politIQ Trivia

My name is Connor and I am the founder of politIQ Trivia, which is a cross platform trivia competition that provides users with concise, daily-updated quizzes focused on major political headlines. As an avid news junkie and political enthusiast, I have long sought to develop a way to engage and inform individuals of all backgrounds in politics because I believe doing so will benefit everyone. Having come from a background in progressive politics, I understand the value of voting and why civic engagement is essential to maintaining a healthy democracy; but I also understand that the world of politics can feel overwhelming and combative. It is my hope that by reforming how individuals consume and discuss the news, we can improve our ability to demand and affect positive change in our society, and come together as a single community with a shared interest. 

While political activism has increased recently in the US, so has polarization and distrust of the news media. This is the result of the rapid spread of misinformation online and the fact that most adults get their news through social media, which creates echo chambers of information. politIQ Trivia seeks to bridge this growing divide by creating a collaborative platform where individuals of all political leanings can challenge themselves and each other in a fun trivia competition that will equip them with the knowledge necessary to make informed decisions at the ballot box and become thought leaders within their communities. In the US and in many democracies around the world, there has never been a more important time to build a consensus of dialogue around politics that is centered on facts; because otherwise, those who wish to divide us for their own political gain will continue to succeed. 

A healthy Democracy relies upon an informed electorate and participation; however, less than half of eligible voters in the US cast a ballot in the 2018 elections and people around the world have become increasingly susceptible to misinformation online. The growth of social media as a tool for consuming news has resulted in individuals not being exposed to opposing viewpoints that are necessary in order to build a better understanding of important social, political, and economic issues. It has also drastically reduced the attention span of news consumers, with the average visit to the top 50 newspaper websites in 2018 lasting under 3 minutes. This ultimately erodes trust between individuals of opposing political parties by forming different echo chambers of information, and it is a large part of why the number one critique of the opposing party is that they are too close minded. Everyone is affected by this growing division and not just the 158 million registered voters in the US, because in order to elect politicians who support policies that truly benefit the public, we must first end Congressional gridlock in the US, which has doubled in the last 40 years. 

PolitIQ Trivia is a cross-platform trivia competition focused on current events related entirely to national politics. Users who create a free profile on the web-based app are provided with concise, daily-updated quizzes focused on the major political headlines of the day, and they are able to build their score (or politIQ) by successfully answering questions, contesting questions they consider inaccurate, and/or submitting their own questions. Those users with the highest scores at the end of each week are awarded a small amount of money, while users at the top of the monthly leaderboard are eligible to compete against others in a Jeopardy-style gameshow hosted via webcam for a larger sum of money. The core service that politIQ Trivia provides is consolidating the most important news stories related to politics into digestible facts that anyone can use to supplement their consumption of the news. The site also creates multiple different scores that serve as a measurement for one’s understanding of current events based on their successful completion of the quizzes. By 'gamifying' politics, politIQ provides a platform for users to compete with friends while improving one’s news literacy and thus ability to decipher fact from fiction.

The overall target audience for politIQ Trivia includes political junkies who want to prove their knowledge, individuals who don’t have time to regularly follow politics but want to stay informed, and anyone who wants to learn more about politics in a new and concise way. Although I eventually hope to attract individuals who consider themselves more politically agnostic, I primarily target voters who regularly pay attention to the news and wish to supplement their understanding of politics with a fun competition. I hope to equip these people and the 40% of American adults who have become more politically active since 2016 with the knowledge necessary for them to become influencers within their peer groups by engaging inconsistent voters and ultimately boosting voter turnout. With much of the country currently under orders to stay home and 25% of Americans over the age of 65 already living alone, I hope to attract individuals of all ages who are feeling lonely and could benefit from a unique entertainment opportunity that connects them with others. Through regular communication via social media, politIQ YouTube channel, and the site itself, I hope to develop a stronger sense of community with users. 

In any democracy, it’s impossible to make an informed decision at the ballot box if you only started following politics immediately leading up to an election; therefore, I hope to bring more people into the conversation early so that they better understand the value of their vote. The COVID-19 crisis has mobilized many of the most vulnerable communities in the US and around the world to pay closer attention to politics due to the disproportionate effects of poor governance, but this attention and energy must be sustained long after the crisis is over if we hope to make lasting change. 

Over a year ago, I quit my job as operations director for a national political action committee in order to build politIQ Trivia. During my three years working at the PAC, which I helped build from a grassroots organization into a national force, I learned not only how misinformed the average voter is, but also how much of an appetite there is for un-biased sources of information where collaboration and skepticism are rewarded. The majority of the $26 million we raised in 2018 was achieved through daily surveys sent via email, from which I quickly understood that a large number of Americans crave a new method to prove their political knowledge and challenge others. I also learned that the vast majority of Americans value facts and genuinely want to engage those on the other side of the aisle in constructive conversation. Although I greatly valued the work we did as an organization to build voter turnout operations around the country, I felt like we were ignoring over half of the country who did not identify with our progressive values but perhaps just needed more information to better inform their views. That is why I have since focused on building politIQ. 

For my entire adult life I have been deeply engaged in politics. My interest began at a young age when I traveled the country with my parents visiting different national parks, but then realized that there are many who deny the existence of climate change. Determined to eventually work for the State Department or United Nations Environmental Program, I studied international studies and environmental science at Emory University, where I regularly attended workshops and lectures at the nearby Carter Center. After graduating, I traveled to China to work for a year and improve my Mandarin, and from this experience, I was reminded the value of staying informed and engaged in politics. None of my Chinese friends were remotely interested in the decisions their leaders made, which by design enables the infringement of rights that I always took for granted living in the US. I believe that the root cause of any problem, especially those that seem most insurmountable (like climate change), is ignorance. Therefore, if we live in a society that actively seeks to distract or dissuade its citizens from paying attention and learning about these issues, then it will be impossible to enact change. 

In early 2016, I returned home after working for year in China in order to get involved in the presidential election. I decided to join a new political action committee called Progressive Turnout Project as an unpaid intern because I strongly identified with their mission to increase participation in our democracy among those who typically stay home on election day. Our mission was simple: use science and data to turn out specific voters around the country in the congressional districts and local communities that would make the largest impact. Over the course of three years, I helped build an organization that began with five employees into one with that employed over 700 people nationwide. As operations director, I was responsible for developing various company policies and frameworks that continue to serve as guiding principles for the company. I also managed a team of four who under my direction oversaw various tasks including supporter engagement, human relations, donations/contributions, and payroll. From my time with this organization, I learned how to effectively manage a team and build a company from the ground up. I also learned the importance of identifying with the overall mission of the organization you work for, because without it, it's impossible to give the effort and passion it truly deserves. 

When I first started building the politIQ website (with the help of experienced web developers of course), my business model was very different from what it is today. Initially, I envisioned that my company would assist political organizations like the one I previously worked for by renting segments of their massive email list and identifying those who did not fit the organization's target audience based on their political beliefs. When I met with my old boss and a few other individuals who worked for other political organizations, I quickly learned that this service was not in high demand and the cost effectively would outweigh any benefits. Therefore I needed to shift my business model to one that would prove effective, which is why I now rely on an advertising model. Although this presents different challenges, it allows me to establish greater trust with my users in that I don't have to share their information and can focus on establishing other partnerships with organizations who want to advertise on my platform. 

In college, I was the philanthropy chair for my fraternity. During my sophomore year, I had an idea for a clothing drive in which students would meet at the center of campus one evening in the middle of winter wearing all the warm clothes they wanted to donate to a local homeless shelter. Participants would then shed the items and proceed to run a race through campus in just their underwear. In the first year, we collected over 1,000 items of clothing, and the next two years continued to collect more as the race became more popular. Pulling off this charity event was not easy, and it required meeting with school administrators, the local police, and student body representatives. However, with the help of my small team of volunteers, I was able to successfully conceive and execute the idea for three years and ultimately help provide our local shelter with much needed warm clothes. 

Unlike the other existing services similar in concept to politIQ Trivia, my site is entirely political in focus and deliberately non-partisan. Popular trivia apps like HQ Trivia provide questions covering a wide range of topics at a particular time each day, and they offer many different users a small amount of money. Instead, my site awards a select few users with larger jackpots and it enables users to play on their own time. It also rewards skepticism and collaboration, which ensures that the quality and accuracy of the questions are solid. There are some mobile apps that seek to provide voters with important information (VoteWorthy, VoteWithMe, and Countable for example), but these are extremely robust and offer a plethora of information that can be overwhelming for someone who is simply interested in quantifying their political knowledge or easily digesting the news on a daily basis. Websites like Politifact and Snopes are also limited in scope and not easily accessible on mobile. Many newspapers provide online readers with a weekly quiz recapping the major stories, but most of these require a subscription and easily get lost in one’s email. They also don’t allow users to build a score or win money. Not only does politIQ Trivia function as both an app and a website, but also it’s the only free service that enables users to participate in a regular gameshow from the comfort of their home. This reduces all barriers of entry and encourages those who feel most lonely to participate. 

In order to convince people to elect politicians who can pass legislation that the majority of individuals actually support, it is essential to first break down information silos and restore trust in unbiased facts that are often omitted from arguments. An example of how Americans’ divergence from facts is politically harmful to progressive causes relates to the issue of utmost concern to me: climate change. Only 14% of American voters know that the scientific consensus behind human-caused climate change is above 90% (its 97%). So, if that vast majority of voters are unaware that the overwhelming scientific community has been warning about the dangers of increasing carbon emissions for years, then how can they effectively pressure lawmakers to implement policies that will protect the environment and ultimately create a healthier future for everyone? 

By simplifying complex issues like climate change into digestible and undisputed facts, it will be much harder for politicians influenced by financial interests or voters influenced by misinformation to promote ideas that are not inherently progressive. It will also inevitably bolster the efforts of various groups seeking to build the blue wave, and equip individuals with facts that they can use in their own conversations. Approximately 70% of my current users on politIQ Trivia say they have cited one or more of the facts they have learned while playing politIQ in their own discussions. 

Regardless of the outcome of the upcoming election, it will be vital for Americans to continue regularly following politics for democracy to thrive. By applying a fantasy-sports-like model to politics, politIQ Trivia incentivizes everyone to remain informed and challenge the information they consume on a regular basis. The current health crisis has renewed overall appreciation for evidence-based decision making in government and for non-partisan news, with traffic to established newspaper websites like the New York Times increasing by 60% since January compared to a decrease in traffic to partisan sites like The Daily Caller. We must sustain this appreciation for fact-based journalism in order to maintain a consensus of fact and bridge partisan divides. 

Over the course of the next year, I hope to expand my reach by using new and unique methods for targeting individuals who are not regularly engaged in politics through various platforms like TikTok, Snapchat, and online social groups. I also want to improve the quality of the monthly gameshows and field-piece videos in order to appeal to a wider audience. I have previously worked with a videographer who is interested in helping me do this. 

Within the next year, I also hope to create a custom mobile app that will allow users to create their own leaderboard, publish unique daily quizzes, and invite specific users. This is a tool I would market to high school civics classes, and individuals living around the world who believe in the mission of politIQ Trivia and want to inform and engage members of their own community. Political misinformation is spreading around the world, therefore it only makes sense to provide this tool I'm building to any interested party. 

Finally, I hope to expand the backend analytics of the daily quizzes over the next five years so that I can provide interested partners with specific data about what questions users struggle with and why. Political campaigns and consumer behavior groups could use this information to better understand their market and target their messaging.

I have struggled to build my social media following and am in the process of finding a cofounder who is able to manage my marketing strategy and help build my user base. Prior to the pandemic, I was hoping to regularly travel the country over the next few months leading up to the 2020 election in order to market politIQ on the ground at major political events, but now that most rallies have been cancelled or scaled back in order to stop the spread of coronavirus, I am forced to compete with more voices online to market my platform, and the only way not to be drowned out is by hiring an expert and placing targeted ads that I currently can’t afford. 

With additional funding, I would be able to hire some of my previous content providers and a part-time video editor to help improve the quality of my daily questions and monthly gameshows. This would also give me more time to focus on other aspects of business development. The Elevate Prize program would also be a valuable resource that would provide me with valuable insights on how to succeed as a first-time entrepreneur. Any successful business relies on the support of numerous people, which is why I would utilize any opportunity to meet with like-minded individuals with demonstrated success in entrepreneurship and learn from their experiences. A grant would enable me to hire someone with marketing experience who is able to dedicate the time and energy necessary for breaking through all of the noise online and building the politIQ brand. 

I am sure there are many qualified applicants to the Elevate Prize, which is why it would be an absolute honor and a privilege to be accepted that I would not take for granted.

I currently invite sponsors to fund the weekly and monthly jackpots in exchange for advertising space on the leaderboard page of the website and the politIQ YouTube channel. In order to reach a larger audience, I have entertained the idea of inviting different individuals who are seeking to expand their appeal (local politicians running for election and/or minor celebrities interested in politics) to either host or participate in the monthly game shows.

Creating a profile and completing daily quizzes on politIQtrivia.com will always be free for users, but I hope to create a custom version of the site that will enable certain individuals to have a similar level of admin access to what I currently have so that they can create their own unique quizzes and segmented leaderboards. I would market this to active politIQ users and high school/college civics teachers who are interested in giving their students a new way to follow current events and compete with other students/classes/schools. I would charge a subscription fee for this service, and I have already spoken with a number of teachers who are interested in this product and wish to implement it in their classrooms ASAP.

Finally, I am open to renting my email list to political organizations and companies seeking to reach out to politically engaged individuals with known party IDs; however, I would prefer to market products on behalf of these organizations in exchange for a small cut of the profit or access to their email list. 

I aim to use a combination of tactics to fund my work, beginning with giving users the opportunity to donate on the website or sponsor a jackpot in exchange for advertising space. Once I am able to develop the ability to grant admin access to outside parties, I will charge a recurring subscription fee to schools that choose to download this service and offer it to their students. Finally, I hope to raise additional capital, but this first requires building up a larger user base. 

My budget for the remainder of 2020 includes the following costs: $15,000 in salaries and wages ($10k for full time marketing director, $5k for part time video editor); $7,000 in advertising ($5k in ad buys, $2k in marketing supplies and travel to events); $6,000 in development ($5k building custom version of app, $1k improving existing site); and $2,000 in administrative costs (legal/accounting fees, web hosting fees, misc. costs). 

Although I have a developer who I meet with on a regular basis to discuss edits to the site that I want him to make, I am currently the only full-time member of the team. I previously employed a staff of three content providers and an editor, all of whom came from across the political spectrum in order to ensure that the questions we provided were not inherently biased, but I had to let them go in order to cut costs. I simply lack the funding and support network that I need to succeed. Because I have already invested so much of my time and energy into this project, I can't yet justify finding a full time job to pay my living expenses and abandon my focus at the time when it matters most. The Elevate prize would help me overcome this financial obstacle, while providing me with other tools and knowledge necessary to make politIQ Trivia the success that I know it can be. 

Up until now, I have been completely self-funded; however, now that I have essentially drained my savings account in order to build politIQ Trivia, I am unable to hire the individuals I need to help me expand my user base. That is why any support from mentors or related professionals who can help me narrow my revenue model would be greatly appreciated. As a first time entrepreneur, I am filled with optimism but still recognize the many challenges associated with launching a new endeavor. I would welcome any and all support, both financial and otherwise, in order to help me achieve my true vision for politIQ Trivia. 

With the presidential election less than 4 months away and the nation in the midst of a pandemic, now is the perfect time to fight polarization and connect strangers from around the country through an informative and entertaining competition that only requires access to internet. There are numerous organizations working to mobilize and inform voters that I hope to partner with, including VoteWithMe, Voteworthy, Indivisible, etc. I have previously reached out to numerous political newsletters to offer my daily questions in exchange for a brief mention of my site, but I also want to expand my collaboration with other publications. Both of these efforts would be intended to grow my brand and reach new potential users, while providing these organizations with free content.