Vote for us on KillerStartups.com!

December 17, 2007 – 6:11 pm by Josh

We got a nice review from the folks over at KillerStartups.com today. KillerStartups focuses on reviewing sites that they feel have the potential to be great businesses and then let their users vote for which are the best. They did a quick review of our site, list some reasons BeenVerified might be “Killer”, and then discuss some questions they have regarding the business. We all know why BeenVerified is great, so let’s look at the two questions they have and see if we can answer them.

Questions From KillerStartups:

Q. Given that a large percentage of eBay and online vendors reside outside the United States, will they want to pay significantly higher fees to be verified? (International verification is about 3 times as much).

Note: By “online vendors” they mean freelancers, job seekers, online professionals, etc.

A. Good question and one that we as a business evaluate on a daily basis. Regardless of location, all users pay the same price for an Identity Verification and verifications are the only aspect of BeenVerified which has different pricing. The reason we decided to offer our services to both US and International users is that in some meetings that take place online, just knowing that someone’s Identity has BeenVerified is comfort enough. For those situations where accomplishments like Education, Work Experience, Etc. become important, an International user does have to pay a slightly higher one-time fee. Usually though, a user who purchases International verification is putting them to good use and seeing a return on their investment.

From a business point-of-view, we are constantly on the lookout for how to streamline this process and make the pricing the same for all users. We have started looking into different levels of subscription prices so that a user can pay one monthly fee and order all the credential verifications they want, regardless of location. We welcome suggestions on what new users would rather see for pricing and take feedback from current users as well.

Ultimately, BeenVerified is a premium service that goes above and beyond what current online profiles can achieve, which means there is a cost associated with that service. Moving forward, we will continue to partner with localized verification services that can help bring some of our costs down for users that wish to use them.

Q. Are potential hires going to want to have to pay a fee to be verified given that traditional background check costs fell to business owners?

A. We are working on building out our service so that employers can PAY for their potential hires to receive BeenVerified accounts, while the user will still maintain control of their account. Currently, there is a small step towards that service through our “Request Someone Get Verified” tool, which as we move forward will incorporate payment and other add-ons.

Generally speaking though, that would only benefit those looking to get hired at big companies who can absorb the cost. A large (majority?) of people looking for jobs online are not always looking to get hired by Microsoft or GE. Freelancers constantly have to represent to small business and employers who they are (identity) and what they have accomplished (credentials), often multiple times a day. For freelancers and job seekers who want to take a proactive approach to getting a job, the cost of BeenVerified is pretty small in comparison to being successful in their career.

Thanks to KillerStartups.com for the nice words and if you haven’t done so already, go vote for us!