Kyle
Over the years browsers have become much more intuitive. All of the commercially used browsers have a keychain feature which allows you to save your logins and passwords, and even pre-populates them for you when you visit websites frequently. The problem with this current password storage method is it’s a cinch for anyone who gets access to your computer to view all of your passwords. In fact, one of the only real negatives I have with Mac’s is that they keep a similarly unsecure key chain on your hard drive as well.
There are a few startups out there that are tackling this problem with various password vaults. Most of these options keep your passwords in one spot and you need to remember the password to your vault and then look up the password by service.
Los Angeles startup MyScocialCloud is looking to streamline this process for you by storing your logins in the cloud. They make your passwords easily accessible by a browser plugin or bookmarklet. The best part is that they also keep your bookmarks organized as well. You don’t have to go searching through a password vault to find the password. MySocialCloud gives you the simplicity of a browser side or hard drive based keychain, but in the cloud, and more secure.
We got a chance to talk with Stacey Ferreira, the founder of MySocialCloud about her startup. Check out the interview below:
What is Mysocialcloud?
MySocialCloud.com is an online platform that allows people to manage all of their logins and bookmarks in one secure place on the cloud.
In layman’s terms, how does it work? (In other words how would you explain it to your grandmother)
When you first visit MySocialCloud.com – grab the extension (if you’re using Chrome or Safari) or the bookmarklet (if you’re using Firefox). Then anytime you’re on a site that requires a username and password, click on the extension or bookmarklet. The first time you click that button you’re going to have to enter your username and password for that site, but the next time you come back to it – it will automatically log you in. No typing anything or clicking anything.
You can also save all your bookmarks by clicking the extension or bookmarklet too. Just type in a list name to save that link in, designate if you’d like to make the link public or private and then click save. Then you can always login to your MySocialCloud account to revisit all those sites from any computer or device.
Who are the founders and what are their backgrounds?
The founders consist of Stacey Ferreira, Scott Ferreira and Shiv Prakash.
Scott previously co-founded a non-profit, The Open Table, when he was 13 that helped individuals and families get back on their feet out of homelessness. A few years later, he was brought onto the JomSocial team helping to build the JomSocial platform. He was also a student at the University of Southern California for two years before taking a leave of absence to pursue MySocialCloud full time.
Stacey previously sat on the board of The Open Table, giving a youth’s perspective on how to solve poverty in urban areas. For two summers, she also participated in GRAMMY Camp, working to help produce live shows in Downtown Los Angeles. She also attended New York University to study Music Business in the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development for a year.
Shiv recently finished his masters degree at the University of Southern California studying big data and security. During that time, he also worked at USC working in their Internet Technology Department while doing machine learning research.
Where are you based?
Our offices are based in downtown Los Angeles, California – half way between Staples Center and the USC campus.
What’s the startup scene/culture like where you’re based?
Los Angeles has a growing startup scene, especially downtown. We’ve seen that Santa Monica has been one of the larger startup hubs in the past couple of years, but as downtown is starting to see improvements with places like LA Live the downtown area is starting to become more of a startup haven.
How did you come up with the idea for Mysocialcloud?
It all started because of the “forgot password” button that is on every website. My brother, being the organized person that he is, started saving all of his usernames and passwords on an excel spreadsheet on his computer. For quite some time, this worked for him and eventually I jumped on the bandwagon and used the same method once I figured out that keeping track of all my usernames and passwords used up way to much of my brain real estate.
But one day once my brother’s computer crashed, we sat down and started thinking through all the sites he used – all the usernames and passwords he lost once his computer died. There was no way he could recover all that information, unless it was stored safety online somewhere that was extremely easy to access. We had worked on a couple technology projects before, so we thought we’d set out to build a website that allowed us to store all that information and access all that information from any device.
How did you come up with the name?
My brother and I used to buy domains for the projects we would build together in high school. We literally sat down, looked at our list and just picked one that seemed like it would fit – that way we wouldn’t have to spend more money on another domain. It just stuck.
What problem does Mysocialcloud solve?
Anyone who has ever created an account for some website on the Internet has had the problem of remembering their username and password for that site. MySocialCloud, primarily, solves that problem. We save all your passwords for you and automatically log you into every site online that you have a username and password for. This way you don’t have to click “forgot password” a million times and don’t have to compromise your security by having the same password for each site.
What’s your secret sauce?
Our secret sauce is our dedicated team!
Are you bootstrapped or funded?
We started off as a bootstrapped company right when I graduated high school. During the summer between graduating high school and going off to college, we were fortunate enough to meet Sir Richard Branson (of the Virgin Group) because of Twitter. Just about a month later, he and Jerry Murdock invested in our company – and since then, we’ve been funded.
What’s one challenge you’ve overcome in the startup process?
I think the biggest challenge we face, and that most startups face are hiring adequate talent. You need people that are extremely skilled and motivated and that can not only hit deadlines, but exceed expectations to make the company thrive.
Who are some of your mentors and business role models?
One of the biggest role models we look up to is Sir Richard Branson, whom we’ve been fortunate enough to have as an investor for MySocialCloud. In terms of guidance and product development, Alex Welch has been an invaluable mentor for the team so far.
What’s next for Mysocialcloud?
In this stage, we’re always working on refining the website and its usability. We’re also working on building a mobile app to solve the login problem on mobile devices as well.
Linkage:
You can check out MySocialCloud
