Scott Ferreira, Co-Founder and CEO of MySocialCloud
At 22, Scott Ferreira, Co-Founder and CEO of MySocialCloud, an online platform that allows you to store your passwords in one secure place in the cloud, has found success pretty early: Sir Richard Branson is among his fans, and the platform has recently been acquired by Reputation.com. I ask him where it all came from, where it’s going, and his take on the whole thing:
[ibimage==27585==Original==none==self==ibimage_align-left]Like so many great ideas, the inspiration was born out of necessity. “[It] came about when my computer crashed and I lost my Excel spreadsheet with all my usernames and passwords. Total nightmare!” Ferreira says. “And as I started to look for cloud-based services to use instead, I didn't find any that seemed like a reasonable solution to my problems. So I built a first version for myself and as my friends saw it...I decided to turn it into a business during the summer of 2011 just to give it a go.” And it paid off: before long, Sir Richard Branson (that charming billionaire of Virgin fame) took notice, with the platform attracting $1 million in funding from Branson, Jerry Murdock, and Photobucket co-founder Alex Welch, according to the LA Times.
Ferreira credits this success to a dedicated focus on building a strong, viable product, and to the close collaboration with his sister, Stacey (VP and Marketing), with whom he has been working on projects for a number of years. “We typically let the best idea for the business win, and are able to recognize it if one or the other comes up with that winning idea. We complement each other well.”
Engendering these complementary efforts has extended into building the rest of the MySocialCloud team, which Ferreira is quick to praise for their hard work and diverse perspectives – allowing for a high degree of collaboration, and varying approaches to problem-solving, which Ferreira cites as key: “If you are solving a real problem for people, they will use your product or service.” While he acknowledges that attracting and retaining users has proved challenging at times, he says that MySocialCloud is dedicated to building the trust that will retain clients and help them integrate the platform into their regular use.
And very recently, that trustworthiness has been proven in a big way – with MySocialCloud’s acquisition by Reputation.com. While the deal’s details haven’t been disclosed, it appears that the company will continue to operate as a standalone product. Ferreira hinted at a “shift in focus to helping grow out the enterprise and the Reputation Data Vault,” but was reassuring that the product’s consumer side will “remain up and running for the foreseeable future.”
At only 22, Ferreira’s own future is bright: both in continuing to build the brand and in applying the entrepreneurial lessons he’s already learned. While he says that some of those challenging lessons have come in the form of making personnel decisions, he values the people he surrounds himself with. “I think Elon Musk said it perfectly at South by Southwest when he spoke about making sure you not only work with intelligent people but also people who have good heart,” he says. “Those are the people who will step up when needed and create the change you want your company to be.”
Connect with Scott Ferreira on Twitter at @ScottFerreira
