Build It, and They Will Vote
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This story is part of the Entrepreneurship of Life series, a collection of interviews with immigrant startup founders, venture capitalists, and tech business leaders.
Introduction
Millennials are quickly becoming the largest voter-eligible age group in the US, representing over a quarter of the 2020 electorate, just below Baby Boomers. This generation is much more racially diverse than previous ones, with 45% being non-White compared to 28% among Boomers.
As a result, Millennial votes are profoundly shaping the country’s politics. Historical turnout of overall liberal-leaning young voters during 2020 elections was widely seen as a key driver behind Biden’s victory. Tufts University estimates that 52–55% of eligible young adults voted in 2020 vs. 42–44% in 2016, and young voters nationwide preferred Biden over Trump 62% to 35%, per the New York Times. Millennials’ influence over elections is expected to continue growing over the coming years.
However, with an estimated 2020 overall turnout of 67%, Millennials’ participation still paled in comparison to older generations. And when it comes to midterm elections, participation tumbles across the board. (E.g., the 2018 midterm turnout — despite reaching a four-decade high — was just above half, and only 36% among eligible voters aged 18–29.)
Wen-kuni Ceant, Co-Founder and CEO of social-political information platform Politicking, believes more accessible election information is the key to getting people, especially Millennials of color, out to vote. What is Politicking doing to help? How does it uphold non-partisanship in an increasingly polarized media world? And as a Haitian American immigrant, how did Wen-kuni rise above the biases she grew up in and find her own identity and path? Let’s hear her story.
Wen-kuni Ceant is the CEO and Co-Founder of Politicking. Politicking is a mobile application and multi-platform media, with the central aim of providing U.S. election information to historically disengaged constituencies. Wen-kuni is a Fulbright Scholar with a Masters in Public Health from Drexel University. Before Drexel, she graduated Phi Beta Kappa and with honors with a Bachelors of Science in Biology from Howard University. Wen-kuni is a Haitian American immigrant who grew up in Miami and currently lives in Washington D.C. In her free time, Wen-kuni enjoys traveling and is hoping to visit her 25th country this summer (Costa Rica).
About Politicking
Q: What is Politicking? Why did you and your partner see a need for it?
Politicking is a non-partisan platform that aims to make election information more accessible to potential voters, especially Millennials of color. It presents information about US presidential, state, and municipal elections and educates about general political topics. We have a mobile app and active presence across multiple social media platforms. Founded in 2018, we have a team of under 10 people today including part-time members.
The idea originally hit me in 2016, when I walked into a polling station in South Florida to vote and was completely befuddled by the municipal section of my ballot. Not only were the numerous positions bewildering, but almost all of the candidates were complete strangers. I had no idea how to get smarter about them without spending tremendous time scouting on the web. Given the important policy roles these people would play in my backyard, I felt terrible that I couldn’t vote intelligently.
I later lamented about this experience to my college friend Jordan Wilson, who completely shared my sentiment. We realized that this was not a “me” problem, but a “we” problem. Millions of Americans lack ready access to voter-friendly information about our local elections, which could discourage voting, especially during midterm elections with less media coverage.
To make issues worse, when we seek political information from established media outlets, many of us become disenchanted by their increasingly partisan and polarizing stance. As Millennials of color, we are further disengaged by a lack of our own group’s voices in dominant political discourses.
Jordan and I wanted to change all the above. We co-founded Politicking to provide locally relevant, reliable, user-friendly, and unbiased political information to all, and to build a “media home” for racial minorities to share our stories and views. Ultimately, we want to equip and galvanize people, especially Millennials of color, to vote more often and more intelligently.
Q: Can you tell us about what the Politicking mobile app does?
While we continue to build out the app and not all features are fully available to all users yet, the key ones are:
“Electorate”, which synthesizes elected officials and candidate information specifically for your precinct. You can use it to navigate through the “labyrinth” of your local political system. It also breaks down, in simple terms, any amendment or referendum on your ballot and what a “Yes” / “No” vote would mean.
“The 411”, which curates a constant feed of news and articles organized by major political topics, such as environment, economy, and criminal justice.
“PBL” (Politicking by Location), which provides geo-based sample ballot information.
“Voting Information”, which offers logistical guidance for voting and political concept 101s.
Q: What kind of content do people find on your social media platforms?
Our biggest highlight is a weekly interview livestreamed on Instagram (find us here). We invite influential individuals of color from all backgrounds — people holding or running for office, scholars, activists, artists, entertainers, victim of wrongful conviction, etc. — to share their stories and perspectives on specific political topics. For example, recently we were fortunate enough to have as our guest Wisconsin Lieutenant Govenor Mandela Barnes, the second African American to ever hold statewide office.
We also constantly engage our audience with short news video clips, pictures, infographics, and brief summaries of key political news, research findings, and important political concepts. We keep it simple, intuitive, and stick to what matters. For example, we created the infographics below to summarize recent survey findings by Pew Research Center on how receptivity towards Covid vaccines varies by race and political party.
Q: You are vocal about keeping Politicking non-partisan. Can you tell us why and how?
Some people assume that because Politicking is headed by two black women, it must be left-leaning. But in fact, non-partisanship is our deeply rooted value. We cannot grow without challenging one another’s beliefs and hearing different viewpoints, and we need to hold all elected officials accountable, whether they share our ideology or not.
In practice, remaining neutral is never easy even with the best intentions. We are all imperfect humans, so the right systems are crucial to keep us in check:
1) Accountability partners: We have a board that advises us, votes on our major decisions, and holds us against our non-partisan commitment. The board itself has conservatives, liberals, and independents as members to ensure its neutrality. If the members notice our content skewing left or right, they would call us out and help us re-center.
2) Balancing act: we make a point to source our third-party content and invite event speakers from across the political spectrum. If we interview a Democrat or Independent this week, we try our best to balance that with a Republican or Libertarian the next.
Q: Have your non-partisan efforts ever drawn doubt or resistance from your audience? How are your followers influenced by hearing views that contradict their own?
There have definitely been pushbacks. Some people think we are elevating contradicting platforms at once and find it perplexing. Frankly, it often isn’t easy for ourselves to have open dialogues with people whose political beliefs differ drastically from our own. But we challenge ourselves and our audience to learn something from, or at least about, those we do not agree with.
For example, our decision to interview Angela Stanton King, a Republican congressional candidate in Georgia last year, shocked and was doubted by many followers, our friends and family, and even other guests. A black woman, ardent Trump supporter, and goddaughter to Martin Luther King Jr.’s niece Alveda King, Stanton King is a highly controversial figure for some of her political views. During her interview with Jordan, she discussed her experience of incarceration and the pardon she received from Trump. While I still do not agree with her platform, I am able to better humanize her and know more about what shaped some of her views after hearing her out.
Q: How do you address the trustworthiness issue for third-party media content you provide?
Before using any third-party content, we always cross check it against multiple sources across the aisle. For breaking news such as the 2020 election results, we would not update our followers until the dust has “settled” a bit and that we have validated the information. Timeliness is important for media, and the temptation to be fast can be strong, but we never prioritize speed over accuracy.
Q: How does Politicking grow its user base?
We try to grow as organically as possible — through events and words of mouth. Before Covid, we would throw offline events like bookstore salons for new people to mingle with and get to know the community. Today, with 100% of our events virtual, interaction becomes harder but our reach is broadened. People discover us on social media through their friend’s repost or by seeing an influencer they follow announce an upcoming interview with us. While we also do some targeted social media marketing to reach new audiences, we find that people who come to us organically tend to stick around and engage more over time.
Q: How would Politicking generate revenue while maintaining political neutrality?
We are excited about a number of revenue opportunities.
Advertising is a tried-and-true monetization path for mobile apps, and we are going after a $10BN market for political ads. Our advantage lies in accurate targeting — users already come to us seeking political information, and the precinct data they provide allows us to serve geo-targeted campaign content. To ensure our neutrality, we clearly identify sponsored content and always provide a standard set of basic information across all candidates, whether they advertise with us or not.
Secondarily, we can provide voter guides and public official accountability guides commissioned by corporates and nonprofits for the benefit of their employees, stakeholders, or community. Local granularity is our differentiator. For example, we are working with Brooklyn Nets on a branded voter guide to inform its fans and other local residents on elections in the Borough, for which information might not be readily available otherwise.
Lastly, our insights from aggregated user data (e.g., how a particular demographic group tend to interact with specific content and what that says about their political inclinations) and capabilities in hosting political events are also potentially valuable.
Q: What are your key next steps for building the platform?
In 2021, we’ll focus on a number of mayoral elections nationwide and use this opportunity to expand our geographical reach (at the moment, we’re in over 30 cities across 25 states).
We’re also bent on raising institutional funding. VC funding statistics aren’t in black women founders’ favor, but we must fight for our chance. While we have been blessed with donations and continue to grow despite limited resources, funding would enable or accelerate many of our key initiatives, such as improving our app’s UI/UX, adding features, and doing more targeted marketing to reach potential users. Meanwhile, every donation is important to us regardless of size, and we are grateful for anyone who supports our cause (find us on GoFundMe here).
Finally, we will further explore the revenue opportunities mentioned earlier and hopefully demonstrate a viable path to profitability.
Q: How do you measure and quantify Politicking’s social impact? What would you like to achieve eventually?
We would survey Millennials of color — our primary target audience — to understand whether and how much they use Politicking for political information relative to other sources, as well as how often they vote, how prepared they feel about voting. The more correlated these two things are, the better we have done our job.
Over time, we’d like to make Politicking a household name that people turn to for reliable political information. We’d love to bring up voter participation significantly, especially during midterm elections and among Millennials and racial minorities.
Personal Story
Q: Tell us about the personal path that led you to becoming an entrepreneur?
Perhaps it runs in the family — both my parents are entrepreneurs. My dad is an engineer by training and runs an oil and gas business in the US and Haiti. My mom was a registered nurse and now operates her own assisted living facility in South Florida. They showed me the benefit of being one’s own boss and having great autonomy over not just work but also personal life: during the formative years of my sister and I, they were able to schedule things around us and ensure plenty of quality family time, which could be more challenging for many fixed hour jobs. Perhaps under their influence, I became fascinated by entrepreneurship as a kid. I remember obsessing over children’s books about lemonade stands and garage sales that made it big.
Despite this early interest, I was actually training to be a physician when the idea of Politicking hit me in 2016. (I know, one of the popular occupations for immigrant kids…) I just received a Masters in Public Health and put my 2nd year MD program on hold. I was beginning to find the policy aspect of healthcare intrigued me more than the clinical aspect, so I applied for a Fulbright Scholarship to conduct public health research in Senegal.
The next year and a half at home and in Senegal gave me the space for deep thinking and self-discovery. I honed in on my true passion for policy and politics. I mulled over the risks of founding a company, especially compared to the stability and financial reward of a medical career. But my guts knew the social impact and business success that Politicking could potentially generate. If I pass on it, I would never stop wondering “What if…?” So my choice became clear; upon finishing the Fulbright program in May 2018, I embarked on the Politicking journey.
Q: What was your experience like growing up in a first-generation Haitian American family? How has your immigrant background helped or challenged you?
I grew up in a typical Caribbean immigrant family in Miami. My parents were both born in Haiti and came to the US at the age of 15 and 25, respectively. We lived with our extended family and thanks to my grandma, I learnt to speak French and Creole, the Haitian languages that connect me to my cultural root.
As a child, I experienced the pain of negative connotations and stereotypes about Haitian people. You seldom hear or read about Haiti outside the context of extreme poverty, catastrophes, or something else bad. Many people automatically assumed I must be poor and treated me accordingly. I wasn’t poor, and the false impression hurt.
From early on, I felt the urge to shake off negative labels on me by being a model minority — in academics and everything else. In hindsight, it was probably an unhealthy amount of pressure for a kid, but that pressure also provided propulsion, and I’m thankful for where I am now because of it. Trying to always represent my people positively has become part of who I am.
Q: What do you personally do to promote Haitian American interests and culture?
Whenever appropriate, I try to invite to Politicking’s events Haitian guests whose appearance can make our community more visible. For example, Karen Andre, Haitian American and senior advisor to the Biden campaign in Florida, joined us to discuss why Trump was a popular candidate in the Florida Cuban community.
In my personal life, I continue to meet people who have never before met a Haitian, and some of them might say or do something offensive, often unintentionally and out of ignorance. I have learnt to patiently teach them about the Haitian culture and open their mind up, while staying open-minded myself. Hostility or clamming up is not the solution.
Q: What is one cultural heritage you are most proud of?
A: Oh, definitely the food. Don’t tell my Jamaican roommate about this, but our meat patties and rice are simply the best in the Caribbeans. And we have our secret weapon — the Pikliz, which is a pickled vegetable spice we put on everything. Nothing beats it.
Q: Can you tell us about your Fulbright Scholarship project in Senegal and how that influenced you?
A: During my gap year from graduate school, I applied for the scholarship to study health infrastructure in Senegal and was fortunate to receive it in 2017. There were about a dozen of us going to Senegal that year, the majority as English Teaching Assistants, and the rest, myself included, as researchers.
The program was 9-month long, and I spent most of that time doing my research in a village called Kaolack. I worked with local clinics to promote a self-funded health insurance program among the villagers, who were used to paying for doctor visits and medicine out-of-pocket. Under the new program, patients are less likely to be hit with a medical bill they can’t afford. The pilot was tricky to implement but ultimately went well.
I learnt a lot from the research project, but living in a poverty-stricken place like Kaolack and visiting other African countries was what truly transformed me. When I was in Kaolack, power outages were common, and we once went on for a week without water. The locals always keep a bucket of water stocked up for such emergencies, which sadly are no surprise to them. Having experienced a drastically different part of the world and seen so many people there do more with less, I came home feeling I could take on anything. There are no excuses to waste all the resources I have — I must leverage them to make a difference. I am grateful for the different person that the Fulbright experience made me, as well as the lifelong friendships it brought.
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