Horizon Media Hatches First Incubator Project: VoterGuru


Just in time for the Presidential election season, Horizon Media is introducing VoterGuru, a web platform that tracks voting records and public statements of political candidates, and compares user inputs with politician records to find the closest ideological match.  

VoterGuru is the first start-up to publicly launch from Horizon's Dunes of Dreams Challenge where employees are invited to submit their business plans and ideas for the chance to receive start-up funding and development resources. 

VoterGuru was developed by Ben Krakow, a digital business analyst at Horizon Media and Ben Atkins, a software engineer. They participated in Horizon’s start-up Incubator from May through October 2015.  

During this time, Krakow leveraged Horizon's assets and “brain trust” to assemble a team of experts to help him including Catherine Mayell, creative director and web designer. Chris Kane, founder of Jounce Media and former chief of staff to Tim Armstrong at AOL, signed on as an advisor to the VoterGuru team, alongside a team of mentors including Maria Freda, senior vice president and controller at Horizon Media, Taylor Valentine, chief invention officer at Horizon Media and Jeremy Shure, director of invention at Horizon Media. 

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The start-up continues to have ties to Horizon. Krakow remains a full-time employee at Horizon while also serving as president of the company. Mayell and Atkins continue to have other jobs (outside Horizon) in addition to their VoterGuru roles. 

Looking forward, VoterGuru's immediate plan is to educate voters for the upcoming presidential election. 

In addition to matching users with candidates, VoterGuru educates users on political topics by explaining the ideological spectrum, from “very liberal” to “very conservative,” on specific issues, ranging from abortion laws, to education policy, to privacy and more. 

“Ben’s team is the triple threat: they’ve identified white space and the ability to solve for a real problem with a captive audience, they’re incredibly bright and motivated, and they have created a scalable platform with many exciting opportunities,” says Jeremy Shure architect of and Director of Horizon’s startup Incubator. 

1 comment about "Horizon Media Hatches First Incubator Project: VoterGuru".
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  1. Ben Krakow from VoterGuru, February 9, 2016 at 11:46 a.m.

    Head on over to www.voter.guru to check out the VoterGuru platform!

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