Company Description
Civic engagement platform targeting influential people across the nation to drive changePower Poll is a non-partisan survey, news, and information company focused on the thoughts, opinions, and beliefs of influential and powerful people. Power Poll builds email lists of influential elected officials, non-profit heads, business CEO's, grassroots organizers, and others who constitute the diverse leadership umbrella in a typical city. It asks them questions about important issues, and then publishes the results. Power Poll has built lists in industry verticals but is focused in its early phase on cities.Power Poll is operational in 19 U.S. cities. It aspires to roll out polls in the top 300 U.S. cities in 24 months. Revenue of the company has come from paid sponsorships. Companies want association with Power Poll's blue-chip audience. Sponsored poll questions (in which questions can be asked of our audience for a fee) have also generated revenue.Power Poll partners with well-known media outlets and knowledgeable journalists to help develop the member lists, write the monthly Power Poll survey questions, and summarize the results in well-crafted news stories. Power Poll is committed to becoming an influential company targeting the nation's leading citizens who shape the discussion of the world in which we live. Once we are in enough cities, we plan to be deeply engaged with approximately 250,000 of the most powerful people in the United States.Power Poll members love Power Poll. Response rates to Power Poll surveys are over 25%. Because they occupy positions of leadership and influence, Power Polls produce actionable results that provide a fascinating glimpse into what communities are thinking and where they want to go. Our members make things happen.Power Poll leaders run our cities, our states, and our nation. Power Poll knows what they're thinking, which leads to consensus, progress, and community.
Key Deal Facts
Active in 19 U.S. cities, which is over four times its coverage at the beginning of 2019
Aggregated an email list of over 10,000 influential and prominent citizens in these 19 markets, and has an average response rate of over 25% across its email surveys
Revenue grew over 82% from $124k+ in 2019 to $228k+ in 2020 (unaudited)
Built by industry veterans: Executive Chairman of the Board is the former CEO of GateHouse Media, former COO of New Media Investment Group, and on the Board of Directors of the Associated Press; Founder and CEO previously founded alternative newsweekly the Nashville Scene which became part of Village Voice Media and was later acquired.
Notable partners include The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Austin American-Statesman, the Palm Beach Post, and numerous other established media outlets
Management Team / Advisory Board Bios
Bruce Dobie, Chief Executive Officer
Bruce Dobie is the CEO and Founder of Power Poll, LLC. From 1983 to 1989, Dobie was a political reporter at the Nashville Banner. In 1989, he and a partner started an alternative newsweekly, the Nashville Scene. While editor, the newspaper won numerous journalism awards. Ten years later, Dobie and his partner partnered with Goldman Sachs and two other private equity groups, leading to the purchase of Village Voice Media for $160 million. After departing Village Voice Media, Dobie founded the event and entertainment listings site eviesays.com, which partnered with hundreds of media outlets and was sold in June 2020. Dobie has been quoted widely about media and politics in publications and television news programs that include The Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the American Journalism Review, CNN, CBS, MSNBC, and more.
Kirk Davis, Executive Chairman of the Board
Kirk Davis is a transformational, entrepreneurially nimble C-level media executive who is the former CEO of GateHouse Media and COO of New Media Investment Group, a publicly traded entity where he deployed $2.5B in capital to acquire 37 companies. He currently serves as non-executive director of The Associated Press. Before joining GateHouse, he had led two successful back-to-back turnarounds for private equity investors that collectively resulted in successful divestitures. He also built a private media enterprise over 17 years which comprised digital marketing services, magazines, newspapers, signage creation, and original events.
Travis Graham, Chief Technology Officer
Travis Graham is the company's Chief Technology Officer. Travis oversees the design, development, and operation of the Power Poll application and its cloud-based infrastructure. Before joining Power Poll, Travis was Chief Technology Officer at EvieSays, a calendar aggregation service that served over 1.3 billion page views annually through 500 media partners in the news, radio, magazine, and television industries throughout the United States. Travis also spent 13 years at Sitemason, Inc. whose product, Sitemason, was an early content management and development platform. Travis earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science from Vanderbilt University.
Jon Sofield, Advisor
Jon Sofield is a top-level advisor and board member of numerous digital media enterprises. From January 2019 – January 2020, Jon was the managing director of Upcurve, a subsidiary of GateHouse Media. Prior to that, Jon worked at Google for eight years as Senior Manager/New Partnership SMB and was vice chairman of the board of the Local Search Association.
Perry Del Favero, Chief Product Officer
Perry Del Favero is the company's Chief Product Officer, responsible for product implementation, content management, and technical support. Previously, Perry was the Editorial and Content Director at EvieSays, where she held similar responsibilities for that company's more than 500 media partners across the country.
