Pete Kistler Email Address

Judge

Andrew McManus is the founder of McManus Entertainment, a global music promotion company.

In 2008 I had an online identity crisis. After getting rejected from several job openings, I finally learned why: employers were Googling me and mistaking me for a criminal with the same name. At the time, I only had one option: spend thousands of dollars on a reputation management firm. But as a recent college grad with $20k in student loans, I couldn't afford it. Frustrated, I didn't know where to turn.Luckily I was able to team up with Patrick Ambron and Evan Mcgowan-Watson, who had backgrounds in Search Engine Optimization. They showed me how to make my own content more 'search engine friendly' than the competition. After months of effort, I finally buried the other Pete Kistler off my first page of Google results. Although my problem was solved, I was outraged. Reputation firms were purposely mystifying the Search Engine Optimization process to people whose livelihoods were at stake. They were also overcharging something people could easily do themselves, if they simply had a platform that empowered us to do so. So we decided to put the power of SEO in everybody's hands.We began by prototyping the very first DIY online reputation management tool. Like TurboTax did for taxes, our product disrupted a traditionally service-based industry. With $0 spent on marketing, we've grown through word of mouth alone to half a million users, nearly 100 employees, and been humbled by several awards along the way.PRESS BIO: - 'Largest offer ever on ABC's Shark Tank' - Shark Tank ($2M, 2015)- 'Inc. 35 Under 35' - Inc. Magazine- 'Top 5 College Entrepreneurs of 2009' - Entrepreneur Magazine- 'Top 100 Young Startups in the U.S.' - The White House- 'Young Entrepreneur of 2011' – Small Business Association- '#1 Emerging Tech Business in NY' – New York State (won $200k prize)Specialties: User experience design, product management, conversion optimization, usability, online reputation management and personal branding.