Kuorum.org

“People is all what you’ll have left in the end” a great advice that Matias Nso, cofounder of Kuorum, recent winner of the Best Technology Applied to Politics in 2016 from the Washington Academy of Politics and Science.

With over 100 active political and charity users now on the platform and evidence of how Kuorum can support positive, democratic political change the team have now launched their premium product and will be raising their first funding round in Autumn 2016. To find out more about the product please contact Matias @matnso.

Tell us something about Kuorum.

Kuorum is an online service that helps politicians and social leaders to turn followers into voters, donors and volunteers.

How did you get here?

Entrepreneurship, tech and passion to solve social challenges have always been a constant in my career. I studied mechanical engineering with the purpose of contributing to overcome, through technology, some of the threats we face as a society. I found the global warming one of the most stimulating ones, so I specialized in renewable energy technologies. After five years working in the electricity sector I realized that the energy challenge is not so much bound to technology as it is to policy. This idea kept banging in my head until my partners and I decided to start Kuorum.

What is your inspiration for creating your company?

We’ve pivoted our business model several times since we started back in 2013. But our mission hasn’t changed: Improving communication between citizens and politicians. That is our inspiration. We look for win-win situations for both. And this has already yielded some good results. Last year Unicef and Save the Children used our platform to successfully introduce some changes in a piece of legislation being debated in Spain’s national parliament. After that the Washington Academy of Political Arts and Sciences recognized Kuorum as the Best Technology Applied to Politics in 2016.

What have been your biggest challenges as a Tech4Good Startup?

Kuorum aims to achieve high rates of profitability for its investors. People sometimes think that being a mission led company is a synonymous for modest revenues. But it is simply not true. The problem we are tackling is one of the biggest in the world today. And if we are able to help solving it, this should consequently translate into high earnings. Getting rid of that stigma when you apply to acceleration programs or investment schemes is not always straightforward.

What is your biggest learning from Dotforge?

At Dotforge we learned user-centered design. We had some mentorship on product development before, but it was never so good. We learned to do short iterations in our business model before investing a lot of money in complicated products nobody would want to pay for. Our pitching skills did also improve significantly.

What is the most used piece of advice you have had to developing your startup?

Put people at the center of your business. And I don’t only mean customers. I mean every single person you or your company interacts with along the way. Because, whether you succeed or not, people is all what you’ll have left in the end.