Google Gold

1) A discussion of your general approach and strategy to search engine optimization (SEO). What were some of the activities you did for each blog post to pursue SEO?

For each of my blog posts about my venture concept, I tagged the words "revenge porn" and "survivors." I also tagged some of the pictures I posted with those words. The commenting with a link to my blog was the only other SEO tactic I engaged in.

2) What were your keywords. How did you select those keywords? Did you change or refine your keywords through the semester?

"Revenge Porn," "survivors," and "Post Back." I thought these words were really targeted towards my business (which is a service for survivors of revenge porn). In retrospect, I wish I had used the keywords "Gainesville revenge porn survivors." I selected these keywords because I thought the survivor part would differentiate me from a lot of the revenge porn resources on the web which generally use the term "victim." These keywords stayed the same throughout the semester.


3) How did you use social media to enhance your SEO efforts? What your your surprises or general impression of using social media to improve your blog's profile? Was social media generally receptive of your blog, or did it get ignored?

Um. I didn't really use social media to enhance my SEO effort. I don't even think I shared a blog post to my facebook at all. Surprisingly enough, I had a few classmates and friends tell me that they've read my blog posts. Which is strange because I didn't think I was doing too good of a job at using SEO.

4) What was your most "viral" post? In other words, which post obtained the most traffic? Why do you think?

My most "viral" post was the Free Money post. Which is terribly ironic because, while I completed the assignment, I didn't get credit for it because my video was downloading on my friend's computer. I know why it was viral though. So many students didn't do that post so when they went to do the commenting on it, they had to search through the class blog directory till they found someone who had actually did the assignment.

5) Finally, did you make it to the first page of Google results for your keywords? If not, what page of results did you make it to?

Nope, I definitely didn't make it on the first page. I stopped looking for myself after page 26 of a "revenge porn survivors" search. In retrospect, I should have picked more specific words.

This is the image I found when I did an image search of the name of my blog lol

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.

My Unfair Advantage

So for this exercise I get to generate a list of resources for my venture that make me "special." These resources will be what keeps my competitors off my tail. So here it goes:

1. My experience acting as a leader within the LGBTQQ+ community in my high school has given me the ability to make people around me comfortable and to have them open up (human capital)
• Valuable? Very much so
• Rare? Not really...
• Imitable? Yeah...
• Non-substitutable? Not really. There isn't a substitute for active listening.
2. My connection with the End Revenge Porn campaign and their tentative commitment to promote my service when it is up and running (social capital)
• Valuable? DEFINITELY
• Rare? Yes
• Imitable? Only if someone else gets in contact with the campaign before I can have my services up and running
• Non-substitutable? Yes, because another website's endorsement would also be valuable but not as valuable as this one.
3. My connection with Leakserv, another startup providing a takedown service for revenge porn, and their offer to advise me as I set up this business
• Valuable? Very much so
• Rare? Yes! I haven't found another site doing this and no one has offered to advise me yet
• Imitable? Probably, yeah. Anyone can connect with this company. 
• Non-substitutable? No, I can have a connection with another person in this industry but probably not someone with this kind of experience.
4. My experience working at/with multiple startups
• Valuable? Yes! I know some of the troubles that startups experience.
• Rare? No...
• Imitable? Yes
• Non-substitutable? No and yes. Working at a corporation could give you a similar experience but it wouldn't teach you the crazy shit that happens during the first stages of a business.
5. My training in search engine optimization
• Valuable? Yes! Every business needs to do this if they want to be at the top of search results.
• Rare? Not as much anymore but I haven't met too many people who know how to do SEO.
• Imitable? Yes. SEO is very imitable. Good SEO is not.
• Non-substitutable? No, not in this case. There is no substitute for SEO if you want to show up high on a search.
6. My ability to recruit and maintain people in an organization as a result of working as the Membership Director for the Entrepreneurship Club at UF
• Valuable? Yes! Finding the right people is valuable in any organization, business, or institution.
• Rare? No...
• Imitable? Yes...
• Non-substitutable? No. There is no substitute for finding good people. Unless you find one good person to find other good people for you, but that's not feasible in the first days of a startup.
7. My experience finding, renting, setting up, and managing an office space as one of my duties as a Field Organizer on the Charlie Crist campaign
• Valuable? Some what. Most businesses need office space.
• Rare? Not at all.
• Imitable? Yup.
• Non-substitutable? Like a realtor? Yeah.
8. The experience I am currently gaining from writing a business plan since it is really helpful in getting investors when you have a business plan
• Valuable? Yes.
• Rare? Not at all.
• Imitable? Yup.
• Non-substitutable? I guess a business model? Or maybe a personal connection with an investor that doesn't require a business plan? So no is the answer.
9. My passion for helping women
• Valuable? Yes.
• Rare? Yeah, actually. There are definitely lots of people who want to help people but there aren't a lot of them who are starting a business based on this idea.
• Imitable? Actually this might be kind of hard to imitate.
• Non-substitutable? Not for this business. You need to care to do this.
10. My connections within the startup community in Gainesville
• Valuable? Yes. There are a lot of startups in Gainesville and the people I know would be psyched to hear that I was starting a business.
• Rare? No.
• Imitable? Yes.
• Non-substitutable? No. Connections elsewhere could suffice.

So which one is my most valuable? Probably my connection with the End Revenge Porn campaign. As for right now, they haven't endorsed any service for survivors of revenge porn so to have that endorsement would really help for marketing and for building trust with our clients. A close second would be my passion for helping women. This is a surprisingly rare passion that is absolutely necessary for my business.

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.

Elevator Pitch No. 3

Hello Loyal Followers!

Today I will make my third attempt at my elevator pitch. I got some really good feedback last time so I've tweaked my pitch to include what I thought would be really useful. Here is the most important and influential feedback I got:

• "Maybe you could go into the cost for someone to hire this company, maybe even a promotion for college students." - Taylor Brenenstuhl

• "I'd like to hear a mention of them [competitors] and why your product stands out from theirs." - Carolina Lafuente

• "This could easily come across as an internet scam if not marketed correctly." - Alexander Gubernikoff

The last comment from Alex was the most suprising. I really hadn't thought that my service could come off as spammy. Now that I think of it, though, if I don't design my website correctly and provide that legitimate human component survivors could think that I'm trying to take advantage of them. Which is certainly not the case.

None of the feedback I got was silly or mean, thankfully. I think the first time I did my pitch I didn't do as good of a job as explaining how crazy it is that there isn't more resources for survivors out in the world and more people responded with shaming comments about the survivors. Hopefully, I have been able to alleviate some of that shame.

Anywho, here's attempt number three! Let me know what I can do better :)

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.

Idea Napkin No. 1

Alright, so I think this is a really cool assignment. Today I wrote on a "napkin" (aka a piece of paper) my business idea and my strengths and weaknesses. Take a look! I think it's pretty neat:

After writing this out, I found some discrepancies in what I want to do and what I can do. Other people have raised the question of how I'm actually going to do the service that I want to provide. The answer? Not really sure. I worked at an SEO company last summer so I do have experience with trying to get particular content to show up in google for a particular keyword search, but I'm no expert. People are also right in saying that you could figure out how to do what I'm offering for free online. I think that's why I'm attempting to market the idea as "peace of mind" since I'll be providing a community forum and legal resources for free so as to shape the idea of growing a community of survivors rather than solely providing a service that people could figure out how to do for themselves. 

Competencies was the hardest part of this. I need to do more research on if there are companies out there providing the same service that I'm attempting to provide and then figure out how to do this service. I'm still kind of confident in the market that I'm targeting, though. Every time I look for help for survivors of revenge porn I see a lot of "you shouldn't have sent those pictures in the first place" aka victim blaming, rather than any service or resource that is providing help to people.

Let me know what you think! Feedback is much appreciated in this case :)

Interviewing Customers No. 2 (aka No. 1 for me)

Hiya folks,

So I spent today walking around campus, talking to people about my venture idea. I got a lot of useful feedback that's changing my outlook on the venture so this exercise can definitely be called a success. This assignment was suppose to be the second time I interview customers but, alas, I suck so this was the first time I did this. Meaning these interviews are kind of rough when they were suppose to be refined but they're still very useful.

Here's my revised idea: a for-profit company that provides a personalized online image restoration service to survivors of revenge porn along with free community support forums, legal resources, and (maybe) a service where survivors can get back at their aggressors.

Customers? Survivors of revenge porn and people who want to restore their online image.

Interview strategy? I didn't do the first round of interviews so my strategy hasn't developed other than asking people who look like they aren't busy.

Here they are:

If anyone has any other feedback, I would love to hear it! 

Reflection on the interviews: I got positive feedback on my idea but also had people wondering about the practicality of providing this service. Someone pointed out that, if you wanted to, anyone could research on how to bury unwanted pictures or videos and do it themselves. That got me thinking. Of course anyone could do what I'm providing, if they wanted to, but what I'm providing is a peace of mind. That survivors don't have to worry because this situation is being taken care of by professionals. I don't know how to become a professional of the interweb (yet) but the interviews helped me refine what it is I'm trying to provide to my customers. "My venture provides peace of mind to survivors of revenge porn" sounds a lot better than how I've defined this idea previously.

Lastly, here are a few tips for students interviewing customers:

1. Talk to someone who has their own company or any entrepreneurial activity about what kind of feedback they looked for from customers when starting out. This will really help in getting the most out of your interviews.
2. Try talking to people who are leaving a building rather than going in. They're more likely to talk to you. Also, make sure they're walking slow enough not to be hurrying anywhere.
3. Don't question criticism. Just take it. You want people to poke as many holes as possible in your idea so you figure out if it doesn't work in the beginning rather than in the end. If someone is criticizing you for something that you don't think they understand, it's not that they're stupid. It means that you probably need to work on how you're explaining your idea.