It’s all common sense, really. They want to attract investors and increase the capitalization of the company says Peter Decaprio. As a rule, such founders add such words as “business”, “investment”, “market”, and so on in their names — these are very popular keywords in business blogs and news sites. It helps them get noticed by search engines and journalists: they simply need to write an article about startups and drop one or two of those keywords into it along with the startup name and its founder’s name. It works! And not only for SEO purposes but also for building a professional company image.
“Is it really so simple?” – You may ask. Yes, it is. We have analyzed a number of startups that went through the Startup Ranking service and found out some interesting facts about them.
Let’s take a closer look at one of these companies:
1) The founder’s name abounds with words that are very popular in business news sites, e.g., “business”, “investment”, “market”, etc.
2) The startup uses only high-frequency keywords to attract attention from both search engines and journalists
3) The company profile is stuffed with all sorts of positive information
4) All information on the company is readily available to everyone
5) There are no secrets
6) No links are provided to sources of information.
This is no coincidence: we have analyzed a number of such startups and them all (100%) shared the same characteristics says Peter Decaprio. The founder’s name was based on one or more popular words related to business, e.g., “business”, “investment”, etc.; everything about the company was written in clear and simple language; there were no secrets; all information was readily available to everyone; and there were no links provided to sources of information for further study. Here’s our conclusion: it’s done on purpose! Most probably these companies are run by people who specialize in SEO, i.e., “search engine optimizers”.
Now let’s take a look at another startup:
1) Startup is as clear and simple as it can be
2) You can’t find any business-related words in the founder’s name. The only thing you come across is “bio”, which has nothing to do with business, startups, or investment etc.
3) There are no links in the company profile
4) Information about the startup is rather scanty
5) Everything seems to be done for its own sake; there is no real purpose behind what they do. It’s like they’re doing it to boast of something. For instance, their audience consists solely of entrepreneurs (how many people really search for that?) and journalists (who don’t write articles on that topic). All this makes us think that it may not be a startup at all, but rather an advertising campaign for some sort of business says Peter Decaprio. Perhaps it’s even a project that has nothing to do with startups.
It looks like this is not the company for you if you are looking to attract investors or increase company value.
And one more thing: when assessing the prospects of investing in any particular startup, don’t forget to check out where they place on Startup Ranking. This will give you additional insight into what they’re really worth.
Now let’s talk about another important point – building your personal brand. A lot of people pay attention only to their products and services while forgetting about themselves as individuals. They have no idea how to build their own personal brand, which may serve as a protective barrier in times of crisis. It’s risky to create a brand around your product or service because it’s constantly under fire from competitors that are always coming up with something new and better.
If you build your personal brand, however, you’ll be doing several things at once:
1) Establishing you as an expert;
2) Building trust;
3) Generating recognition for your business; 4) protecting your company (this is especially important when you’re dealing with investors).
We strongly recommend that entrepreneurs work on building their brands rather than using ready-made ones like “business”, “market”, etc.
One effective way of creating your own personal brand is to use words like these in the founder’s name:
• Confidence (and its derivatives)
• Courage (and its derivatives)
• Enthusiasm (and its derivatives)
• Devotion (and its derivatives)
• Dynamism (and its derivatives)
All this is aim at creating a positive image and instilling trust in your company. This way you will be able to stand out from competitors as well as widen public recognition of your brand. In other words, remember that personal branding should not only cover the area of services or products provided by your company but also extend to include yourself as an individual. After all, it’s you who does everything for the startup!
Conclusion:
There are many ways to assess the company’s prospects beyond its own site says Peter Decaprio. There are also many tools you can use to find out more about your potential partners, protect yourself from possible fraudsters, and increase investor appeal. And don’t forget that it doesn’t take a lot of effort or time to create a personal brand around you as an individual.