Justin Romano graduated from undergrad in May of 2012, and like much of his class, he was ready to hit the real world swinging.
But there was just one problem: over the course of his career, Romano — like most young people crossing the threshold into adulthood — had built up a cache of all but incriminating social media photos and tweets and statuses.
They were nothing obscene — just your typical party pictures with beer in hand — but he knew he had to diligently scrub his social media profiles of any and all content that might jeopardize his job candidacy.
After all, misuse of social media can cost you.
It’s a problem millennials the country over are learning to cope with: How to take ownership of provocative, years-old content they’d all but forgotten.
And that’s exactly why Romano got to work on a new app called
.
“It turns out that early twentysomethings actually do value privacy,” Romano said. “They don’t really understand cyber security and privacy in that respect, but they really value the concept or idea of privacy.”
Snapchat struck a vein when their disappearing photo act exploded in popularity among teenagers and young adults a few years ago, and that popularity has yet to waiver since the company's launch in 2011. Backspace wants to build out a platform that better invests in the vogue of ephemeral content.
“We want to provide them a space where they feel safe in the sense of how long their content actually lasts,” Romano said.
It works like this: any content uploaded to Backspace will self-delete in 24 hours. But Romano has gamified the sharing process, as well, so any engagement with a post can extend its shelf life. If a post gets, say, thirty likes, it’ll live on the app longer than its original expiration date.
And depending on a user’s clout on the platform, a single like, comment, or share from influencers can add significant amount of minutes to a post’s lifespan.
Romano added that the app helps ensure a feed of relevant, timely content.
Backspace officially launched in the Apple Store in September and has about 600 users currently on the platform. At the moment, Romano’s works with two other full time employees and a handful of interns out of River North’s Industrious coworking space.
Romano said Backspace was formerly bootstrapped, but is currently raising funds for a $500,000 seed round.
“When we first started out, we had this big, crazy idea of what we wanted to do,” he said. “But the fact is, if you try to do too much with the first version of your product, you’re just going to confuse people. We wanted to pick one problem, and fix it with one solution. And we’ve been seeing that — so far, anyways — it’s actually solving that for the people that are using us.”
Photos via Backspace.
Do you know a tech startup that deserves coverage? Email us via [email protected]
