Rye Valley subsidiary. GEO/AEO + SEO agency. Kick entityId 155413.
Business model and offers
- Standard offer, $1,995/mo: 1 blog article/day, technical site optimization, monthly press releases for backlinks. Currently fulfilled by a white-label provider taking ~50% of revenue. Client feedback: articles feel like AI. Being replaced by the in-house content engine (see decision Lore builds an in-house content engine, replacing the white-label provider); technical site optimization stays with the white-label engineers for now. Contract with white-label is fine, no notice/non-solicit issues (Michael, 2026-07-29).
- Reddit offer, custom premium pricing: posts, comments, subreddit creation/management using multi-year 1,000+ karma aged accounts. Fulfilled by a Reddit partner (only he has the aged accounts) for ~50% of revenue. Untouched, economics accepted as-is.
- Planned: YouTube video add-on: simple keyword-targeted videos, scripted + posted, faceless or AI clone of the client. Sell as add-on tier (roughly +$500-1,000/mo for 4-8 videos), not folded into $1,995. Embedding found YouTube videos in articles starts now; producing videos comes later.
Target market: startup founders (high standards for non-AI-feeling content).
In-house content engine
Pipeline workspace: ~/lore-content/ on the Mini (architecture.md there is the decision
record). Fable drafts, fresh-context AI review gate, human review by Ben in Slack
lore-content-review, publish via GitHub PR merge. Client zero: JOLT! (dogfood).
Repricing direction: tiers framed around outcomes (“up to X articles/mo, research-driven
allocation”), not raw article counts. Press releases being replaced by monthly linkable
assets with client input gathered via dedicated client Slack channels (NOT enabled yet).
Accounts
- Own Stripe account: connected (read-only key verified).
- Mercury: pending.
- DataForSEO: account active (registered michael@ryevalley.co, set up 2026-07-30), for LLM-mention/SERP tracking feeding Lore’s report product. Credentials in 1Password. Payment method setup still pending on Michael.
Open
- Team: TBD on this page (Ben is content reviewer for the engine).
- Client roster and per-client status: track in brain clients/ as they migrate to the in-house engine.
Newsletters
- Internalized belongs to Lore. beehiiv pub id pub_ae4ffe9a-2097-4afa-b17a-d064573609c5.
Domains (verified 2026-08-01)
- Production site: lorebuilders.com (Vercel, repo ~/repos/lore). NOT LIVE yet as of Aug 2026 (returning 500 MIDDLEWARE_INVOCATION_FAILED; fine per Michael, launch pending). Current clients all word-of-mouth or Megaphone expansions; site launch will change that.
- lore.co is NOT ours / not the production site
Origin (from Read.ai backfill, 2026-08-06)
Spun out of Megaphone Studio’s GEO/SEO client work. Domain purchased and LLC formation started ~May 2026; launch targeted end of May 2026. Emma Sivess built the free automated site-audit front-end offer. First GEO work ran as white-label under Megaphone (2x markup decided Sep 2025) before becoming its own brand.
Live views: Lore
Decisions
Recent meetings
| Date | Name | Attendees |
|---|---|---|
| 2026-09-30 | Haz Hubble Sales Call - Pally Prospect (Blake's Capture) | Blake Stewart, Haz Hubble, Michael Houck |
| 2026-09-30 | Haz Hubble Sales Call - Pally Prospect | Michael Houck, Blake Stewart, Haz Hubble |
| 2026-09-24 | Huddle w/ Emma on Aeon | Michael Houck, Emma (Lore, system audio only) |
| 2026-09-24 | Lore <> Aeon Discovery Call | Michael Houck, Emma (Lore), Matt Gorman (MSH International / Aeon, CRO + COO), Tomas (MSH International, Executive VP Revenue) |
| 2026-09-10 | Lore Next Steps | Michael Houck, Geo, Emma |
| 2026-09-10 | Realworld GEO Kick-off | Michael Houck, Geo, Genevieve Bellaire, Ochoadottie, Blake Stewart |
| 2026-08-24 | Agree.com Demo with Michael Houck | Michael Houck, Mona Darwish (Agree.com, GTM Lead) |
| 2026-08-24 | Lore Next Steps (Michael + Geo) | Michael Houck, Geo (Megaphone/Unlimited) |
| 2026-08-21 | Culineer GEO/SEO Strategy Call | Michael Houck, Geo (Lore/Megaphone), Jodi Frank (Culineer) |
| 2026-08-07 | Houck / Emil [Weekly] | Michael Houck, Emil Barr |
| 2026-08-06 | Houck <> Ben 1:1 Weekly | Ben Ornstein, Michael Houck |
| 2026-08-03 | Manse D2C Launch | Michael Houck, Alice Hansen, Geo, Blake Stewart |
| 2026-07-24 | Houck / Emil [Weekly] | Michael Houck (Rye Valley), Emil Barr (Candid Network) |
| 2026-05-22 | Site Launch and Brand Strategy | Emil Barr, Michael Houck |
| 2026-05-14 | Lore Next Steps! | Ben Ornstein, Emma Sivess, Michael Houck |
| 2026-05-07 | AI Agent Jam! | Emma Sivess, Michael Houck, Micro Meeting Bot, ben@foundingjourney.com |
| 2026-04-22 | Goodword Newsletter Catchup | Andrew Safranko, Ben Ornstein, Lara Kuhn |
| 2026-04-07 | Megaphone <> Goodword: Kickoff! | Andrew Safranko, Ben Ornstein, Caroline Dell, Chris Fischer, Emma Madgic, Emma Sivess, Lara Kuhn, Michael Houck, Micro Meeting Bot, Nina Lea |
| 2026-02-12 | Ben (Megaphone) <> Keycard GTM Ops | Ben Ornstein, Kelly Javanmardi, Kim Maida, Laura Johnson, Nina Lea |
| 2026-02-12 | Megaphone <> Keycard: Kickoff! | Andrew Safranko, Ben Ornstein, Emma Sivess, Ian Livingstone, Jared Hanson, Michael Houck, Nina Lea |
| 2026-01-26 | Megaphone X Wellput Catch Up | Craig Swerdloff, Emma Sivess, Michael Houck, Nina Lea, michael@ryevalley.co |
| 2025-12-17 | Megaphone x Big Human | Weekly Content TB & Brainstorm | Andrew Safranko, Jaclyn Yost, Steve Spurgat |
| 2025-09-30 | Recurring: EMIL´s BILLION DOLLAR PROJECT | Emil Barr, Grigorij “8664 Grigorijrichters” Richters, Jacob Shipley, Michael Houck, Tatem Lindner, jship18@gmail.com, michael@ryevalley.co |
| 2025-09-02 | Recurring: EMIL´s BILLION DOLLAR PROJECT | Emil Barr, Grigorij “8664 Grigorijrichters” Richters, Jacob Shipley, Michael Houck, Tatem Lindner, michael@ryevalley.co, jship18@gmail.com |
| 2025-08-25 | Quick brainstorm, Emil PR | Emil Barr, Grigorij “8664 Grigorijrichters” Richters, Jacob Shipley, Michael Houck, Tatem Lindner, jship18@gmail.com, michael@ryevalley.co |
| 2025-08-19 | Recurring: EMIL´s BILLION DOLLAR PROJECT | Emil Barr, Grigorij “8664 Grigorijrichters” Richters, Jacob Shipley, Michael Houck, Tatem Lindner, jship18@gmail.com, michael@ryevalley.co |
| 2025-08-05 | Recurring: EMIL´s BILLION DOLLAR PROJECT | Emil Barr, Grigorij “8664 Grigorijrichters” Richters, Jacob Shipley, Michael Houck, Tatem Lindner, jship18@gmail.com, michael@ryevalley.co |
| 2025-07-22 | Recurring: EMIL´s BILLION DOLLAR PROJECT | Emil Barr, Grigorij “8664 Grigorijrichters” Richters, Jacob Shipley, Michael Houck, Tatem Lindner, jship18@gmail.com, michael@ryevalley.co |
| 2025-07-03 | Michael Houck and Emil Barr | Emil Barr, Michael Houck |
| 2025-05-16 | EOW Catch Up | Andrew Cheng, Michael Houck |
Playbooks
| Name | Owner | Updated |
|---|---|---|
| Client asset intake (B-roll and media capture) | · | 2026-07-30 |
| Client transition communication (account/staffing changes) | · | 2026-08-01 |
| Connected tools inventory | · | 2026-08-01 |
| Email consolidation runbook (Workspace -> single org + ImprovMX forwarding) | Michael Houck | 2026-08-03 |
| Engineering workflow | Michael Houck | 2026-07-30 |
| Funnel design: lead magnet must map to a monetizable back end | · | 2026-08-01 |
| Sales/discovery call prep (live since 2026-07-30) | · | 2026-07-30 |
| State of the Business: September 2026 | Michael Houck | 2026-10-01 |
| Working with the company brain | · | 2026-07-29 |
Clients
No data found.
People
4| BOBen Ornstein | Editorial Lead / review gate |
| BSBlake Stewart | Client-Facing Lead (sales, partnerships, account management, agency support) |
| ESEmma Sivess | Vertical Lead, Lore (white-label capacity) |
| RBRafael Bruno | Engineering Lead |
Decisions
View all 20| 2026-10-05 | Migrate billing from Stripe to Agree.com | decided |
| 2026-09-24 | Aeon Proposal Scope: Website + Comprehensive Retainer | decided |
| 2026-09-10 | Realworld SEO/GEO Content Strategy - Re-engagement | decided |
| 2026-09-10 | Lore Two-Tier Pricing Structure | decided |
| 2026-09-09 | Lore cron outputs go to Lore Studio only, never Slack | decided |
| 2026-08-28 | Global Rye Valley client portal launched | decided |
Meetings
View all 36| 2026-09-30 | Haz Hubble Sales Call - Pally Prospect |
| 2026-09-30 | Haz Hubble Sales Call - Pally Prospect (Blake's Capture) |
| 2026-09-24 | Lore <> Aeon Discovery Call |
| 2026-09-24 | Huddle w/ Emma on Aeon |
| 2026-09-10 | Realworld GEO Kick-off |
| 2026-09-10 | Lore Next Steps |