3 ms·

I like this concept, but i so had the name first. http://techcrunch.com/2011/12/16/okcandidate-snags-okcupids-approach-tells-you-who-to-vote-for/ http://techcru

I like this concept, but i so had the name first. http://techcrunch.com/2011/12/16/okcandidate-snags-okcupids-approach-tells-you-who-to-vote-for/ http://techcrunch.com/2011/12/16/okcandidate-snags-okcupids-...

pjungwir 11y ago
It looks like my startup beat you by a week and a half: :-) http://www.fastcompany.com/1799193/disrupting-democracy-keya-dannenbaum-her-okcupid-politics-and-future-elections http://www.fastcompany.com/1799193/disrupting-democracy-keya... Apparently neither of us lasted though!
- erispoe 11y ago
  What's the business model you had in mind? It looks hard enough to even get people to vote, they are pretty disengaged towards politics in general, and I don't see how to base a business model on having people spending time fumbling with political stuff. Regularly we see new startups coming in with platforms where voters could engage and do x, y, z. I'm quite sceptical there is a demand for political engagement in the first place large enough to sustain a business model. But having gone through this, I'm really interested in having your thoughts on that.
  - pjungwir 11y ago
    Well with a few years of hindsight I'd say I agree with you. If we had figured out a business model ElectNext would still be around. (After I left my partner did keep the company alive by pivoting into reader engagement for online news, but in my opinion the vision of helping voters was abandoned.) Business models we considered: - Letting politicians pay to get more control over their profile on our site. - Letting politicians pay to turn on voter engagement features, so that voters could sign up for a mailing list, sign up to volunteer, etc. - We actually got paid by the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia to license our tech for some kiosks in their exhibit, but the integration effort wasn't really worth what they paid us. - We had some media companies interested in an embeddable "widget" based on our technology. I think the Economist and the Philadelphia Inquirer used us. This eventually led to the pivot. - There were plenty of other ideas, but it was all a long time ago. We were very dedicated to protecting our users' privacy, and also to protecting our own reputation as unbiased, so that took many ideas off the table. Taking politician money at all felt super risky, but who else are you going to sell to? EDIT: Also, you have to have a lot more users than we achieved, with a much more vibrant community, for any politician to even care. And unbiased politics is pretty dry. These days I think of politics mostly as entertainment, and we weren't entertaining. Politics is a tough space, and lots of VCs told us they flat out didn't invest in politics startups. I can't say I really blame them. For all the money in that space, it's not easy capturing it in a way that lets you sleep at night. The voters aren't the ones paying. Media companies are all struggling not to go bankrupt. Also a four-year business cycle is pretty rough.
    - erispoe 11y ago
      Thanks for your feedback. A lot of startups in that space seem to rely on building a large community of engaged voters, and then they'll figure out where to extract money, social media style. The problem as you point out is building that community in the first place, bacause we'd need a pivotal change in our politicla system for that to happen. Interested voters? There's not a single country in the world where a big chunk of the lectorate dedicate a significant amount of time to figure out how to vote. Money certainly can't be extracted for voters, I don't imagine people paying in one way or another to get tod who to vote for. Why didn't you follow the money more directly and create a product aimed at politicians or PACs? Couldn't the intelligence you built be used by campaigns? Were VCs curious about how you would eventually make money out of this?

pjungwir 11y ago

It looks like my startup beat you by a week and a half: :-) http://www.fastcompany.com/1799193/disrupting-democracy-keya-dannenbaum-her-okcupid-politics-and-future-elections http://www.fastcompany.com/1799193/disrupting-democracy-keya... Apparently neither of us lasted though!

erispoe 11y ago
What's the business model you had in mind? It looks hard enough to even get people to vote, they are pretty disengaged towards politics in general, and I don't see how to base a business model on having people spending time fumbling with political stuff. Regularly we see new startups coming in with platforms where voters could engage and do x, y, z. I'm quite sceptical there is a demand for political engagement in the first place large enough to sustain a business model. But having gone through this, I'm really interested in having your thoughts on that.
- pjungwir 11y ago
  Well with a few years of hindsight I'd say I agree with you. If we had figured out a business model ElectNext would still be around. (After I left my partner did keep the company alive by pivoting into reader engagement for online news, but in my opinion the vision of helping voters was abandoned.) Business models we considered: - Letting politicians pay to get more control over their profile on our site. - Letting politicians pay to turn on voter engagement features, so that voters could sign up for a mailing list, sign up to volunteer, etc. - We actually got paid by the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia to license our tech for some kiosks in their exhibit, but the integration effort wasn't really worth what they paid us. - We had some media companies interested in an embeddable "widget" based on our technology. I think the Economist and the Philadelphia Inquirer used us. This eventually led to the pivot. - There were plenty of other ideas, but it was all a long time ago. We were very dedicated to protecting our users' privacy, and also to protecting our own reputation as unbiased, so that took many ideas off the table. Taking politician money at all felt super risky, but who else are you going to sell to? EDIT: Also, you have to have a lot more users than we achieved, with a much more vibrant community, for any politician to even care. And unbiased politics is pretty dry. These days I think of politics mostly as entertainment, and we weren't entertaining. Politics is a tough space, and lots of VCs told us they flat out didn't invest in politics startups. I can't say I really blame them. For all the money in that space, it's not easy capturing it in a way that lets you sleep at night. The voters aren't the ones paying. Media companies are all struggling not to go bankrupt. Also a four-year business cycle is pretty rough.
  - erispoe 11y ago
    Thanks for your feedback. A lot of startups in that space seem to rely on building a large community of engaged voters, and then they'll figure out where to extract money, social media style. The problem as you point out is building that community in the first place, bacause we'd need a pivotal change in our politicla system for that to happen. Interested voters? There's not a single country in the world where a big chunk of the lectorate dedicate a significant amount of time to figure out how to vote. Money certainly can't be extracted for voters, I don't imagine people paying in one way or another to get tod who to vote for. Why didn't you follow the money more directly and create a product aimed at politicians or PACs? Couldn't the intelligence you built be used by campaigns? Were VCs curious about how you would eventually make money out of this?