Long ago in 2007, I started a company.  It was more of a wild idea than most as it was going to not only make myself and many others rich but also change how politics work in America. Simple mom n’ pop sort of business.  Along with a few other crazy folks and with lots of help we launched stickyvote.com and part-time for two years tried to figure out how it should all work. Politicians, citizens, interest groups; making money, raising money; building software.  It was a fairly good idea but I didn’t figure it all out.

Now that it’s been a few years it’s time to write down the lessons learned that were the main yield of the company.  Perhaps they’ll save someone else some heartburn, and most importantly keep me from making the same mistakes next time.

But first, thanks to everyone who helped.  Thank you for your support, whether that was business advice, political advice, coming to early hacking sessions, being interviewed, donating through paypal or using the alpha product.  Thanks especially to those who put in cold hard cash and to the awesome employees and contractors who sweated away on the product.

Where are these rock stars now you may ask?
Georgia Lindsay, VP, her forthcoming PhD will change the way we relate to buildings.
Jeff Hull, Biz Dev, tells power plants how to run their software.
Luke Hamilton,  programmer, writes powerful Android apps (don’t push that button).
And Parwaiz Yahya, early investor, is taking over the retail world with me at skuloop.com

Thanks most of all to my wonderful wife Erica for all the encouragement and putting up with all the craziness.  Especially the next project…