How to survive a market scare: 3 Lessons from Social Sentinel’s comeback
By: Natalie Sportelli, Content & Brand Manager
In this series, “How I Built it,” we’ll cover how founders have built (or rebuilt) crucial aspects of their business using a combination of trial-and-error, on the job learning, and key advice. For more on this series, check out previous posts on developing your brand’s voice and launching new product categories.
In October 2016, the ACLU published a report which revealed that Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram had given social media monitoring services used by law enforcement agencies undue access to their user data. The monitoring service in question was marketing itself, the ACLU found, as a tool which could surveil the social media activity of activists and protestors. Almost immediately after these findings surfaced, the data sharing relationships between the social media giants and (most of) the monitoring companies ended due to these violations of terms. But one company, Social Sentinel, endured because of what it did differently.
All the “right reasons”
Founded in 2013 by Dr. Gary Margolis, a former police chief with a background in education, Social Sentinel’s mission was grounded in safety and protection. It differed from other social media monitoring companies in that it sought to scan (not profile or investigate) social media content associated with educational communities, rather than with individuals or groups, for threats of harm and violence.
So when the market for social media monitoring products collapsed, Margolis’ business emerged largely unscathed. In that week of turmoil, he heard from the social media giants themselves. “I spoke to Twitter and Facebook and they told me, ‘We believe in you and your product and what you’re doing,’” he says. “Yours is not a surveillance or investigation tool and you’ve been transparent with us since the beginning.” That recognition was all the reassurance Margolis needed to forge ahead.
But Margolis, who had raised funds for his Burlington, VT-based startup from Lerer Hippeau and co-investors only one week before the ACLU complaint, suddenly had a second job. He and his team not only had to focus on growing their company, but they also had to rebuild the broader market. Today, with Social Sentinel’s momentum back and the market restored, Margolis has learned first-hand how to bounce back from a major market downturn, and how to guide a team through a pressure-packed period of uncertainty.
We asked Margolis his best advice on what founders should do if and when they encounter their own cataclysmic event. He shared with us three key requirements to help any founder persevere:
The right purpose
The right people
Knowing when to check your ego
Know your “why”
When Margolis founded Social Sentinel five years ago, there was virtually no market for social media scanning for safety and security. Competitors popped up over the years, mostly from the marketing industry, but they didn’t last for long. Few wanted to tackle the complex technology needed to solve the massive data science challenge.
After the ACLU’s report in late 2016, Margolis says he was largely left alone in the market he pioneered. “Most of our competitors went out of business and the market went cold. We still had our data, but it didn’t help because the market was frozen,” he says. “We had to unthaw the market.”
To do that, Margolis and his team went about restoring confidence in their technology by recommunicating its value to their customers. Namely, they focused on how, by flagging threats on social media and public data platforms, the company provided a way to find, prevent and mitigate harmful events in educational communities. The why, he says, was safety.
Accessing one billion data points each day to find the “needle in the digital haystack” — and then associate it with one client — is not something schools can do themselves, he explains. So as Social Sentinel headed into a period of rebuilding, Margolis says focusing on the “why” of what the startup was doing helped rebuild the trust of the market and maintained the company’s internal morale.
Entrepreneurs who are steadfast believers in their core mission can better weather bad events. For the former police officer-turned-founder, this meant reaffirming his goal to protect students using emerging technology. “We have a why and every founder needs a why,” he says. “If you aren’t clear about what it is then you don’t have a foundation.” That foundation is essential, he says, to remain stable and centered in the face of external, internal and, at times, extreme pressures.
Have backup
During his 20 years in law enforcement, Margolis was accustomed to having backup on call. He came to realize that founders have the same need. “When we were in the middle of it, I had a team of people who believed in our mission and shared my core values,” he explains. “I never worried that they didn’t have my back and they never worried that I didn’t have theirs.”
The right team makes all the difference to entrepreneurs when things go wrong. It’s less of a challenge for a team to function well and make mistakes when the company is scaling and revenue is flowing. But it’s hard to restore a business’s momentum when its leaders are facing doubts from the inside and outside. Or when the team you’re counting on doesn’t come through when you need them most. Social Sentinel’s core team could’ve easily panicked after the market crisis and left their founder for calmer waters at other companies. But they stuck around due to their belief in the mission, and Margolis’ backup helped the company get back on its feet.
Check your ego at the door
Founders who face sudden adversity alone won’t always fail. But they do make it harder for themselves. “You have to know when to ask for help,” says Margolis. Operators might find it difficult in times of uncertainty to show vulnerability to their team, board, and investors by admitting that they don’t have the answers. But Margolis realized from years of dangerous situations and managing crises that Social Sentinel’s success depended on contributions from people with skills and experience he didn’t have.
“I know there are things I’m very good at, and the things I’m not as good at can hurt us if left unchecked,” says Margolis. “I have to find, embrace, and support people who balance my shortcomings and complement my strengths — smart people who are good at what I’m not.”
In the two years since their industry collapsed, Margolis and his team have built Social Sentinel into the leader of a market that might not have made a comeback at all without their efforts. Today, Social Sentinel’s technology is responsible for protecting millions of people in educational communities across more than 30 states. The software is credited for saving lives, and with helping to avert numerous tragedies.
As nearly half of harm and violence in schools is telegraphed on social media, safety, security and social and emotional wellness remain an increasingly important issue for educators. The need for Social Sentinel and its technology shows no signs of slowing.
To founders facing their own crises, Margolis has some advice he learned first-hand: “Be clear about what’s important to you personally; about what matters. Know your why,” he says. “Check your ego by recognizing that leadership is about others and not you. Truly know these things and you’ll find yourself weathering just about any storm.”
