Michael's Journey: Digital Ownership with ScoreDetect.com

Michael's journey began with a clear vision: addressing the rising issues of copyright infringement and intellectual property fraud exacerbated by the rapid advancement of AI.

"The rise of AI has caused several multi-million dollar copyright infringements," he notes, pointing to high-profile cases like OpenAI versus The New York Times and disputes involving major music labels.

Frustrated by the existing solutions, Michael observed that "there are only a few companies out there," but their services were "extremely slow, expensive, outdated" and marked by poor customer support. "I have tried to reach out to them several times but they had poor customer support (little to no response rate)," he recalls.

This dissatisfaction drove him to create a solution that would address these critical gaps.

Michael's answer to these challenges is ScoreDetect.com, a platform that leverages blockchain technology to offer a secure and cost-effective way to prove ownership of digital content.

"We are the most cost-effective platform on the market that we know of," he asserts. The recent introduction of the “Timestamps” plugin for WordPress represents a significant advancement in making this technology accessible and user-friendly.

Finding the Right Audience

ScoreDetect.com caters to a broad audience, including both B2B and B2C markets. "We have seen a rise in B2B businesses wanting our solution for their customers," Michael explains. His approach involves placing the solution where it can directly address users’ needs, primarily through search intent.

The platform supports custom integrations and aims to save businesses time and money in engineering, provide advanced IT support, and create solid engineering documentation. Michael highlights, "We support creating custom integrations for business requirements," underscoring the platform’s flexibility and commitment to meeting diverse needs.

The path to establishing ScoreDetect.com has been marked by challenges, but Michael views these as opportunities for growth. “Being a founder has certainly meant changing the word ‘failure’ into ‘lessons’,” he reflects. The support from communities on Twitter and Reddit has been particularly valuable.

“I am surprised by the amount of amazing human beings who motivate others to look towards learning lessons rather than quitting easily.”

Balancing his professional and personal life has been crucial. Michael has managed to improve his health, work diligently, and maintain strong personal relationships.

"I see that being a ‘founder’ means being great in all aspects of life," he says. His approach includes embracing gratitude daily and maintaining a balanced lifestyle.

Funding the Vision

Michael chose to bootstrap ScoreDetect.com, allowing him to maintain control and flexibility.

“As a software engineer, it helped that I can code the product very early, so that I can validate the idea,” he explains. This choice also allowed him to balance his personal life with professional goals. “I planned to have a baby in the next 1-2 years, which meant that I could not sacrifice commitment between my personal life and meeting time-based objectives for investors.”

In the short term, Michael aims to empower users to verify digital content's authenticity without relying on trust alone. “We want people to make a decision themselves without ‘assuming trust’ in a piece of content, website, company, news, or other digital assets,” he explains.

Looking ahead, his long-term goal is to establish a system of “independent integrity” for digital files and text. “We need ‘file or text fingerprints’ at points in time, to create a timeline of ‘file and text authenticity’,” Michael envisions.

This will provide robust evidence of originality, especially in legal contexts where fraud and counterfeiting are becoming more common.

Michael's journey with ScoreDetect.com showcases his commitment to innovation, resilience, and a deep understanding of the challenges facing digital content owners today.

Want to find out more about what Michael's working on? Head over to scoredetect.com.