Written by Brendan Finucane

Like many other companies with websites, we refresh our site from time to time so that prospective customers can get a better understanding of the many benefits of Ecanvasser for their political campaigns. I could list the benefits but you could easily see for yourself by setting up a free trial.

We develop all our web properties in-house and as part of that process, our web pages are first sketched up by the marketing team and then passed over to a developer for implementation. There can be a bit of toing and froing but the process generally works well for us. One of the final stages is the new page being put on a test server for other members of the team to review. Late last week I was reviewing a new homepage design and part of the new look included updated customer testimonials. One testimonial, in particular, triggered a flashback.

As many may or may not know, Ecanvasser, albeit a very early version, started life as a college project back in 2011. After graduating I entered Ecanvasser, then known as Frontline Mobile Canvassing, into a business incubator called Ignite - a 9 month programme where participants are given some seed capital, office space, and master classes on how to start a business (as an aside I would highly recommend getting involved in that programme). At the conclusion, there is an awards ceremony to celebrate the companies and as part of the day, a video’s done up for each participant.

I remember that my video was being played and one of the questions asked was - "where do I see Ecanvasser going in 5 years time?" My reply - "I believe Ecanvasser could change politics forever".

Someone sitting a few rows back from me chuckled at that line - a fair reaction one could say!

So back to the flashback and wry smile triggering testimonial, it came from a Canadian campaign that remarked that their seasoned campaigners were left dumbstruck about the benefits of Ecanvasser exclaiming “what have you guys done to politics?”.

Queue flashback and wry smile...

Over the past 12 months, we’ve brought in some new hires across all areas of the company. These new hires have been a great addition and coupled with upcoming product releases - I am still steadfast in the belief that Ecanvasser can change politics by lowering the barrier to entry for community leaders by providing affordable tech for all campaigns, and for strengthening the link between voters and their representatives.

Looking ahead to 2018 we are investing resources into a sales-led approach for the company - after a very successful 2017 sales experiment, and building out Ecanvasser to service political organizations wanting to become more engaged with their grassroots. We have released our Leader by Ecanvasser product to a number of partners and are looking to expand on this initial release. The need for Political Parties to become more engaged with grassroots supporters coincides with the rise of populist politics that has swept across the US & Europe.

So stay tuned in to Ecanvasser because we have our pulse on the politics that matters, the politics that doesn't require any lofty entrance fees and the methods to get you elected.