This is a question that I’ve been struggling with as I am in the midst of scaling my black-hat venture and taking on a lot more clients. Prior to this, I have kept my identity private and tried to maintain a level of anonymity online. I’m on the verge of launching a large content marketing campaign and I’m split between whether I want to continue using an alias or build a personal brand around this obscure niche as a whole.
I’m just a bit scared of some of the potential repercussions that may come into play. If this venture soon ends, I’m not sure how future employers will view the fact that I proverbially shit on many a software’s terms and conditions agreements. I’m afraid how that may impact my future career opportunities and whether I will perceived as an employee of a lower integrity.
I’m also afraid of how easy it would be for people to find me. That goes for both, trolls and corporations. Identifying me would be extremely easy. I’m a US citizen so if I were to be presented with cease and desist letters from Facebook or any other conglomerate, I have no option but to oblige. And by plastering my real name everywhere, it wouldn’t be difficult for them to find who to send em to.
But at the same time, I can see a massive amount of potential value from tying my personal brand to this venture. Even if it won’t be sustainable and social media automation dies, I’d have made a name for myself and a solid portfolio in the process. I’d have plenty more connections and a larger selling point if I’m eventually forced to re-integrate back into the corporate world of marketing.
I’m super ripped on this matter so I was hoping to tag a few of the more prominent users on this forum who have managed to build a personal brand around their black-hat ventures.
You would need to tell us the kind of “black hat” activity you’re dealing with. I often hear about black hat as it’s “against some ToS”.
Honestly, you can’t live in a pink dream ; this is the real world. Truth is, the ones that will tell you that your “black hat activity” is bad and might affect your future, are probably working for a “white hat” company that has been breaking the law thousands times to reduce their taxes.
Take home message would be to try being as much ethical as possible, keeping a low profile on some subjects, and try to avoid breaking the law as much as possible (that many people do without even knowing).
I think a question to ask yourself is how you promote your services.
If you’re not overt about how black hat they are, that’s certainly better than pinning your name to an advert that says ‘I’m breaking the law’
Honestly, I think this is exactly the reason companies are good for fronting your work. Plus, it’s much easier to scale a company than it is to make Bob Bobson Inc a $10 billion company.
That is actually a great topic, I must say that I don’t think that using jarvee or growth tools is to break the law or to be on the bad side, we are not the owner of any of the tools we are using (as much as I know) and they are open to public use. I do think that you must ask yourself a few important questions to answer yourself what should you do:
What is the future you imagine? in let’s say 6 months and 1 year period (who knows what will be 5 years from now, I’m not going too far haha)
You speak a lot about work for some companies, is there an option to go back and to work for other companies?
What is your real goal?
After answering all of that I think you will know what should you do or not,
I am a big fan of personal brands as it will be much more “easy” to build your name and people will trust you more, I invested hours days weeks months, and years on my content and it help me a lot
to be recognized with the black hat/jarvee for me it’s a big honor but of course each person and his goals and beliefs, always go with your hurt and not what other people telling you is good or not/
Yes thank you Adi. That was stellar advice. I’ll likely brood on it a bit more before making my decision but I’d like to say that you definitely have the personal branding piece down pat. Will be taking notes from you
