You need three foundations before launching: technical capability, a defined market, and proof of results. Start by mastering Google's de-indexing processes, review platform policies (Google Business Profile, Trustpilot, Yelp), content suppression through SEO, and social media monitoring tools. These are your core deliverables. Pick a vertical where you have access or expertise. Personal reputation for executives and professionals typically commands $2,000-5,000/month retainers. Local business reputation (restaurants, dentists, contractors) runs $800-2,500/month but scales easier. Corporate crisis management pays $10,000+ monthly but requires PR credentials and a team. Your first 90 days should focus on pilot clients, not branding. Reach out to your immediate network—former colleagues, local business owners, anyone facing review problems or negative search results. Offer a performance-based pilot at 50% of your target rate. You need 3-5 case studies showing you successfully pushed down negative content or resolved review issues before you can credibly sell to strangers. Build your service stack around these capabilities: - Negative content suppression via owned properties (LinkedIn profiles, Medium articles, branded sites ranking for name searches) - Review response and resolution protocols for Google, Facebook, industry-specific platforms - Legal content removal requests (copyright, defamation, privacy violations) - Social listening and alert systems so clients know about mentions in real-time - Crisis response plans for when new negative content appears Don't incorporate or build a website until you've closed two paying clients. Too many reputation management startups spend months on branding with zero revenue. At Ottawa SEO, we've seen successful ORM practices launch with nothing but a Google Workspace account and a simple service agreement. Price monthly retainers, not project fees. Reputation management is ongoing monitoring and maintenance, and retainers create predictable revenue. Expect 60-90 day sales cycles for new clients since reputation work requires trust. Once you hit 8-10 retained clients, you can hire your first VA to handle review monitoring and response drafting. On startup costs: this is one of the cheapest agency models to launch. A realistic minimum kit is a domain and email ($100/year), one monitoring tool subscription ($100-300/month once you have clients; Google Alerts is free until then), a rank-tracking tool ($50-100/month), and a template contract reviewed by a lawyer ($500-1,000 one-time). Total cash to first client: under $2,000. Your real investment is the unpaid pilot work that produces your first case studies. Get the legal foundations right early, because ORM has sharper edges than general marketing. Your service agreement needs a no-guarantee clause (you cannot promise removal or specific rankings, and contracts that promise them are unenforceable liabilities), a scope line separating suppression from removal, and language making the client responsible for the truthfulness of any claims you publish on their behalf. Never draft or file legal takedown requests yourself unless you're qualified; refer that work to a lawyer and keep the referral relationship, since attorneys also become a steady source of client referrals in the other direction. For client acquisition beyond your network, three channels consistently work: partnering with web design and PR agencies who encounter reputation problems but don't service them, ranking your own site for "remove negative reviews" and city-specific ORM queries (your own visibility is also your best proof of competence), and monitoring review platforms for businesses actively receiving review attacks, who have an urgent, budgeted problem. Margins at scale are strong: service delivery is mostly labour, so a solo operator at ten retainers averaging $1,500/month grosses $180,000/year with software costs under 5%. The constraint is your hours, which is why the first hire is a monitoring and drafting VA, not a salesperson.