Interview With Florida Startup: Yovia, A People Engine

Yovia is a new startup in Jacksonville Beach Florida. They call themselves a people engine that focuses on the people that make social media work.

Yovia takes brands, products, services and leverages them across a network of people who has signed up on Yovia. Yovia users can use their hard earned social capital for good. So how is this achieved?

Well after you sign up for Yovia’s platform you are presented with opportunities to spread the word about products, services and brands across your social graph and are rewarded. Your rewards can be in actual cash or free products or a combination of both. Exploring the Yovia site we found, and participated in several offers. The offers ranged from $6.00 for a 200 word blog entry to $.08 and $.15 for liking something or sharing something across social networks.

Yovia is a great way to drive brand engagement, and social engagement. There were news blogs that needed a like or share, and new services that needed signups. None of the offers seemed too outlandish and so far none have asked for my credit card information. It looks to be on the up and up.

Now eight cents and fifteen cents may not seem like a lot however if Yovia continues to grow quickly it will be easier to find higher paying offers and easier to complete more lower paying offers.

We got a chance to talk to Jalali Hartman, co-founder of Yovia in the interview below:




What is Yovia?

Yovia is a People Engine. We spread the word.
We were founded on the belief that an individual’s or business’ reach is valuable. It is an asset that can be cultivated and utilized for good, to spread the word about something and even for income.

Who are the founders and what are their backgrounds?

Yovia was founded by my wife and I. Tiffany was an executive in the surf merchandising industry and I was coming off my first start-up (Infopia) and just finished MECLABS (MarketingSherpa) get off the ground.

Tiffany has a very human touch and a flair for figuring out what is ‘cool’ on the web. She oversees our entire community and I manage the technology and business development.

Yovia really started out of necessity. Brands were coming to us wanting to ‘solve’ social media for them and we quickly realized that the most important element in anything getting passed around online are the people.

Social networks come and go. Advertising campaigns start and stop – but people are constant. We try really hard to not think about how many ‘users’ we have, but rather get to know our latest contributor. It’s about having the right relationship with people – where they are part of the process.

Where are you based?

We are based in the beautiful town of Jacksonville Beach, Florida. We’re about 6 blocks from the beach in a former fabric store that we gutted, painted, and filled with a bunch of computers.

What is the startup culture/scene like where you are based?

It is a very creative culture which is driven primarily by the local universities.. Jacksonville’s primary industries are the military, health care and transportation, so the economy has weathered well. The tech community as a whole is small but companies like Web.com, MECLABS, Taleo and Blue Cross attract lots of engineers and innovation.

Do you have access to the resources you need in your area?

There is pretty much no venture capital here. We pitched at the one firm, which is really more a group of super angels, and they ultimately said “Jalali, sounds interesting, but we’re railroad men”. We have been successful at raising angel money and that has sustained us well, particularly because the cost of living is so low. The main thing northeast Florida is lacking are experienced developers. It’s a great place to live and we’re hiring!

What problem does Yovia solve?

Yovia is trying to solve the problem of getting advertising to work on social media. There is an economy there that is unlike anything the world has experienced. People want to buy stuff and they don’t mind sharing but they don’t want to sell out their friends on facebook. We help the people cultivate their reach and we help brands introduce their messages in ways that are fun and natural.

Who is your target user?

We’ll take what we can get but we’re all about the underdog. We want people who are motivated and creative and willing to help us perfect our product but more than anything, we want to give money, purpose and even some fun to people. If you look at how much money is spent on advertising, and how much is wasted because nobody responds – we want to bridge that gap and put some of that money in the hands of the consumer, and give advertisers a real way to market via social networks.

All it takes to be a Yovia user is access to the Internet and right now we have about 17,000 beta users around the world. We have assignments each day that range from beta testing a new facebook app to taking a funny photo that will make other Yovia users laugh.

What is your secret sauce?

Our people and our algorithm for Social Velocity, which allows us to match opportunities with contributors in a way that gets buzz going. There are tons of social media tools and lots of networks to advertise on, but we’re able to generate results for advertisers, pass some of the budget on to the individual and make money in the process. This is because we know exactly how to get something to ‘go viral’.

What is one dilemma you faced in the startup process?

One dilemma? I had a mentor early on just tell me to get through it. No matter what is happening, keep marching forward. I also have a rule never to quit my job on a Monday and that has helped. Seriously, I think the hardest thing we have faced is trying to bootstrap the whole thing. Looking back, I’m glad because it forced us to innovate and always have the economics of the model as a focus. I also only have 2 investors, both of whom are awesome to work with.

What is one challenge you’ve overcome in the startup process?

Honestly I think the hardest thing in this startup and in the others that I have been a part of is just the mental toll it takes to push through for months and even years while you perfect and bring a product to market. I feel like on my 3rd round I am finally able to be open to the process, willing to learn and inflect if needed and most importantly enjoy the ride. I love to see successes and I don’t really care for the crisis’ anymore than the next guy but I think the key is to stick to it. Never paint yourself into a corner and expect some ups and downs. By establishing a clear mission and vision, we’ve been able to avoid getting tossed around by the highs and lows and having to react to every opportunity or challenge that comes along. The challenge when you are just getting going is to remain a market-driven company that generates revenue, not a sales-driven company that is all over the market with different products. If a customer comes and asks us to do x or y and our core product is z, it’s hard to turn down.

Who are some of your business role models and mentors?

I have to say I feel really lfortunate to have crossed paths with some great mentors. Without them I would not be where I am.  I try to learn as much as I can and always get their feedback on decisions and think it’s really important to seek out and learn from people smarter than you.

Currently I have got Darnee Phipps (CTO office, Microsoft), Alex Beskin (Director of Premium Services, TheStreet) as advisors and Scott Adams (Director of Fraud and Risk Management Riot Games) and Mike Nolan (Minnesota State University) as angel investors. I also learned a ton working with Flint McGlaughlin at MECLABS and early on was mentored by Randy Favero, one of original Netscape executives. These people taught me to expand my thinking, recognize my weaknesses and most importantly taught me how to scale the product and myself at the same time.

What’s next for yovia?

We’ve just opened up registration again for public beta. Even though we’re still under 20,000 beta users, the collective open graph of these people is more than 6 million just on facebook. That’s quite a few people to manage and so we’re trying to incrementally scale. At the same time we’ve had some great successes with the business model in that we’re able to deliver significantly superior results for advertisers than social media alternatives like Facebook advertising.  Currently we’ve got about 30 beta advertisers. We deliver people, not clicks and it makes everyone involved money. A day in the life here at Yovia: get more users, deliver them a better product and find sponsors who are in need of some buzz.

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