StartUp Beat

StartUp Beat: What is the site’s primary value proposition? 

Alan Silberberg: The primary value proposition is to empower citizens to be stronger owners of the government by providing the tools to conduct deep research on political and governmental issues, to form groups and to directly contact elected officials from the web site.  So You2Gov makes citizen advocates out of all of us, and in essence creates the “armchair lobbyist” tool kit to make each and every citizen become a more accountable and demanding owner of the government at the federal and state levels.

StartUp Beat: When was the company founded, and how did the idea come about?

Alan Silberberg: The company was formed in the spring of 2008, and the site was launched in alpha mode in mid July, 2008.  The idea was conceived by the chairman of You2Gov, Ralph J. Shapira.  He was extremely concerned that the “Super Delegates” might determine the outcome of the election.  He wanted to make sure that all citizens understood and had the power to influence their government through the same levers of power available to lobbyists, corporations and trade groups.

StartUp Beat: Who do you see as your competition?

Alan Silberberg: While there is no direct competition as evidenced by You2Gov being the only social networking site on the PC Magazine list of top 20 political web sites, there are lots of politically oriented web sites.  But few, if any, combine the news, research, and real action tools inside the social environment familiar to MySpace and Facebook users.

StartUp Beat: Can you describe the underlying technology behind the site, and how the site works for users?

Alan Silberberg: The web site is open source, written in Joomla.  We established the social engine as the base, and layered the research, news, and action tools on top of this social engine, so every data point on the web site is shareable and subject to comments, rating, etc.  We strived to create a web site that was dynamic and easily changed from a content perspective and that would be robust in every feature offered.  We have succeeded at achieving that part of the vision so far, and are working every day to improve the user experience and add to the features found on You2Gov.

StartUp Beat: Have you raised any outside funding to this point?

Alan Silberberg: At this point the company has been entirely privately funded by the owners of the company, with no outside financing, loans or other vehicles at this time.

StartUp Beat: Explain the idea of the “armchair lobbyist.”

Alan Silberberg: This is not so much a “feature” as it is a state of mind.  You2Gov is a platform for anyone sitting at their office, in their home, or even on their mobile phone to instantly reach out and communicate in an informed way with their representatives, regardless of party.  We have flattened this process, and taken the mystery out of it.  Package the same services with legal and PR people and you would have a lobbyist.  So the term “armchair lobbyist” comes from individual people being almost, if not as powerful as, a lobbyist when they start using our group function for the formation of political groups that are untraditional and can harness the power of the social media tools available, both on You2Gov, and on the Internet in general.

StartUp Beat: In terms of competition, what about social networking tools that are offered directly by campaigns or parties?  Do you see these potentially taking some of your audience?

Alan Silberberg: This is a very good question.  You2Gov thinks that these tools and the use of them are at a nascent stage, and we designed our site from the ground up with the ability to share, compare, email, chat, use forums, rate, and give overall depth and context to communications about civic affairs and politics.  The You2Gov site is all about the long process of being an engaged citizen.  Elections and campaigns will come and go.  The tools for communicating to those in power will always be needed.  Those users who are on campaign sites or political party sites are potential new users of You2Gov.  They already understand social networking.  They are used to having an online presence.  A lot of those web sites will become less functional and useful after the election, while You2Gov will be there to absorb those looking for a refuge and those looking for the best social site for the tools to be informed and to directly connect to their leaders.

StartUp Beat: Do you see a decrease in your audience/memberships in off-election years?  What features do you offer to offset the potential for this?

Alan Silberberg: See above, but will repeat.  You2Gov is the tool kit for people to directly and immediately engage their leaders, regardless of party or who is in power.  Elections will come and go.  So will election-related web sites.  We have over 60+ feeds coming into You2Gov.  Not one is from a candidate, a party, or a campaign.  We deliver news from known and respected news sources, and do not take any direct communications for posting from any campaign.  We have designed our tool kit for the purpose of being an engaged citizen over the long term and using the various participatory democracy actions over the course of their civic life.  The whole point is to put into the hands of the people the power long protected for the elite and wealthy, by means of their computer or smart phone.  We are not dependent on elections, and will probably end up picking up our growth curve even more as some of the “election” press, media and attention goes away, leaving people looking for their daily fix of politics and hard truth.  You2Gov users spend a lot of time on the site digesting media from other sources, whether through text, Google mapping of news, video or from user generated content on the Forum and in the Groups areas. You2Gov has seen a growth curve in less than three months of being online that exceed traffic growth of over 12,000 percent, and a traffic rating increase of over 20,000,000 web sites.  Our users stay on the You2Gov site for extended periods of time averaging well over 15 pages per user per visit (according to Alexa and Google Analytics reports).  So, these users will stay with us, and we will absorb new ones from election sites that will be no longer plus we are growing organically at a clip of a few new registered users each day.  You2Gov is going to continue being a powerful political site because we are not about the elections, but rather about making all of us more powerful on a day-to-day basis.