Ujoin allows individuals, nonprofits, and businesses to track bills and connect with local lawmakers. The company graduated from Henk Rogers‘ Blue Startups accelerator program in June.
The desktop application’s target audience includes small to mid-sized nonprofits and businesses that operate on $500,000 a year or less, Co-Founder Kory Payne told PBN
“We know it’s an unreserved portion of the market,” he said. “There are other solutions in the marketplace that cost a lot of money, are difficult to use and require staff time. Ujoin is designed to be [a] self-service [app] and affordable.”
Ujoin allows users to send video messages to legislators, track bills through a dashboard that sends text messages when a bill changes, and send professional email newsletters.
Other services ask for roughly $10,000 to $50,000 a year, Payne says. Ujoin starts at $144 a year, or $12 a month.
Payne was inspired seven years ago while working at Voter Owned Hawaii. The nonprofit was using a similar product but were eventually priced out as it became more expensive.
“They were charging $25,000 a year, and up, just to use it, which we couldn’t afford,” he said. “The product was too difficult to use, anyway. I set out to design something better and easier that served smaller organizations like the one I was running.”
The product went live in March and has already picked up 15 clients in Hawaii, gearing up for the legislative session starting in January.
Ujoin has picked up customers in Florida, Nevada, and California, including electric vehicle charging station company Volta Industries. Payne hopes to pick up clients across the nation and eventually, abroad. Ujoin is already in talks with an organization based in the United Kingdom.
Ujoin is mobile-friendly and the company plans to add features including a group text message function and an online fundraising dashboard.
http://www.bizjournals.com/pacific/news/2015/10/05/blue-startups-company-ujoin-wants-to-connect-you.html