The Political Campaign as Startup
The startup community has brought democratization to many industries. It’s time we applied democratization to democracy itself.
The startup/tech scene has taken the world by storm, with increasingly no stone left unturned and — much to the chagrin of purists — no industry left to its own devices. Working in venture capital, I’ve loved every conversation on insurance all-of-a-sudden being trendy, agritech (agriculture technology) and rural entrepreneurship as the next frontier, the giant cryptocurrency/blockchain debate and everything in between. So, what makes a startup? Despite the intricacies of a given industry, there are a set of underlying truths to a startup’s success:
· Momentum (shout-out to fellow Los Angeleno Mark Suster for The Four M’s) — VC’s often call this traction, which I usually describe to startup founders as pointing to a burning bush as proof that this (the opportunity to build a valuable company) is real and not imagined.
· Dream Team — An agile, visionary, scrappy, humble, and scary-smart crew with brilliant leaders at the helm and a team that can execute for days (along with other favorite attributes here).
· A Real, Addressable Market — Is this thing that’s being created (product/service) answering a demand? You’ll hear people talk about Product/Market fit. The market needs to not only exist, but be sticky and massive.
· Perfect, or at least Near-Perfect Timing — Timing isn’t only important in comedy. A startup could do everything “right” and still arrive at the wrong time for the market.
· A Brilliant Product — Oh yeah, that’s right. Startups do more than drink cold-brew-on-tap at standing desks. We actually work 24/7 (well, most of us) building a product that not only works but also sells, fine-tuning it upon collecting feedback, then building some more.
Variations of this list continue to appear using various terms and mantras many times over, paired with the long list of cliché startup vocab: Disrupt, Innovate, Hack, Roadmap, “Changing The World”, Ninjas, and Elon Musk (because rockets, right?). One of my actual favorites is ‘Democratization’. This is used frequently to describe a startup leveraging technology to make products/services available to a much larger population than the traditional industry allowed for, arguably bringing us into a more inclusive world. Healthcare, website design, transportation (a la Uber/Lyft and now self-driving cars), information, and financial advice are just a few examples of industries experiencing democratization by way of startups.
So, where do we channel this noble, democratic energy next? Our democratic system itself. Cue the political campaign as startup.
What I didn’t appreciate up until these past few months was the structure of a political campaign and how incredibly similar it is to a startup. Stop me if any of this sounds familiar to you startup peeps.
Startups are best known for being as different from larger, more-established companies as possible: small, jack-of-all-trades teams; a to-do list longer than my arm (and with an impossibly short timeline to complete everything); and, that rush of the fight for survival. If you have ever caught yourself saying ‘should we file with the city to let them know we exist?’ or ‘we need internet’ to a colleague, then you’ve worked at a startup.
For one, political campaigns start with a visionary crazy enough to say their idea out loud and still believe it can become a reality despite varying initial feedback and plenty of conventional wisdom to go around. Insert long, sleepless days/nights/weeks/months mapping out strategy, writing down ideas to either play trashcan-basketball with or add to work streams. Then, there’s the seemingly never-ending fundraising shlep only founders and fund managers can appreciate. Congratulations, you now have *some* money in the bank. You can now begin the rapid hiring and team construction process, plus all of the less-interesting-yet-ever-necessary operationalizing of said team. Don’t forget — strategy, communications, product development, internal management, fundraising, press, brand, office space, research, legal, accounting and HR need to all happen simultaneously, just to name a few.
After nearly a decade of working closely with startups in various capacities — intern, investor, and consultant to name a few — I found myself called to join Suraj Patel’s congressional campaign team.
As someone who often gets excited about the democratization of [insert some random industry here], nothing made me look more seriously at the definition than this last presidential election:
Democratization — the action of making something accessible to everyone.
Suraj launched his congressional bid this past October with a Vice op-ed addressing voter suppression, gerrymandering, and other bizarre voting laws making the act of voting disproportionately inaccessible to the population as a whole. In any other startup pitch, this would be the ‘Problem’ slide. Then, insert a ‘Total Addressable Market (TAM)’ slide of — oh, that’s right — just the population of the United States.
“In every facet of our lives except politics, we have grown more accustomed to a level of on-demand service that makes the process of acquiring goods easier and more efficient, while the voting experience hasn’t changed.”
— Suraj Patel
It’s time we applied the approach and talent pool of modern-day startups to political campaigns and our voting process.
This requires building high-quality products (policy and content) based on market demand and feedback (directly from voters), while scaling (growing voter turnout) and building for the future. Suraj’s campaign is doing all of this and much, much more, gathering significant momentum (WSJ, Politico) with sights set on registering new voters, applying new energy and ideas to the NY-12 district, and writing a playbook for the New Electorate.
I’m infinitely inspired, energized, and more driven than ever to be part of the democratization of our democracy. And, in the spirit of any good startup, I have the midnight coffee pot going.
Want more? Email me: Monique [at] SurajPatel.NYC
P.S. Like the startup that we are, we have super cool swag. I can’t wait to rock ‘Political Campaign’ at SXSW Interactive. Be there or be square.
