Hiring! We're saving democracy. Can your mint-for-groupon startup say that? | Hacker News Reader

Hiring! We're saving democracy. Can your mint-for-groupon startup say that?

slideshare.net

39 pointsnovaurora22 comments

To anyone else also hiring: This deck made me want to work for Votizen. Instead of listing responsibilities/requirements, it sold the position to me. Hard. And that worked.

Perhaps we ought to have marketing do a once-over on all our job descriptions and hiring ads.

Thanks!

pedantic rant. We're not a democracy. We're a federal republic. Democracy is mob rule.

To clarify, we are not a federal republic or a democracy. ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_College_%28United_Sta...

Forgive me for accepting something other than Wikipedia as asource of truth: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/... I left off the constitutional part.

The point is people don't understand this. You have never voted for president, I have never voted, your mom has never voted. You cast a non-binding recommendation on election day. There is no difference between casting a ballot for president and not casting a ballot. It is the same thing.

The electoral college ONLY applies to the president. The president can't (despite best efforts) unilaterally make laws. The role of president has very little legislative power (IMHO) as it should be.

The fact that people blindly use the word "democracy" (something that the founding fathers warned against) and attempt to "spread" it in other countries only highlights the need for better education.

We are under a rule of law, not a rule of mob:

"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch." - Benjamin Franklin.

Strangely enough, Groupon was originally a startup named The Point trying to save democracy: http://www.thepoint.com/ . Andrew Mason, Groupon's CEO, was pretty psyched about a campaign to build a giant dome over the city of Chicago: http://www.thepoint.com/campaigns/chicago-winter-dome .

Groupon and Votizen have both pivoted quite strongly from how they started out.

It is pretty funny. Our product and business is very different though.

"Even our designers have CS degrees"

Just wondering if that's always a selling point? I'm not questioning the unrivalled design talent on offer here, but what about designers with design degrees (and relevant experience)?

Genuinely curious and not trying to be facetious / generalising.

Shameless plug. Can I please ask you guys to edit the page for Votizen and add a listing at job4dev?

There is already a very basic entry at http://job4dev.com/company/votizen.

Also: any chance Votizen is hiring H1Bs?

For those that might have missed the subtle joke, novaurora was one of the cofounders of Mint.com.

I've got an idea for a Mint for personal finance!

(no, I'm not serious)

What's a solid core desk?

Awesome balanced team with engineering, design & business chops

Upvotes for a team that actually wants to do something politically and socially beneficial.

Seems like a pretty cool company. It's like mint-for-democracy!

Man, I wish I knew someone there. The only reason I want to make a few million dollars is to save the future by fixing this broken system. That and all-you-can-eat-pizza.

Awesome slides, they know how to sell, that's for sure!

Are they actually planning on making money from this somehow? I went through a business plan with some others on an idea just like this and we did figure a way to make money but it was a long shot (not advertising!)

I did look at another Votizen slidedeck (sorry don't have the link to hand) and they tested a number of different business models (they are serious about using lean startup methodology) and eventually arrived at campaign management as one that actually generated revenue for them.

That's part of the one I figured. Good to know.

But my startup is groupon-for-mint! We're saving the universe. ;)

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