Welcome to the Startup Spotlight, where we give our supporters a chance to walk the walk and uplift the startup community! In this interview series, different local startups meet with an interviewer to help us learn more about them and ways to support them. 

Populist is a civic data and engagement platform that delivers clear, non-partisan information on elections, politicians, and legislation to citizens and organizations. Our business model targets organizations like media companies with a subscription model SaaS product that makes it easy to embed our civic data as engaging visual content, helping them expand their coverage with fewer resources.

Website

Founded: 2020

Industry: Civics / Public Service

Startup Mission: Make democracy accessible through non-partisan government information.

The Interview

Tabitha – BSW Team – Interviewer

So let’s go ahead and get started. I would like to start by asking if you can just tell me a little bit about Populist and what it is that you do.

Henry – Populist – Interviewee

Sure. So Populist is a civic data platform that is really focused on making civic information more accessible, usable, and easy to manage. So we started off with focusing on creating a product for citizens, basically making it easier for them to access what’s on their ballot so that they can better research what’s on their ballot and be better informed voters. They can, say, type in their address and then click on a candidate that’s running for an office and see what their voting record is, their donor information, organizations that endorse them, their bio, and other information like that.

And we’ve got a large vision and definitely an ambitious vision for what we’re trying to build and we’ve kind of shifted and pivoted from just a citizen-directed product toward more of a larger organization product. We collect all the civic data on politicians, on elections, on legislation and we also make that civic data available to organizations to not only access, but to use. So an example is that our first customer is Minnesota Public Radio. And they’re using our platform to supplement their reporting. So they’re able to embed in their articles a piece of legislation, or politicians, or election information with data from our platform as visual content in their web pages. So it’s an easy way for them to create more engaging visual content on their articles.

Tabitha – BSW Team – Interviewer

Ok, that is so amazing. Yeah. How is it that you are connected with them first, just out of curiosity?

Henry – Populist – Interviewee

Yeah. So we did a networking kind of startup conference a couple years ago and we got connected with someone from American Public Media Group, which is kind of the umbrella organization of Minnesota Public Radio. And he was interested in what we’re working on. And he connected us with NPR because Minnesota is one of the most politically active constituencies in the US. They consistently have the highest voter turnouts and people are just very engaged in what’s going on in politics in Minnesota. So NPR was excited to work with us. And we developed that relationship from there.

Tabitha – BSW Team – Interviewer

Wow, very interesting. Then what made you get involved? Was it the political angle? Was it something that you just cared passionately about, or was it more of the business angle?

Henry – Populist – Interviewee

Well, it was definitely the kind of activism angle. When I first moved to Colorado, I got involved in activism. My background is actually in advertising and creative direction and product design. I had worked and lived in New York for a while, working as an art director and creative director. And when I moved to Colorado, I got involved in an environmental campaign and was helping to lead that campaign as a creative director. It was an all-volunteer grassroots environmental initiative. It was actually a ballot initiative that was seeking to move fracking and oil & gas development away from schools, housing, and things like that to better protect the health and safety of Coloradans.

Tabitha – BSW Team – Interviewer

Ok. Yeah, and right, it looks like you have been around since 2020. Have you just been growing ever since? When did you bring on the Minnesota client?

Henry – Populist – Interviewee

That was in 2022, so a couple years ago and they’ve been a great advocate of ours. That’s been really great for us. I look at this as a slow growth thing we want to do. You know we’re raising right now. We’re looking to raise the pre-seed because we’re still bootstrapping it ourselves right now. But looking and hoping to be able to fundraise to be able to scale up our operations. And right now we’re in Minnesota and Colorado. Minnesota, we’re in pretty deeply, but Colorado, we haven’t found a customer yet. So we’re working on sales as well as fundraising.

Tabitha – BSW Team – Interviewer

Well, OK, very cool. I could pretty clearly see what would be considered a win, in funding, but what does a win look like to you?

Henry – Populist – Interviewee

So yeah, a win, obviously, getting fundraising for any startup would be a great win. I was thinking about this and, you know, for a win, I think as an entrepreneur, one of the lesser talked about challenges is kind of the mental health aspects of it. You know, there’s so many different things that, as a founder, you need to have your eyes on and be working on. My to-do list is never-ending. Part of that is also managing that motivation and keeping the momentum going. And so a win for me really, I try to keep that bar really low for wins. So it’s like anything – crossing off anything on my to-do list I consider a win. I take whatever little step it is that I can build on. That is really important for creating that momentum and being able to, you know, just keep crossing those to-do’s off.

Tabitha – BSW Team – Interviewer

Oh, that’s awesome. I think that’s a healthy mindset, for anybody really. You know, it’s an optimistic mindset.

Henry – Populist – Interviewee

Yeah, absolutely.

Tabitha – BSW Team – Interviewer

Yeah. Well, then I guess what’s the recent win you’ve had?

Henry – Populist – Interviewee

So that said, I mean the recent win is we resigned our contract with Minnesota Public Radio for this year. So that’s exciting, with 2024 being a big election year. So we are excited to get them on board for this year and increase our revenue.

Tabitha – BSW Team – Interviewer

Nice, yeah.

Henry – Populist – Interviewee

Actually, so our pricing model is $20,000 per year and they get access to our platform and are able to embed that, so.

Tabitha – BSW Team – Interviewer

Oh wow. Well, that’s a big checklist item right there.

Henry – Populist – Interviewee

One win.

Tabitha – BSW Team – Interviewer

Yeah.

Henry – Populist – Interviewee

Yeah. So that’s a nice checklist item. And yeah, we’re working with a PMG American Public Media Group to see if we can get more of their affiliates on board. CPR, Colorado Public Radio, is also one of their affiliates, so using those network connections to pitch them, get our foot in the door, and see if we can turn that into another revenue-generating client.

Tabitha – BSW Team – Interviewer

Oh, that’s cool. Yeah. Then I guess, kind of tied in with that, what is the biggest challenge that you face?

Henry – Populist – Interviewee

Yeah. So I talked about how we’re in Minnesota and Colorado. Those are the first two states that we’re in. One of the biggest challenges is the aggregation of our data and how we collect that data because it’s an incredibly large data set that we’re looking to bring into our platform. Minnesota actually makes it easy for us to bring that data, because it’s all centralized in the Secretary of State’s office.

Because we actually not only just focus on federal and state, but also on local levels. So all the races down to, like, school board, and your City Council, and the sheriff. We really believe that those local races are important. Local, in general, is really important for people to be aware of, and also where the biggest gap in information is. So in Minnesota, we have federal, state, and local information on all the elections and politicians.

But in Colorado – well, every state handles their data in a different way, which makes it a challenge to be able to have any kind of standardization. And in Colorado, for instance, every municipality handles their election data differently. So the Colorado Secretary of State doesn’t actually have it. There’s no single source of information for local election data. So for instance, Colorado Springs and Denver, for those municipalities you have to go to each of those municipality websites to get the election data.

So, long story – this is maybe rambling into a little bit more detail than you’re looking for – but basically, in Colorado we only have the federal and state information right now for elections. We have some of the bigger markets like Denver and Aurora – we’ve ingested some of that data, but to be able to really reach our vision of having all three levels, federal, state and local data across the US is a big data challenge. So that’s part of the scaling up and why we’re raising funds. And then being able to source and structure all that data.

Tabitha – BSW Team – Interviewer

Well is it, you don’t have the access because it’s locked down? Is it a legislative thing that you would have to be able to do to get access to the data, or–?

Henry – Populist – Interviewee

No. So all that data is actually required to be publicly available. But basically, if it’s not all handled in one place, like at the Secretary of State Office in Minnesota, then we have to go to every single municipality to grab that data from. So in Colorado, that’s every city, every town in Colorado, we’d have to individually go and access that data. And each of those municipalities handle their data in a different way. So there’s no standardization across the board. And that, yeah, that makes it really challenging to collect that local data.

Tabitha – BSW Team – Interviewer

Oh man. Could AI help with that?

Henry – Populist – Interviewee

Well, AI, I mean AI can help with a lot of different things. I mean it will help with creating the code for scrapers to do that, but scraping only gets you so far. Ideally we’d like to get direct sources to that information, so yes it can. But yeah, we actually have a strategy for getting there.

So I mentioned before that we started with a citizen product and then we moved to build out our organization-marketed product with our, as I described, with what we’ve our platform that we’ve sold to Minnesota Public Radio. And the third part of that vision is a government product. We haven’t yet built it, but it’s on our road map to build election management software for small municipalities to help them better manage their elections. So the process of candidates that are sending in their forms to be on the ballot, helping them do things like that. So then we’re able to get a direct source for that local data that’s hard to grab. And then it’s also another revenue stream as well.

Tabitha – BSW Team – Interviewer

Yeah. OK. Very interesting. So what are one or two of your company values and what do those mean in your own words?

Henry – Populist – Interviewee

Yeah. So. I think the biggest thing is that we really believe in people and that people inherently want to do good and make a positive impact. And if given the opportunity and the access to transparent, nonpartisan information that they’ll be better voters, and being a better informed voter will help them to make better decisions. So I think that belief is one of the driving factors in making information more available to people. And not only that, but making it easy for them to take action because right now it’s so easy to be disenfranchised. I mean, with this big election coming up, you see with the politics, it’s easy for people to feel like their vote doesn’t matter. And so it’s even more important to make it easier for them to feel better informed about what their vote is doing and showing the direct connections between what their vote directly leads to. What policy decisions are being made that are actually impacting them.

An example would be like in 2016. I mean obviously a big election, but you see a lot of disenfranchisement and people that didn’t vote because they were not happy with the Democratic Party and with Hillary Clinton. And then you can draw a direct correlation between that and, you know, the erosion of abortion rights. Because Donald Trump came to power, he was able to basically choose who the Supreme Court justices were. And people that say, “oh, my vote doesn’t matter,” – it’s like, no. That’s a direct line to see the impacts of how you’re not voting or however you decide to vote. Also – we’re nonpartisan, so this is just an example. I actually consider myself Independent. I’m just using this as an example for drawing those connections between how voting actually does make a difference in terms of day-to-day.

Tabitha – BSW Team – Interviewer

Well, I definitely believe you when you say that you know that those are the values that you truly believe in.

I could see how what you’re doing would add the kind of visibility that would make people trust the system a whole lot more, so that’s a big step. So then I mean, you kind of already answered this – I mean that is definitely something we would want the community to know about you. But what else should the community know about you?

Henry – Populist – Interviewee

Well, I think I would emphasize that local is really important to us. It’s also the biggest challenge – being able to, you know, source that information about local politics. How often do you look at your ballot and you see the City Council members and wonder how you’re supposed to make a decision on who to vote for. Or, you know, my local sheriff or judges or whatever. And I think that that’s where we can see the most direct impact of our decisions and our actions. And so I think it’s important to focus on that because it can help people to actually feel like what they’re doing matters. And I think that’s a really important part of what we’re building in the part of participatory democracy. And yeah, so that’s a big challenge. And getting involved in your community and your local community is also really important. So we want to help people be able to find ways to take action and get involved.

Tabitha – BSW Team – Interviewer

Absolutely. Well, you talk about, you know, the biggest challenge that you’re having is all of the data, but at least if you can help people. I mean everyone is having all of this. Citizens are having that issue with data overload. And if you can help distill the data down for them – make it clearer – then I think that would be a huge help for all of us when we’re voting.

Henry – Populist – Interviewee

Yeah, I like to joke around that, yeah, it’s no big deal – our mission is just to save democracy. But it’s a very ambitious goal. And you know, with where we’re at, we’re trying to take it just – again aligned with what I was saying before about what a win is for us – it’s like you have to break it down into small steps. Otherwise it’s too easy to get discouraged about what’s going on. Not only for just working on a startup, but also in our society too.

Tabitha – BSW Team – Interviewer

Oh, yeah. Yeah. So you have your head on straight about that for sure. Well, then how can the startup community and the broader Boulder community support you?

Henry – Populist – Interviewee

Well, you know, it’s been really great just going to these meetup events, like 1 Million Cups. We’re pitching there on Wednesday and then, you know, going to other networking events in Denver as well as Boulder and the local community. It’s really great to meet other founders. And then also networking and fun. I think it’s such an important part of any founder’s journey. Which is to do that networking and build support and awareness of what we’re building. And you know, it’s part of raising money, so I think just continuing that networking and tapping into the Boulder community to see if we can raise that pre-seed, whether it’s from an impact investor – I know there’s actually quite a few impact investors in Colorado – or just traditional investment as well. That and then also just spreading the word to get people to use our platform.

Tabitha – BSW Team – Interviewer

Awesome. Yeah, well, I hope this is your moment. I think it is. Well, and I definitely want to end up with some of our rapid-fire questions. So if you don’t mind, say the first thing that comes to mind.

Let’s go. So what is your favorite weekend activity?

Henry – Populist – Interviewee

Favorite weekend activity? You know, I’d have to say that going to a dance party and just cutting loose, listening to music or going to shows and getting my dance on on a dance floor.

Tabitha – BSW Team – Interviewer

Nice. Ok. Do you listen to music while you’re working? And if so, what?

Henry – Populist – Interviewee

I definitely listen to music as I work. I love music. I’m actually also a DJ on the side, so that’s like a big thing for me to listen to music while I work. It’s mostly house and electronic music, house and techno music. That’s my first passion, but I love all sorts of music. It depends on the mood, but anywhere from hip hop or rock. I actually just got tickets to Khruangbin at Red Rocks, so I’m excited to see them in August.

Tabitha – BSW Team – Interviewer

Oh, nice. I don’t even know who that is. I was just looking at tickets for Red Rocks too, though. And there’s a few that I want to go to.

All right. And then what is your most unusual skill, hobby, or accomplishment?

Henry – Populist – Interviewee

I guess, you know, I mentioned being a DJ. It’s something that I taught myself over the pandemic and it’s been really fun. I’ve been a music fan for a long time and always love music and going to see shows. And so getting to actually pick that up and play music that I love for other people is a real treat. But it’s funny because that’s probably not that unusual these days. Like, everyone’s a DJ.

Tabitha – BSW Team – Interviewer

Nice. Yeah, I was going to say. It’s pretty unusual though, for a business founder. How do you ever have time for that?

Henry – Populist – Interviewee

Well, it’s one of the things I have to balance.

Tabitha – BSW Team – Interviewer

Yeah, well, very cool. And what is one of your top bucket-list items?

Henry – Populist – Interviewee

You know, this counts because I’m actually DJing at Meow Wolf on Friday. Yeah, it’s the first time I’m DJing in Denver. I’ve DJed a bunch of other places, but I’m actually really excited to be there. And, you know, DJing a big venue like that is a dream. So I guess I haven’t yet crossed it off my bucket list since it’s not until Friday, but yeah, excited.

Tabitha – BSW Team – Interviewer

Oh yeah, I mean, it sounds like your bucket list might be getting deeper as the accomplishments get higher. So that’s really cool. Ok, I’ll do one more and then we’ll leave it at that.

What skill would be fun to learn?

Henry – Populist – Interviewee

Ohh man this is hard because there’s so many things, right? Just what’s fresh in my mind now is music production. Like DJing is great – playing other people’s music – but if I had more time, I would definitely dive into music production.

Tabitha – BSW Team – Interviewer

And if you can combine that with civic engagement, then somehow you’re going to, like, increase your audience. And the interest.

Tabitha – BSW Team – Interviewer

Oh man, yeah, that would be a big one. Well, I really enjoyed talking to you. I hope that we get a chance to meet up at some point during Boulder Startup Week or at some networking event around town.

This has been a pleasure. Thank you so much and we’ll keep in touch.

Henry – Populist – Interviewee

Awesome, thanks Tabitha.

Thank you so much to Henry for his time telling us more about him and the Populist crew and mission!  We hope you’ll keep an eye out for other Startup Spotlights.