When You Don't Think You're Ready
Eight Years Later...
On the day of Donald Trump’s second inauguration, there’s lots I could say about President Trump or about the Democratic Party or about the state of politics in the U.S. I’m going to skip those for now and instead tell a more personal story.
Eight years ago, after Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton, I felt compelled to do something for politics and American democracy. Like a lot of Americans — most but not all left of center — I was quite taken aback that someone like Donald Trump could be elected as president.
I went to a few meetups of well-meaning people who felt similarly. At those events, I was less than impressed by the way many people were trying to make a difference. People spoke of “taking action” by calling their (very solidly Democratic) Congressional representative and reminding them that they should stand up to President Trump; they talked about boycotting companies who had conservative leaders; they said they would protest more loudly and more frequently. I was skeptical of such approaches, and it was hard for me to imagine that their tactics would have a positive impact on policy or democracy.
I wasn’t quite sure what I could do. The biggest challenge for me was intellectual: it was hard for me to fathom why Trump supporters felt the way they did, and without that understanding, I struggled to figure out what I could or should do1. In the early days, the White House seemed like a very chaotic place; were some of the people who voted for Donald Trump having second thoughts? What were there other undercurrents I wasn’t aware of?
I’m a data geek, a wannabe social scientist (I minored in political science in college), and had recently done a bunch of online advertising for some local political campaigns. So “naturally,” I decided to run some online ads targeted to Michigan residents, asking them to a survey. Lots of them clicked through and answered a bunch of questions about support for Trump, immigration, and perceptions of risk.2
Thanks to the survey responses of a thousand Michiganders in March 2017, I had some data that allowed understand a few things about American politics. And perhaps more importantly, I had identified a thread that I’m still pulling today.
I Wasn’t Ready
Yet mentally, I wasn’t sure I was ready to pull on that thread. In mid-2016 — six months prior — I had decided to shut down Bonafide, the small startup that I’d been running. After raising capital quickly and assembling a strong early team, I did not do a very good job establishing and building toward a vision with Bonafide.
I had walked away from Bonafide in 2016 with my tail between my legs. I had little self-confidence and frankly wasn’t sure how I would or could make myself useful. I arranged a few one-month “internships” to help startups solve data problems, and I volunteered to help out on two local city council races. I questioned whether I would have the confidence or ambition to start another company. In February 2017, the writing was on the wall that there was a company to be started, but I didn’t see it.
What did the writing look like? I had survey data in hand. And as I learned more about the “political industrial complex” — the web of insider pollsters and media buyers and interest group leaders and campaign managers — I saw a real need for something different. The popular narrative said that polling was inaccurate, but the bigger issue I saw was that the polling industry was slow, expensive, and largely resistant to any sort of innovation. At least among a handful of major donors and investors, there was a hunger to do something different.
Yet I very much doubted whether I could or should be the one to start that company. I had just shut down a startup unceremoniously, I had two little kids, and I had no background or connections in the industry I had been looking into. Why me?
A Dozen Shoves
Between February and July of 2017, I went from very much doubting I could start a company again to signing legal documents and (again) becoming a CEO.
Had I been left to my own devices, my new approach to polling likely would have been nothing but a research project shared with a few friends. I’m grateful for a dozen or so shoves, each of which was massively impactful. I’ll highlight a few:
My wife Elaine connected me with several people who were highly connected inside politics. Thanks to them, I scored an invitation to a politics + tech meetup where I met many people who were instrumental as I went from research project to company.
At that meetup, I met an entrepreneur named Matt, who urged me both to make my polling concrete (e.g., by putting out numbers around elections) and to aim big.
Matt also invited me to another meetup where I wound up meeting my cofounder Pat. Pat, with many years of valuable experience running a PR firm, was convinced that we could tell a really compelling story around democratizing access to polling. And she named it Change Research.
My brother Ben served as early co-conspirators in multiple efforts, and his partnership was vital in proving out a solid model and in building the company over the past eight years.
My friend Jonathan helped me scope out a vision for what this could be. He also connected me with Erika, and the two of them offered a strong voice that this was going to be a meaningful company.
Those relationships and conversations helped me get from “I don’t really want to start another company now” to “okay, I guess I will do this.”
In the first months actually running this new company, I was still pretty gun shy. I was a little afraid to raise capital, to hire people, or to think long term. At one point, I made a recruiting pitch to someone who wound up joining our team, and thought to myself “I hope this person doesn’t realize that I’m not really sure I should be leading this company.”
Ultimately, I hit my stride and started to feel like a CEO (again). And, thanks to a strong and dedicated team, Change and Embold are making the world more humane, scientific, and just. We’ve done a lot to redefine public opinion research, and in many ways we’re just getting started.
When I look back at where I was in 2017, I have a real sense of gratitude towards everyone who gave me a shove and pushed me towards building something meaningful. I didn’t think I was ready, but the wise and ambitious people around me knew better.
Looking back on that period, I think there were both justifiable concerns about President Trump based on the way he and his administration functioned, and also some significant overreactions. I personally overreacted in a few instances during Trump’s first term, and hope to do better this time around.
e.g., asking people whether they were more fearful about dying in a car accident or in a terrorist attack.