could work together in the future!

Okay, so next is the expert on the market (2). For this I contacted endrevengeporn.org and was able to talk to Anisha Vora, Victim Outreach Coordinator for the campaign and victim of revenge porn herself. At first I contacted her via her email on the site but later we talked on the phone. Now I follow her on Twitter.

The "favor" I asked of her was basically if there is demand for my business' services out there and what are the current options for survivors of revenge porn. To the first thing she said hell yes and to the second she said that there are very few options, one of which is getting the photos trademarked and paying a yearly fee of 300-400 dollars to keep the trademark. Which is insane! She mentioned that most victims don't want to go through the legal options, they just want the photos taken down.

Lastly, she mentioned that there are a lot of scams out there targeting victims and that a big issue for my business will be building credibility. She said whenever I have my site going that she could possibly recommend my services on her site! So that's cool. I plan to incorporate her into my network by continuing to talk with her as the business progresses and eventually partnering with her campaign.

God this is long. Lastly is the supplier. So I tried to contact Google 3 different ways and am currently still trying to find who I need to talk to. I tried emailing google's customer service. No response. I tried emailing their press email but they said they weren't going to respond... I messaged a friend who interned at Google and they said to use Linkedin to contact someone on the relevant team. So that's where I'm at. I haven't been able to make contact with anyone yet :(

The favor I want to ask google is how their rule for doing search engine optimization will effect the service I want to provide and what are the existing options for taking down revenge porn. I'm going to keep working on this.

Reflection: THIS POST IS SO LONG IM SORRY. I've never networked like this before and while the first two were relatively easy to contact a real person, Google is super hard to talk to. Everything is forms and "if you're not press we aren't going to respond to you." I will definitely incorporate online networking into my networking skills in the future.

Idea Napkin No. 2

Hiya,

So here's my second attempt at the idea napkin. I didn't receive a lot of negative feedback or constructive criticism from the first attempt so my feedback points won't be super interesting but take a look! Please comment with what you think I can do better!

So as for the paragraph on whether or not I think some areas of my idea are out of wack with others, I would say that my idea falls in line pretty well with the other areas of the idea napkin. I have a pretty good understanding of who my customers are, what skills I need to make this successful, and who I am. I can definitly see that my technological skills are not up to the task of this business but my experience in business and leading people in politics could make up for this. Most business owners don't know how to do all of the aspects of their business anyways.

Feedback points:

1. A lot people really like my idea and say that I should pursue it
2. Only one person has brought up any mention of competitors (and that person sent me an awesome article that actually helped define my competition and how I can compete with them)
3. No one seems to be aware that online reputation management sites already exist but that's okay since I'm targeting a unique market segment
4. People seem to think that this idea is both beneficial and profitable
5. My idea napkin seemed to go over swell! I think the visual representation really helped people understand my idea and myself.

This feedback led me to create an idea napkin that looked similar to my first one. The difference is that I took a more objective view of the competencies I have and found that I had a lot of the skills necessary to run a business. Technology acumen is still where I am lacking.

Elevator Pitch No. 2

Howdy,

Here's my second elevator pitch for my venture Post Back. Hope this clarifies my idea for anyone who has commented on my other posts without me explaining the idea!

As for reflections on the feedback from my last pitch, first thing is that I now know to set my youtube videos on "public" when I upload them. I had a lot of encouragement but unfortunately some people were unable to view my pitch due to my incompetence. My favorite comment from the first pitch was the person who suggested report buttons for unwanted or inappropriate content on every site. My knowledge of the internet is limited, but I do know that you can download extensions to your web browser that could serve in this function. I'm adding that idea to the list of things I can work on.

The comments saying that so and so would never send nude photos of themselves even if they were dating were insightful but overall not too helpful. My idea deals with the end result of someone violating another person's trust by posting confidential photos. Saying you'd never send photos is great but that's blaming the sender and not the person who posted them. It's a personal preference to send nude photos or videos but it is, or at least should be, a crime to post something of someone that was meant to be private.

Other than that, most of the comments were about people urging me to take on this opportunity because they felt that there is a need for my idea. Which is encouraging and really appreciated, but I am looking for more feedback on things like the profitably of the business or the legality or the threat of competitors. All thoughts welcomed, though, and big thank you to the people who commented on my last pitch!

As for how I changed the pitch, I condensed my information and tried to point out the harmful effects of revenge porn as well as introduced the technical ways in which I hope to achieve my business.