About Us

My name is Alex Kazlou. I’m the founder of Virthium.

This is the story of why Virthium was created and the difference it can make in your life and work.

Many years ago I was working the night-shift at a local bakery wile going through college. One of my job responsibilities was decorating cakes for special occasions, but I was rarely there when customers picked them up. One time I made a superhero cake for a little boy’s birthday. His mom picked it up the next day and I was told that she liked it very much.

That made my day. I imagined she took my cake home to the birthday party. She dimmed the lights, lit the candles, and while everyone was singing “Happy Birthday”, she proudly brought my cake into the room as the centerpiece of this amazing event. Everyone loved it, and it felt great to play such an important role in making that boy’s birthday truly special.

That was until I realized that none of it was true. It was just a figment of my imagination, an attempt to create a world where my work mattered. In reality, no one will ever know the true story of the superhero cake or the hundreds of others I made while I worked there.

What if I could capture that story? What if the kid’s mom left a review and I could own it? What if one day I could look at my profile and see something like…

“Everyone loved your cake and it made my son very happy. Thank you for making his birthday truly special!”

Honestly, I don’t believe that even the most charismatic leader would be able to inspire and motivate me as much as these few simple words could. And, if I was looking to buy a cake today, no amount of marketing would be able to influence me more than a comment like that. I truly believe these little stories are more powerful than any marketing message or management technique will ever be.

Virthium was created to capture these stories and harness their amazing power, so we can all shop with confidence, work with purpose, and run our companies better.

Companies spend millions on marketing and advertising. Yet, people still rely more on what other people say. Today, less than 2% of customers leave reviews, and even they have almost no reason to do so. What if there was an honest way to get a review from each customer?

That’s why we are introducing a new form of a discount called the Feedback Rebate. This is a rebate customers can redeem by leaving an honest review. This way customers get discounts, the businesses get reviews, everyone wins!

Every movie ends with credits that show the director, the actors, and the crew. Why not do that for your employees? Think of a RoleTag as an invitation for an employee to share her story and become one of the “cast members” for your product or service.

With RoleTags customers can finally see and get to know the real people behind the scenes. This is much more powerful and engaging than simply showing a brand name.

And, of course, connecting with the actual customers through their feedback is incredibly engaging to employees too. Imagine looking at your Virthium profile and seeing in real life how your work is affecting people’s lives. This can give you and your employees a whole new reason to wake up in the morning!

Just like social networks allow people to earn social reputation by posting great content, RoleTags allow employees to earn professional reputation by making great products.

Virthium is supported by its own members who choose to offer Feedback Rebates to their customers. We charge a 25% transaction fee to process these rebates.

For example, if you list a $100 product with a $10 feedback rebate and your customer buys it, they would have to write a review within the next few days in order to get their $10 rebate. If they do, we will charge you a total of $12.50, send $10 to your customer and keep the $2.50 fee. If they don't, you get to keep the extra $10 or use it to get four more reviews ($10 = $2.50 x 4). This means that your reviews will likely cost you very little if anything at all.

You either get a review or sell at the full price. You win either way!

This mechanism allows us to empower every one of our members to get more reviews very quickly and build an online reputation that is based on the quality of their products and services, not the size of their marketing budgets.

Virthium is free to join. In fact, most members will be receiving money via Feedback Rebates, so everyone reading this, please sign-up and check it out, or share it with your friends if you're already a member. We will NOT sell or share your personal information, show you ads, or send you spam because, unlike other platforms, our revenue model does not depend on third-party marketing. You are safe with us. You can also list your own products and services for FREE. We only charge a small transaction fee to send your rebates, and only if you choose to offer them. There are no contracts, membership fees, limits, or penalties of any kind.