I’ve been a problem solver for a long time. Often, it’s hard work. I have had to think things I’ve never thought before, explore territory that seems unfamiliar and for which there’s no map, and sift through myriad contexts, looking for new clues and insights.

A VC recently told me, in an email, that I was falling into a common pattern of startup founders, assuming others were stupid, thinking they hadn’t tried what I was proposing. So I talked again to the founder he had invested in. He hadn’t done the work that needed to be done, real marketing.

And then I emailed the VC again. Instead of thinking about what I said, he stuck to his principles and justified the founder’s actions, “he’s doing what he can afford to do.”

The VC was also falling into a common pattern, assuming the thinking he had done and the choosing of his principles was enough.

Success is great. But in our efforts to transform our government, we don’t have real success. Various people have won a few battles, and they let that lull them into a false sense that winning is possible. Winning IS possible, but it’s not going to deliver the results we want. It’ll just move us a little further down the path of winning.

What we need is a level of thinking beyond trying to tweak the system. And in my view, that’s going to take a level of thinking beyond how we invest in startups as well. The hands-off approach doesn’t work in the political space. Letting a few tiny teams tackle these huge problems is not sufficient.

It also doesn’t pay to throw money a random solution and hope it works, like AmericansElect did in 2012, and then give up. We need a solution and resources to come together with a team committed to really solve the problem, not just try something new.

Our democracy is broken because we limit ourselves to old patterns of thinking, rather than building a system with true political accountability.

Let’s do what it takes. Start by supporting us. But it’s just a start. We need you to actually take responsibility for what we’re doing as well. Engage with these blogs. Invite your friends to read them and get on our mailing list.

Perhaps when we get to the next stage and have a working system, we can continue to explore, at a crowd-sourcing level, how to improve PeopleCount.org. Perhaps the solution is not just America participating in true political accountability for Congress and the Presidency. Perhaps the real solution is America participating in true accountability for PeopleCount.org. Either way, please support us.