About Rhody Reviews

Meet the founder.

Rhody Reviews is built and run by one person who cares about getting it right for local business owners. No faceless brand. Just the founder, and the tool he wishes his own clients had.

Steve Johnson, founder and CEO of Rhody Reviews
Steve Johnson Founder and CEO, Rhody Reviews
The short version

Why I built Rhody Reviews.

I'm Steve Johnson, founder of Rhody Reviews. I built this product after watching something happen again and again: good local businesses losing work to lesser ones, for no reason other than the other guy had more reviews. Before a customer ever calls, they've already judged a business by its reviews. So has Google.

Rhody Reviews exists to fix that for the people who do the work. It asks every customer for a review at the right moment, drafts on-brand replies you approve before they post, and pulls your reviews into one place. It runs quietly in the background so the owner can stay focused on the job, not on chasing software.

The product started in Rhode Island. The problem it solves is the same everywhere, so Rhody Reviews is built for local service businesses across the country: landscapers, plumbers, HVAC, dentists, cleaners, roofers, and every owner-operator who earns trust one job at a time.

I've spent years in local marketing and direct response, helping businesses get found and get chosen. Rhody Reviews is the tool I wanted for my own clients. It's brand new, which means you get founding pricing and a direct line to the person who built it.

The mission

Help the best local business win on reviews, not just ads.

The business that does the best work should be the one customers find and trust. Rhody Reviews gives owner-operators a simple, honest way to earn more real reviews, reply to every one, and show up when customers ask Google, or AI, who to hire.

Rhody Reviews is a product of Own The Box Marketing LLC, an independent marketing company founded in Rhode Island. Questions or want to talk through whether it's a fit for your business? Start a free trial or reach out, the founder reads every message.

Meet the team

One human, and the crew that helps him run it.

Steve Johnson, founder and CEO of Rhody Reviews
The human Steve Johnson Founder and CEO

Steve is the real person behind Rhody Reviews. He builds the product, talks to customers, and reads every message. Everyone below is an AI agent he built to handle the busywork so he can keep doing that.

The AI crew

Full transparency: these aren't human employees. They're AI agents Steve built to handle the busywork, so Rhody Reviews stays affordable and he stays honest. They'll never write a fake review, and they'll never pretend to be a real person. That's kind of the whole point.

Leadership

  • Charlie, COO (AI agent)
    Charlie COO

    Charlie keeps the whole operation running on time and on the rails, coordinating the team so nothing slips through the cracks. He's named after Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett's longtime partner and vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, who was famous for plain rational thinking.

  • Hopper, CIO (AI agent)
    Hopper CIO

    Hopper runs the systems, the infrastructure, and the builds that quietly power everything behind the scenes. She's named after Grace Hopper, the pioneering computer scientist and Navy rear admiral who built the first compiler and popularized the word 'debugging.'

  • Clay, CSO (AI agent)
    Clay CSO

    Clay handles strategy and new-product thinking, asking where Rhody Reviews should go next and why. He's named after Clayton Christensen, the Harvard professor who developed the theory of disruptive innovation.

  • Luca, CFO (AI agent)
    Luca CFO

    Luca keeps the books balanced and the numbers honest so the lights stay on and the pricing stays fair. He's named after Luca Pacioli, the Renaissance mathematician known as the father of modern accounting and double-entry bookkeeping.

Marketing and Growth

  • Gene, CMO (AI agent)
    Gene CMO

    Gene handles the words: the brand voice, the emails, and the way Rhody Reviews talks to the world. He's named after Eugene Schwartz, one of the great 20th-century ad copywriters and author of 'Breakthrough Advertising.'

  • Penn, CRO (AI agent)
    Penn CRO

    Penn owns outreach and keeps everything squarely on the right side of the rules. He's named after Christopher S. Penn, a leading modern marketing-and-data technologist and co-founder of Trust Insights.

  • Les, Email and Brevo Specialist (AI agent)
    Les Email and Brevo Specialist

    Les runs the email pipeline and watches deliverability so messages actually land. He's named after Lester Wunderman, the advertising legend who coined the term 'direct marketing.'

  • Rand, SEO and GEO (AI agent)
    Rand SEO and GEO

    Rand works on organic search and on getting Rhody Reviews surfaced by AI answer engines. He's named after Rand Fishkin, co-founder of Moz and SparkToro and a widely followed SEO authority.

Design and Legal

  • Brad, Lead Designer (AI agent)
    Brad Lead Designer

    Brad shapes how the site looks and feels, from layout to the little details you don't consciously notice. He's named after Brad Frost, the web designer who created Atomic Design and championed design systems.

  • Solove, Legal (AI agent)
    Solove Legal

    Solove looks after privacy, terms, and compliance so your data and your trust are handled the right way. He's named after Daniel J. Solove, a leading contemporary privacy-law scholar and law professor.

  • Della, Executive Assistant (AI agent)
    Della Executive Assistant

    Della keeps the trackers, the records, and the day-to-day details neatly in order. She's named after Della Street, the famously sharp legal assistant from the Perry Mason stories.

Infrastructure and Systems

  • Paul, DNS and Email Infrastructure (AI agent)
    Paul DNS and Email Infrastructure

    Paul makes sure domains resolve and email routes the way it should, deep in the plumbing. He's named after Paul Mockapetris, the engineer who invented the Domain Name System.

  • Liskov, Integration and Migration (AI agent)
    Liskov Integration and Migration

    Liskov owns the shared seams, fitting the feature lanes together cleanly and migrating things in the right order. She's named after Barbara Liskov, the Turing Award-winning computer scientist behind the Liskov Substitution Principle.

  • Corbato, Admin Systems (AI agent)
    Corbato Admin Systems

    Corbato builds the admin dashboard and the controls that keep everything manageable behind the scenes. He's named after Fernando Corbato, the computer scientist behind early time-sharing systems and the computer password.

  • Tom and Ed, Systems Analysts (AI agent)
    Tom and Ed Systems Analysts

    Tom and Ed run careful audit-only sweeps, comparing what changed so nothing breaks unnoticed. They're named after Tom DeMarco and Ed Yourdon, influential software-engineering authors known for structured analysis and the book 'Peopleware.'

Feature Lanes

  • Sutherland, Social Posting (AI agent)
    Sutherland Social Posting

    Sutherland builds the social posting tools, the scheduler, and the lite feed-and-story editor. He's named after Ivan Sutherland, the 'father of computer graphics' and creator of Sketchpad.

  • Katherine, Scheduling and Booking (AI agent)
    Katherine Scheduling and Booking

    Katherine builds the scheduling and booking features so appointments land where they should. She's named after Katherine Johnson, the NASA mathematician whose orbital calculations were vital to early US spaceflight.

  • Nelson, QR and Short-Links (AI agent)
    Nelson QR and Short-Links

    Nelson builds the dynamic QR codes and short links that connect the print world to the web. He's named after Ted Nelson, the information pioneer who coined the term 'hypertext.'

  • Strowger, Missed-Call Text-Back (AI agent)
    Strowger Missed-Call Text-Back

    Strowger builds the missed-call text-back feature, so a missed call turns into a friendly automatic text. He's named after Almon Strowger, the inventor of the automatic telephone exchange.

Each crew member is named after someone who shaped their field. It's our small way of tipping a hat to the people whose work made tools like this possible.