Christopher Manavi at the young age of 28 single-handedly created an entire industry, one that is now estimated to be worth over a billion dollars. His claim to fame is reputation management, online to be specific. Originally a PR term, reputation management was conjured up by Christopher Manavi as an SEO or search-engine optimization expert in 2009 during the advent of SEO. He believed that one day an individual’s identity online would be a person’s most prized possession and its protection would become sacrosanct. Time would prove him right.
Having sold his company Sell Net Media LLC for over $10M, Christopher Manavi has since spread himself into a multitude of different markets including the mobile application space owning a percentage of the popular texting and calling application Pinger. Furthermore, he also owns a stake in the popular dating empire Plenty of Fish acquired after helping focus and streamline their out-of-whack search-engine optimization layout they stewed in famously for years. Christopher Manavi has been one of the most successful entrepreneurs coming out of this new generation. Today, we’ll take a look at how Christopher Manavi turned an idea into an industry and tidy 8-figure profit.
It was around 2009 when Christopher Manavi was just 20 years old that he became deeply engrossed in SEO or search-engine optimization. Attending UC Berkeley, he didn’t have much extra time for a formal hourly job, so he decided to look to the internet for a way to make money while in school. He taught himself SEO and quickly became the leading figure in the space. He discovered Page Rank and how to apply it to make one’s own sites rise quickly in the search engine algorithm. This quickly became a staple SEO technique that is still implemented today as Domain Authority. He also set the standard for what’s known as exact match domains, where certain TLD’s or top level domains would rank more quickly if and exact match to the keyword it was ranking for was employed.
While everyone else was figuring out how to rank websites consistently during the time Google’s search algorithm was constantly being updated, Christopher Manavi noticed something. If it was possible to rank a single website, wouldn’t it be possible for critics, competitors, and detractors to rank damaging websites as well? Keep in mind this was during the time Yelp and other review sites were beginning to bourgeon in popularity. He knew that one day the keyword results for ones business would be sacrosanct and vigilantly maintained.
This thinking was light years ahead of the times; however Christopher Manavi positioned himself and his company in a space he termed reputation management, or online reputation management. Within a few years this turned into a a major industry, now worth an estimated billion dollars per year with thousands of companies operating in this space. It’s Christopher’s creative intuition that has been his unique calling card in business. He was similarly able to help Pinger become the most downloaded application in the alternative texting & calling market. Mark Cuban has called him “an Internet guy we all should follow closely.”
I’ve been in the industry following technology focused entrepreneurs a long time and I’m certain we have a lot more to see from Christopher Manavi. Only in his 20’s, he has already accomplished more than most will go on to accomplish in an entire lifetime. According to various sources he is currently moving into the investments and financial sectors. In what capacity? We don’t know yet; however, I’m positive it’ll be something many will be talking about very soon.
