President Obama said his key regret was not healing the divisions in Washington. There’s still time. PeopleCount can help. If we make politicians accountable, the divisions will subside.

In a few months, it will be great if he helps us get the word out. So I wrote him a letter and posted it on whitehouse.gov/contact. There’s no “political reform” subject, so I chose “civil rights” (the right for politics to be civil…):

Dear President Obama,

I need your help. And you need mine.

I’m gambling that if I write you enough, someone on your staff will give up their cynicism and alert you that there’s something you should see.

I’ve founded PeopleCount.org. I’ve given up two years of income and borrowed against my house to work on this. And in the next few months, it’ll come to fruition. But without your help, it might fail.

I have a way to transform Congress to be truly accountable to the American people. It’ll end the partisanship, the gridlock.

America doesn’t even know what political accountability is. One of the basic causes of our political problems is that we think it happens in elections. It doesn’t.

For years we had a bit of accountability because many politicians thought it did. But it doesn’t. So many of them “wised up” and no longer represent the people.

But if we had a system that fostered true accountability, everythign would change.

But don’t believe me. Talk with me.

Please, talk with me. Help make politicians accountable. This will heal the divisiveness in Washington.

Of course, there was no response. And I’m too busy to write every day. I tried again on March 7th.

You, too, can help us. Please add your name to our email list, so we can contact you when we launch this Spring.

In the last post I began talking about the key areas where we need to execute. Our product strategy is solid. Our marketing is a challenge and software development will be critical, but we have expert help with those.

The biggest challenge: Sales

Sales is probably our biggest challenge. This involves pitching to political and special interest groups and selling to politicians.

Selling to groups has a number of challenges. They are all busy and they all have full schedules and well-developed plans that don’t (yet) involve PeopleCount. Some have policies of not working with outside groups in the fashion we’re asking. Some have narrow self-definitions that they partner for certain things so our only chance is to work with their partners. Some are simply narrow-minded. One thinks their actions are sufficient. Another thinks one has to have a real movement. The guy I spoke with doesn’t see that partnering with movements can be a substitute.

Selling to politicians has a different set of challenges. The five that I spoke to love what we’re offering. But reaching them is a pain. They rarely answer emails or the phone.

And most politicians don’t even offer their contact information, except a form on a website which they don’t answer. It’s going to be hard to reach them if they don’t answer written requests and there’s no phone number.

The biggest sales challenge is that I’m not cut out for sales. Partly I’m new at this. And partly I have a ton of other stuff on my plate. Every emergency delays sales.

Timing is key. I wish I had committed to build 9 months ago when there was time before the election… But wishful thinking is a waste of time.

Finances is a huge challenge. I’ve spent my savings mainly supporting my home and family while I work on this. And now I’ve borrowed against my home to give us a minimal budget. I’ve asked about twenty wealthy people and they’ve refused to even have a conversation about it. I’ve sent emails to dozens more and there have been almost no replies. That hurts.

So on the one hand, we have a lot of challenges. On the other, the possibility of success remains, and the payoff for humanity is huge. The moral imperative remains.

Is it possible to fix democracy? Absolutely. And, we might fail to overcome all the challenges. Your support could make all the difference.

Please add your name to our announcement list. And while you’re there, you’re welcome to donate a few dollars. Or more!

In the last post, I identified the four scenarios in which PeopleCount can fail. In this one, I’ll tell you about the last one, how we might fail to execute.

One way to look at this is to list the major areas where we need to execute:

• Marketing
• Software development
• Product design
• Scaling
• Sales
• Timing
• Finances

The one thing I don’t list here is product strategy. We have a winning product strategy. We have a real solution for politics. It solves the pain points for both citizens and politicians and it’ll be rewarding to use.

Marketing is key. 95% of people I’ve talked with argue at first. 80% are convinced in the ensuing conversation. That means our messaging must either avoid provoking an argument in the citizen’s mind and/or convince them the possibility is worth a try. We’ll also need videos and animation, plus all sorts of things that can go viral, and these cost money which we have little of.

But 6 weeks ago I found an experienced marketing guy who was eager to join me! So we’re in good hands. Still, he has a huge challenge on his hands.

Software development is key. We hired a development company which was horrible. They were late and ended up stealing our money (I’ll skip the details.) We then had to spend weeks looking for a new firm, starting over yesterday. We’re in danger of not launching early enough before the June primaries. And of course, this strains our finances.

This past month I found an excellent computer scientist to help. I still have to help communicate the design, but she’ll do excellently at helping manage the external team and solving any problems that arise. Plus we’ll use a cloud provider that will manage the cloud for us, so our operations are in good hands.

Product design is always key. The way a startup should work is to test the product with real audiences. We don’t have time for that. So we’ve studied the competition and improved upon their important failings. Our strategy includes building in some resilience to design errors and then fixing them asap, but it’s difficult to know if it’ll be enough. We also have some ground-breaking features planned, if we can survive long enough past the minimal version we’ll launch with long enough to build them and roll them out.

Scaling is key. Everyone says that in our niche it’s a chicken-and-egg problem. Actually, there are two. The first is that people won’t use the site unless other people are on the site. New paradigms require word-of-mouth reputation and safety-in-numbers. The second is that politicians will only want to use the site if there are voters on the site and voters will only come if there are politicians on the site. Our plans to bootstrap the site with users are solid and it looks like we’ll have decent traction, but that leaves more work to be done to get good traction. And we’re aiming for excellent.

And that requires sales. In the next post I’ll finish this, discussing Sales, Timing and Finances.

Someone on Quora asked me, “How would you live your life differently if money were not an issue?”

It would be easier to fix democracy

I’m working on http://PeopleCount.org/how.htm , which is going to change humanity, allowing us to design our future and build it. It’s starting with America, but another country and two international groups have already expressed interest.

The basic idea is to look newly at:  What is political accountability? Specifically, accountability to citizens. So I looked and when I saw what it really is, the sad state of American politics made sense! Real political accountability is just not possible in our current political system- there’s just no support for what it needs. So I committed to build it, without funding.

Without money, creating political accountability has taken years

Without money, I spent too much time looking for funding. And few potential cofounders could afford to join me. So I wasted a few years before I committed my own meagre savings. And I must shop around for low-cost off-shore development instead of having a dedicated team in-house (like Brigade.com has). Unfortunately, my first team revealed that it was run by someone who was immature. He unpredictably threw a temper tantrum and stopped working, so we lost a month and some money.

If money were not an issue, democracy would be fixed

If money were not an issue 6 months ago, PeopleCount would be up today (including with mobile apps) and you’d be floored by how bright the future looks. By now, people would be speculating on how a future of world peace and prosperity has become possible. (Note: the current site is an old, partial prototype…)

If money were not an issue and I had $250k today, we’d have a bigger team. And we’d hire a marketing firm to help and could afford more marketing so would have even more certainty of success. And I’d hire 2-4 sales people.

If money were not an issue and I had $500k today, I’d rent some office space so the three others that are helping could work together full time, instead of just evenings and weekends. And I’d take a small salary and have insurance benefits so I could stop my horrible Cobra plan and my wife could sleep at night.

Things are okay – rejuvenating American democracy is near

But the way things are, we’re adding pinching pennies to our daily actions and plans. It’s not too bad. Unlike many people in the world, we have a home, hot water, food and security. And we’ll still probably succeed.

We have to. Too many people are dying, starving, stressing, and too many governments are out of touch with their people. Here in America, we have gridlock and belligerence instead of problem solving, and America is no longer a democracy. While many movers and shakers seemed to be concerned about it, none of them have a viable plan and all of them have strong opposition.

My only opposition is my own human frailty, and the momentum of the status quo.

Please join our mailing list. Pitching in a few dollars will help, too.

I think it was in college that I either created or heard the phrase, “insurmountable opportunity.” It was a sort of pun on “insurmountable obstacle.” It was an opportunity that loomed large, but you just couldn’t land. You could take a bite, but it was too much too swallow.

That’s how PeopleCount often seems to me.

A guy I met wants to use PeopleCount in another country. I told him we have to get it off the ground here, first, but he should start prioritizing and researching his country’s issues. So he’s working on it.

Today, he messaged me a bit, including that I don’t ask him how it’s going.

I’d love to do more, but running a business is as frenetic as it’s cracked up to be

I’d love to. I’m just trying to focus. I’ve got family issues I’ve been pushing to the side- taxes and applying for financial aid for my son and health insurance. I’m trying not to spin out of control.  Plus I have a couple more financial issues to set straight, and about $35k of costs to pay for. And I should start using quickbooks.

I’m trying to get one more cofounder on board. A friend of mine said he’d review the code as it’s created so I want him to meet the project manager and get their working relationship set up.

I found a VP of Marketing a couple weeks ago! But my lawyer has been my family lawyer, so I’m switching to work with another and I have to finish up the agreement with them, pay them, and get the details tied down.

And I should be talking every day with the marketing guy. We have details to go over, and I still have a few pitches to gather and point him to.

Far outside my comfort zone, the days are long but the quest calls

Really, I want to focus on sales, which isn’t my forte. That means lots of reaching out to people- people who often don’t have phone numbers listed and who don’t answer email. It’s frustrating. I’m continually working outside my comfort zone. Worse, being so spread thin on other things is making me less efficient. My goal is to put some of these to bed soon.

And I need to keep blogging. Days are long. But the cause is true. The quest calls.

Please, add your name to our mailing list and make a small donation. Obviously a couple of dollars a day won’t make a dent in our run rate. But it sends a really strong message of support.

PeopleCount only works if a bunch of you realize that the problems in our government and politics are all optional. With PeopleCount, we can fix them. Partly with the first solution we’ll ship. But we have a few more things to roll out soon after that’ll knock your socks off. Stay tuned!

Your help is needed. I’m doing pretty well, but we can do better. If you blog, or if you are organized or have some marketing skills, please help out.

One of my goals is to blog.

The more I blog about PeopleCount and making Congress accountable to people instead of to the wealthy and to parties, the more the search engines will consider PeopleCount.org an expert about it.

The blogging is going pretty well- I have almost 150 posts. But my goal is 400. I could you to talk to me once a week for 10-20 minutes to help me come up with a topic and outline. It’s much easier for me to do this with someone than alone. I could use 5-7 such conversations per week, with 1-7 people. Please volunteer. Also, if you want to help with the actual writing, or with finding images or adding headings, that would be welcome, too. I can’t pay you, but I can give a good referral. And in 6 months we plan to have money, and we’d be able to hire you then (if working with you works out.)

Already PeopleCount.org comes up in the first few answers if you search for “people count” as either one or two words! This is good. In a few months, if you hear news about PeopleCount and search for it, you’ll find us easily.

I’m hoping at some point we’ll also be the top answer for “fix democracy” and “political accountability” and “congress accountable to people”. That could take a lot more blog posts. Plus it’ll take a lot of back links- I’ll need others to write about it.

If you blog, please consider saying something like:  “These are exciting times. I’m looking forward to PeopleCount launching its new solution to fix democracy in America.”

I’m looking for a marketing lead.

This could be someone who’s organized and interested. Of course I’m hoping for someone with a lot of marketing experience, even at the executive level. But if I don’t find someone to do it, I’ll have to do it myself, and I’ll be worse at it than anyone else. It’s not a strong suit of mine and I’ll have the technical and product supervision and all the sales on my plate.

Our chances look excellent. Even if I don’t find a lead, it looks like we’re going have a ton of users on our site and a big launch. With a lead, it could be stupendous.

Please, send me a cover letter and if you have one, a resume. Tell me what you like about PeopleCount and the opportunity.

At least, ensure you’re one of our users when we launch.

If you haven’t already, please add your email address to our announcement list.

Writing good questions about political issues is important on PeopleCount.org. The questions need to be carefully crafted to minimize bias and to avoid the most common logical errors.

PeopleCount.org does not have the bias problem of phone surveys

In an survey given over the phone call, bias is a huge problem. When hearing answers, people have imperfect concentration and memory. They may hear something incorrectly, block out everything after hearing an answer they agree with or only remember the last answer or two. Sometimes these surveys change the order of the answers to lessen the bias.

A written question on PeopleCount.org is different. You can read the questions several times. Or you can check off an answer you like and then check another one you like better. Unlike most surveys, many questions on PeopleCount.org let you check all the answers you like.

Plus, unlike in a survey, on PeopleCount.org you can change your answer later. You can sleep on it, research it, or even skip it entirely or answer “Don’t know.” Imagine a few days later you hear someone discussing the issue. Suddenly you realize you do have an opinion! You can go back to the site and select your new answer.

The biggest problem on surveys is missing answers

This is called a “false dilemma“, asking people to choose among answers that don’t include their preferred choice.

An example is this question on Countable: Should the US authorize a military campaign against ISIL? You might want to say yes, but only if we tax ourselves to pay for it, or only if we don’t need to more soldiers, or don’t use the National Guard as we did in Iraq. But their site only allows Yes or No answers.

A common example of this is “black and white thinking”. For instance, this Pew energy poll asks people if they favor or oppose nuclear power. The results were about 50/50. On the PeopleCount Traditional Energy questions, 63% were against nuclear power using our existing light-water reactor technology.

Why are people negative about these reactors? Because if something goes wrong, they tend to blow up, like the Fukushima and Chernobyl disasters. Plus they generate toxic radioactive waste. Thorium reactors and fast-breeder reactors tend to fizzle out if something goes wrong instead of blow up. These reactors also don’t generate much nuclear waste. Even better, fast-breeder reactors would consume our current nuclear waste as their fuel.

Even though PeopleCount users were more negative on nuclear power than the Pew survey, when asked if we should research or build Thorium or Fast-Breeder reactors, 80% said we should at least continue research!

Another common problem is only allowing single answers

iSideWith.com on their political quiz avoids the problem above by offering two simple answers plus an “other stances” button which reveals more answers.  Click on this third button for the first question, What is your stance on abortion? I could imagine a pro-choice person wanting to click on several of answers.

On PeopleCount.org, our borrowed, prototype technology allowed us to create questions where you could select multiple answers, and we used them often. But often I favored some answers more than others and disliked or hated others. We’re in the process of designing a user interface that will give you this flexibility.

Please register on our prototype site and try out some of the questions.

There are four scenarios in which PeopleCount can fail. I’ll start with the three less probable ones.

The World May End

It’s conceivable that disasters could prevent it from happening, though it would have to be a pretty significant disaster. It will thrive the more we have collective federal issues to tackle. But a nuclear explosion, or possibly even a huge solar flare, could take out our electricity network. And if the fundamentalist Moslems, Christians or Jews are right, the end of the world may be right around the corner!

American Negativity is Too Large

Americans are very negative about politics. I’ve talked to hundreds of people about politics. Consistent with this Pew report that says Americans are “beyond distrust” of government, people seem to fall into three camps. Some people are full of complaints, reasons why politics doesn’t, and can’t, work. Some people handle their cynicism by avoiding politics entirely. Others are involved in politics somehow. Many of these people are also negative, but some think it’s just fine, giving them their livelihood or hopeful efforts.

In my estimation, plenty of Americans are positive enough to begin to use PeopleCount when it’s ready, and we have a solid plan for steadily expanding the user base. Many people I’ve talked to are interested in trying it out when it’s ready.

An Alternate System will be Created

PeopleCount.org is predicated on American dissatisfaction with the current system. If something else fixes it, or lots of other things improve it enough, we won’t need PeopleCount. That’s a wonderful possibility!

Or an alternate system could torpedo PeopleCount. Like Facebook killed MySpace. They have different missions, but Facebook weakened the need for MySpace.

Bad execution can kill PeopleCount

This is the real threat. PeopleCount is needed now. But it’s not going to happen without help. I’ll describe the specific execution risks in the next article.