This morning, I found on the Web someone quite strange. Or maybe not.

This morning, for reasons not relevant here, I searched online the name “Aborishade”. Several of the first-page results had nothing at all with what I was searching, but were about someone named “Ahavel Aborishade”. Out of pure curiosity, I clicked on them anyway, and now I’m puzzled.

Who is Ahavel Aborishade?

Her about.me page (screenshot, archive.org) says that Ahavel Aborishade is “a business leader currently living in Los Angeles, California [whose] interests range from photography to technology [and also] design”. Her main website (screenshot, archive.org) says that (italic mine) Ahavel Aborishade is “a business leader, tech aficionado and an emerging entrepreneur in the technologic world. Focusing on building a better future for those around her, Ahavel uses her passion for technology and community to create nuanced applications that enliven daily experiences… The life Ahavel leads is a demanding one, but… she lives fully and with the pursuit of making a lasting difference”.

What does Ahavel Aborishade do?

As of October 9th, 2019, the main Google results about Ahavel Aborishade are 15 /20 articles, none older than January 2019, all along the same lines. A typical one is one at patch.com (screenshot, archive.org), titled: “Ahavel Aborishade: Be an Effective and Inspirational Leader (Jan 24, 2019)”. Another is at fooyoh.com: “Ahavel Aborishade Describes How to Link Your Brand with a Story for Business Success” (May 13, 2019) (archive.org) and here is a quote: “It’s essential to tap into your vision of how you can best serve your clients in a way that nobody else can. Intrinsic to this mission is connection, and there is no more profound connection than the deep human resonance of shared experience."

How do you connect with Ahavel Aborishade?

The post in which (full screenshot, archive.org) “Tech Aficionado, Ahavel Aborishade, Talks About the Most Valuable Tech Skills to Acquire in 2019” explains that:

“Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat are the mainstays of social media within the western hemisphere and provide an outlet to reach millions of people. Someone who knows how to use the marketing potential of social media is an invaluable asset to any employer."

BUT: the Contact and “Connect” menu entries in the home page of Ahavel Aborishade just go…

…to a form to “sign up for occasional stories and updates” and, respectively, links to practically empty accounts on just Tumblr, GooglePlus (GooglePlus!!!), Quora and Youtube. Ah, no: Quora links as reference… a GuessJournal post about some Mother’s Day Brunch.

Besides those accounts, another online search returned only similarly empty pages on Ted.com, Pinterest (1 follower), Blogger.com, and a 404 Crunchbase page.

Twitter? I only found four tweets mentioning Ahavel Aborishade.

Email? The only email address I found online for Ahavel Aborishade is ahavelaborishade@yahoo.com, from VisualCV.

Last but not least, the most surprising (non-) finding, given the kind of professional profile we are talking about: no LinkedIn presence for Ahavel Aborishade.

What is the background of Ahavel Aborishade?

That picture right below the bio of Ahavel Aborishade in a post on her own blogspot blog (screenshot), archive.org) comes from a stock photo of “woman using iPhone” at unsplash.com:

The post (screenshot, archive.org) in which Ahavel Aborishade “Sheds Light on Surviving the First Years as an Entrepreneur - Especially as a Woman” contains nothing autobiographic. Pretty surprising, given the topic. In general, as of October 2019, there is no content online about or from Ahavel Aborishade older than January 2019. Besides, no page I could find from or about Ahavel Aborishade mentions anything about which companies she founded, led, worked in, or any other specific credential.

How does Ahavel Aborishade work?

I find the lack of any readily available, specific information about the education, credentials and concrete entrepreneurial experience of Ahavel Aborishade to be quite surprising. So I find the fact that Ahavel Aborishade is practically absent on all the social networks where anybody with her line of work and declared experience should be regularly active.

I would have no problem to be proven wrong but… Ahavel Aborishade really seems a made-up character to me. And it doesn’t even “feel” like the pseudonym of some really existing, successful business person, in Los Angeles or anywhere else, who actually wants to give useful advice in disguise. May it just be a joke? In any case, the actual existence of the Ahavel Aborishade person, as portrayed in that website and About.me page is is not the most important issue here.

The really important and interesting question that everybody should ask is another: why there are some 10 different, apparently unrelated websites targeting entrepreneurs, startupper and business professionals in general, that merrily introduce and host as an expert a (guest) author without any visible experience? Are those websites for real?

Maybe the question is not “How does Ahavel Aborishade work?”, as much as “How does the Ahavel Aborishade SYSTEM work?”

What do you think? Please let me know your opinion, and the existence of other cases like this, in the comments below of via email.