SOCIAL NETWORKS

 

It took being a young idealist for Tom Serres to decide to run a friend’s judicial campaign. After all, the odds were 10-1 against winning—and, sure enough, his candidate didn’t pull off an upset. But Serres helped his friend run a close race, despite struggling to get voter data and make the most of a limited budget.

 

“I experienced personally all the problems [candidates and staffers] go through when all they want to do is make change,” Serres says. Frustrated with the barriers facing regular people who want to run, Serres launched an online company to help small campaigns get the assistance he couldn’t find. “We started moving up the political ranks—helping with local, county and state elections,” Serres says. Soon his services were in high demand, but as prices rose, “smaller campaigns couldn’t afford us anymore.”