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Clarity

Patrick Ambron

New York City

-Founder/CEO of BrandYourself.com (Software that helps people look better online. This includes dealing with unwanted items--like an old divorce record or ill-advised tweet--as well has helping people build a stronger online brand )

-Over $20M in sales
-90 employees
-500K customers
-All with <$6M in capital raised
-Inc 30 under 30
-Contributor to HuffPost, Washington Post, etc
-patrickambron.com

$1.67/min

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Marketing Entrepreneurship Digital Marketing Start-ups Social Media Marketing Strategy SEO Market Research Strategic Planning Funding

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Product Design & Product Development

Our company has a lofty mission. We have to make a complicated process (SEO) dead simple for a mainstream audience (like your parents). Part of the reason BrandYourself has grown faster than anyone thought is how easy it is to use. We spent a lot of time understanding our audience, what they hoped to accomplish and designing something beautiful and functional that made it as easy as possible to do.

--The right way to design and develop the product
--how to build specs for your engineering team
--What's good enough to launch with, what's not good enough to launch with
--How to design with a specific user in mind

BACKGROUND:

We started BrandYourself when my CoFounder couldn't get an internship in college because he was being mistaken for a drug dealer in Google. We wanted to create a product that helped people improve their search results without spending thousands on a reputation firm

http://BrandYourself.com

Customer Acquisition & Growth Hacking

We had a simple problem--our product wasn't inherently viral. It wasn't fun like instagram, it's not better if you do it with friends. But we still needed to figure out ways to attract customers without spending a lot of money. Using press strategies, viral loops and conversion optimization we were able to break 100,000 customers in our first 2 months.

We've now generated over $20M in sales without spending money on marketing with the exception of $3K/mo in retargeting.

BACKGROUND:
When I was in college my coFounder couldn't get an internship because he was being mistaken for a drug dealer in Google. We wanted to create a software that helped people manage and improve that themselves without needing to pay a reputation company thousands of dollars

Despite no experience, was able to build the product, hire a team, raise funding and get over 500K customers in 2 years.

We're now over 90 employees across two offices.

http://www.patrickambron.me/we-unexpectedly-got-60k-users-in-60-hours-what-we-learned/

Fundraising for the First Time

When I started my company, I had no connections to the Valley. I didn't even know what VC stood for. However, I've been able to raise $6M from funds like Founders Fund.

Some Background:

I think I have a unique perspective for first time entrepreneurs with no experience because I was in those shoes just a couple years ago. I can help with:

--How to get in front of the right investors
--How to pitch, how to get them interested (every one of my investors originally turned me down, but later came in)
--How to negotiate, how much to raise, etc

http://betakit.com/2012/03/08/brandyourself-raises-personal-seo-tool-google

Hiring Your Team & Finding a Technical CoFounder

The most common question I get is "how do I get people to work for me, or how do I find a technical CoFounder". I am not a talented engineer (everything I know is by necessity)--I am a product design guy. That said, I know I needed the best possible engineering team possible. I wanted the best I could think of. I wanted people who could scale, people who had built something from nothing before, and who knew how to monetize product. Eventually I was able to bring on the CTO of match.com, who had recently just sold his own StartUp to them, another online dating site that grew to 8 million customers in 2 short years. He brought three of his lead devs with him. It is absolutely imperative you find the right technical team

--How to identify and find the right candidates
--where to find them (not a job board)
--How to get them excited and want to work for you
--How to get them to take a serious pay cut :)

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Reviews 1

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Reviews

Patrick is one of the sharpest entrepreneurs I know. Scratch that, he's one of the sharpest people I know. He has helped transform Brand-Yourself from a nascent start-up to a nationally acclaimed company that empowers individuals and businesses to proactively manage their reputation online. He did a masterful job of teaching me the strategy behind social media marketing, seo and product development while allowing me to learn and develop these skills on my own while interning for BY. His management style, passion for his work and aptitude for all aspects of personal branding have left a huge impression on me. Often I find myself critically assessing an industry article, project or news blurb and know that much of how I assess and critique situations stems directly from Patrick's tutelage.

Jim Armstrong Source: LinkedIn

Member since March 2013