with Priyanshu Harshavat, CEOName of your Company:Socioclean
What is your company URL?www.socioclean.comWho are the founders of your company? What are your company roots?Priyanshu Harshavat and Hassan Qureshi are founders of Socioclean. Socioclean started at Technology Innovation Center in Evanston last May and since then has grown to over 30,000 users.
Are you a Start-Up or Growth Phase company?Start-Up
What gave you the idea to start your company? Did it just 'come to you' or were you noodling it for a while?n a 2009 Harris Interactive study for CareerBuilder.com, 45% of employers questioned had used social networks to screen job candidates. Thirty-five percent of them decided not to hire a candidate based on what they found. When this study started to generate press, Priyanshu Harshavat started to think about a way to help job candidates get their social profiles in shape before they were virtually audited by potential employers. The result is Socioclean, a program that scans social profiles for 5,000 words and phrases that are racial, profane, drug-related or alcohol-related.
Give us your Elevator Pitch!Socioclean lets users scan and monitor their social network accounts for inappropriate stuff that might hurt their online reputation.
What problem does your product solve? How does your product make life easier, better, more rewarding?The company addresses a widely-experienced pain: employers are now using social networks for background check on issues such as comments about prior employers, substance-usage, and general image issues that may come across as red-flags to a prospective employer. Job seekers, therefore, need help cleaning up their social media profiles so that objectionable material does not find its way to these background check scenarios, disrupting their chances of getting hired.
What makes you 'special'? How is your product different from the other guys... if there are any other guys anyway...Major competition is from the big players in the ORM space i.e. Reputation Defender, but the big differentiating factor there is the focus of Reputation Defender being on Google search results and Socioclean’s focus being on Social Network content. Socioclean is the first comprehensive solution for managing and protecting your online social network persona. Through Socioclean the user is able to scan their social network profile for any inappropriate content that might hurt their online social reputation.
Tell us about your team. Why those roles?Socioclean was co-founded by Priyanshu Harshavat and Hassan Qureshi. Priyanshu studied Information Systems and Economics at Rochester Institute of Technology, NY and Hassan has studied Computer Science at University of Houston. The three are passionate about Social media and are confident of making changes in the Online Reputation Management. This is Priyanshu’s second entrepreneurial venture with the first more focused towards delivering software solutions to enterprise clients. Hassan has wealth of Project Management and large-scale project implementation experience.
It's our kind of town too, but tell us why Chicago. What is easier or harder about being based in Chicago?Chicago has a big entrepreneurial community and we felt that the community is going to help us get established. Even though the startup capital is hard to find, but there is enough out there to keep us going.
Work Hard/Play Hard or The Early Bird Gets The Worm?Early bird gets the worm.
This one is all you.... Anything else you want to tell us about you, your company?Socioclean has been running a beta program since November 2010 and has got more than 30,000 registered users who have used the service. The traction has not been just from the United States (76%), but has been from all parts of the world (24%). During these trials, Socioclean has managed to get feedback from more than 2500 users on possible enhancements and successfully create a roadmap of future releases. Socioclean has also been able to sell the solution to University of North Carolina- Chapel Hill as a site license where all its students would be able to use Socioclean free for one year starting July 1st 2011. With the signing of UNC, Socioclean user base will grow to over 50,000 users. There are more than 11 colleges and Universities across US that have shown interest in the solution and are scheduling demos. Some of other big names that have shown interest are Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), University of Rochester, Rochester Institute of Technology, University of Chicago, and several others.
