Vote With Your Money With Kansas City Startup: Neighbor.ly INTERVIEW

Kansas City has some great startups. One of them is Neighbor.ly a new civic crowdfunding platform. Nieghborly encourages people to get involved in the civic projects that they are passionate about. By crowdfunding for civic projects people can decide if they want to support a new neighborhood beautification project, or getting manholes replaced. Literally, that’s how the idea for Neighborly came about.

Jase Wilson, Neigbor.ly’s CEO and Co-founder was eating at one of his local favorite spots with the startups advisor Patrick Hosty. They got into talking about a recent bond referendum and a woman in a neighboring seat chimed in on the conversation. The conversation got heated and the issues at hand were sewer repairs and zoo animals.  The woman was in favor of the sewer repairs but the same bond deal included new animals at the zoo. The woman wasn’t interested in the animals at the zoo. Hosty enjoys taking his daughter to the zoo and wasn’t concerned with the sewer repairs.

A light went off in Wilson’s head, an idea that would allow Hosty to support the zoo animals and the woman could support the sewer repairs.

The civic crowdfunding model is successful in Europe where people don’t quite think the way we do here in the U.S. The downside to civic crowdfunding in the US is those people who are sticklers about feeling the government and taxes should just handle all of these types of projects.

Earth to the people, that model hasn’t worked for years. The biggest capital projects get done while the smaller ones like the sewers and the zoo animals get tabled, time and time again, year after year.  Civic crowdfunding allows citizens to get involved and take ownership of civic projects.

We got a chance to talk with Wilson about Neighor.ly in the interview below.

When we started Neighbor.ly‘s parent company (Luminopolis, a civic software firm) 9 years ago there didn’t seemed to be much going on down in the Crossroads neighborhood where we’re based. Now we see some of the growing pains SoMa San Francisco faced in its hyper growth days, including transformers blowing in spectacular fashion just yesterday. The understandable outcome of packing 100 year old buildings up with hundreds of high tech firms in a few blocks radius. Just like when parking becomes an issue, a good problem for a city to have as a growing pain.

I came back to KC and attended a bizarre public meeting. We’re trying to build a streetcar, it’s our 10th (TENTH!) attempt in about as many years. But this time the Mayor’s office had a pretty brilliant plan to get it done. The method of paying for it involved creating a special taxing district a few blocks on either side of the proposed route. But this particular meeting was supposed to be about how they would change parking ordinances based on the line. The organizers were trying so hard to keep it on that topic. But the people in the room – the property and business owners in the proposed district – were NOT happy about the funding plan. The meeting kept circling back to how it’s a good idea but it wasn’t going to be paid for in such a way.

That night I was on Kickstarter and watched Double Fine break some record. They had gone way over a million for a video game that they wanted 400 grand for.

The next morning I had breakfast with Patrick to talk about something else entirely. We were at YJ’s, our neighborhood’s favorite snack bar and source of countless innovations. He was in the middle of explaining a recent bond deal. A neighbor overheard and began to talk to him about the problem with that particular bond deal. She didn’t vote for it because it lumped much needed downtown sewer repairs together with civic amenities she didn’t want to pay for, like new animals for the zoo. On the other hand he wasn’t very concerned with the sewers but loves taking his daughter to the zoo. It became sort of heated so I went about eating my egg sammy and it finally clicked – a way for people to vote with their dollars for the civic projects they care about. A way to turn local obligations into global opportunities. Something like Spacehive but geared towards American ideals and local governments. I made a quick slideshow, showed it to Shaul who got it in front of the Mayor’s office. They sat through about 5 of the 20 slides before saying “do it”. And Neighbor.ly was born.

Anne Spirn, my thesis advisor and mentor while at MIT. An exceptionally gifted author, professor and photographer by trade but really more of an all around oracle in practice. She opened up whole new ways of thinking, especially through keen observation of the cosmos in action.

Brad Nicholson, a self made real estate magnate living in KC. He’s offered countless and often priceless bits of advice over the years, the most memorable being to “always respect the capital.” Basically, view money through the lens of the hardest dollar earned. Even when you arrive at a point when your existing money earns your new money, remember having to wait tables or clean toilets earlier in life. When it comes time to spend, forget the easy money, think instead of the worst customer you waited on or the dirtiest toilet you cleaned. Is the expenditure worth the hell it took to earn THAT dollar? It applies whether it’s income or money directed on behalf of investors — it needs to be thought through from the standpoint of someone working their ass off to earn it. A powerful jedi mind trick for growing and staying rich.

Adam Blake, a young serial entrepreneur from KC who made it big in college doing real estate deals. He’s since built multiple growth companies including Brightergy, a solar panel company that’s growing like a weed. He’s down to earth despite having accomplished more in his early twenties than many will do in their entire careers. He’s a few years younger than me which has been oddly motivational – basically proof that success can happen at any age, starting whenever you decide to focus on making it happen.