Type Private Founded 2010 | Industry Consumer web Headquarters New York, NY | |
Key people Co-founders Pete Kistler, Patrick Ambron and Evan McGowan-Watson Products Online reputation management | ||
BrandYourself is a US-based online reputation management (ORM) company. It provides software and services to help businesses and individuals out-rank negative search results with their own content and websites. It operates on a freemium model, where certain tools and services are provided without charge, but also offers paid subscriptions and professional services. The company was founded in 2010 by three students from Syracuse University after one student was allegedly mistaken for a drug dealer with the same name during his job interview.
Contents
History
BrandYourself was founded by three students from Syracuse University: Pete Kistler, Patrick Ambron, and Evan McGowan-Watson in 2010. The business was inspired by Pete Kistler's difficulty finding a job as a computer programmer in 2008 due to a drug dealer with the same name. His situation attracted attention in the mainstream media. NPR said the story about the computer programmer Pete Kistler being confused for the drug dealer became "the Internet's approximation of truth" through repetition, but they were unable to find any drug dealers named Pete Kistler.
Services
BrandYourself began as an online self-service tool for online reputation management with features that helped create websites intended to out-rank those with negative information in certain searches. It operates on a freemium model where certain services are free, but additional features are available for $10 a month. In May 2012, it set up a service that attempts to track who is making Google searches for a company or person using the service. Later that year it introduced a tool that evaluates Facebook, LinkedIn and company pages and provides suggestion on how to improve their search engine optimization. In 2013 the company, originally focused on students and small business with smaller budgets, began to compete more directly with its larger competitors by adding professional services. It also added a new user interface for its software and other improvements.
As of May 2012, it had 25,000 users and 1,000 paying subscribers. Syracuse University and Johns Hopkins University use it for their students.