BrandYourself plans next steps

SYRACUSE — BrandYourself.com has been using $1.2 million in new funding to refine its product, which publicly launched March 8.

The company, based in the Tech Garden in downtown Syracuse, closed the financing round last May and spent the next several months working on its Web-based platform. The product allows users to manage their own search results.

Investors in the financing round include Zelkova Ventures of New York City, which has invested in startups like Klout and Foodspotting; Barney Pell, former head search strategist at Microsoft; and Carl Shramm, former CEO of the Kauffman Foundation.

Earlier versions of the BrandYourself product focused on numerous aspects of online reputation management, although search results were always a key component. The tighter focus emerged as company leaders discussed users’ biggest needs and where they saw the best opportunities, CEO Patrick Ambron says.

Everyone is being searched and what shows up matters, Ambron notes. Potential employers can be easily scared off by negative or incorrect information.

Pete Kistler, co-founder of BrandYourself, had the idea for the company when he was mistaken in search results for a drug dealer with the same name.

BrandYourself also sees the chance to take market share from existing reputation-management firms by offering its basic product for free, Ambron says. A service like Reputation.com, for example, can cost hundreds, or even thousands, per year.

BrandYourself has also focused on allowing users to manage their results themselves, Ambron says. Other services, he says, manage the process for users.

The BrandYourself product guides individuals through building a simple website, adding content, improving profiles on social networks like Facebook, and cross-linking to improve visibility in search engines. The idea, Ambron says, is for a user to create positive content and push it higher in search results.

The basic product allows a user to build a simple website and submit three links, like a Facebook page, LinkedIn profile, news article, or blog post, for tracking and boosting. The free product also provides a search score and monitoring of the first page of a
user’s Google search results.

“For more people, that’s enough,” Ambron says.

Premium users can pay more to track and boost unlimited content. Those users also get other side benefits like improved
intelligence and the ability to track results on other search engines.

Premium packages start at $4 a month, Ambron says. The company expects most users to stick with the basic product, he adds.

Its goal is to convert 2 percent of its users to paying customers.

“This product is meant to be a high-volume product,” Ambron says.

The company is expecting thousands, perhaps millions, of users in the coming years, he adds. Firm leaders saw high demand while testing earlier versions of their platform.

“A lot of people want this ability,” Ambron says. “We can scale this.”

BrandYourself incubated in the Tech Garden as part of the Student Sandbox program in 2009 and is now a regular tenant. The
firm won the $200,000 grand prize in the 2011 Creative Core Emerging Business Competition.

The company employs 10 people full time and expects to add two to five more this year.

The time the firm spent refining its product should start paying off in the next few months, Ambron notes.

“The focus is the really important thing,” he says. “The hyper focus on solving that one problem and solving that problem very easily and simply.”         

SYRACUSE — BrandYourself.com has been using $1.2 million in new funding to refine its product, which publicly launched March 8.

The company, based in the Tech Garden in downtown Syracuse, closed the financing round last May and spent the next several months working on its Web-based platform. The product allows users to manage their own search results.

Investors in the financing round include Zelkova Ventures of New York City, which has invested in startups like Klout and Foodspotting; Barney Pell, former head search strategist at Microsoft; and Carl Shramm, former CEO of the Kauffman Foundation.

Earlier versions of the BrandYourself product focused on numerous aspects of online reputation management, although search results were always a key component. The tighter focus emerged as company leaders discussed users’ biggest needs and where they saw the best opportunities, CEO Patrick Ambron says.

Everyone is being searched and what shows up matters, Ambron notes. Potential employers can be easily scared off by negative or incorrect information.

Pete Kistler, co-founder of BrandYourself, had the idea for the company when he was mistaken in search results for a drug dealer with the same name.

BrandYourself also sees the chance to take market share from existing reputation-management firms by offering its basic product for free, Ambron says. A service like Reputation.com, for example, can cost hundreds, or even thousands, per year.

BrandYourself has also focused on allowing users to manage their results themselves, Ambron says. Other services, he says, manage the process for users.

The BrandYourself product guides individuals through building a simple website, adding content, improving profiles on social networks like Facebook, and cross-linking to improve visibility in search engines. The idea, Ambron says, is for a user to create positive content and push it higher in search results.

The basic product allows a user to build a simple website and submit three links, like a Facebook page, LinkedIn profile, news article, or blog post, for tracking and boosting. The free product also provides a search score and monitoring of the first page of a
user’s Google search results.

“For more people, that’s enough,” Ambron says.

Premium users can pay more to track and boost unlimited content. Those users also get other side benefits like improved
intelligence and the ability to track results on other search engines.

Premium packages start at $4 a month, Ambron says. The company expects most users to stick with the basic product, he adds.

Its goal is to convert 2 percent of its users to paying customers.

“This product is meant to be a high-volume product,” Ambron says.

The company is expecting thousands, perhaps millions, of users in the coming years, he adds. Firm leaders saw high demand while testing earlier versions of their platform.

“A lot of people want this ability,” Ambron says. “We can scale this.”

BrandYourself incubated in the Tech Garden as part of the Student Sandbox program in 2009 and is now a regular tenant. The
firm won the $200,000 grand prize in the 2011 Creative Core Emerging Business Competition.

The company employs 10 people full time and expects to add two to five more this year.

The time the firm spent refining its product should start paying off in the next few months, Ambron notes.

“The focus is the really important thing,” he says. “The hyper focus on solving that one problem and solving that problem very easily and simply.”