When Kendall Tucker founded Polis, it started as a door-to-door canvassing app to help politicians keep better track of their door-knocking campaigns during elections. Using a data-driven approach to help political campaigns knock on the right doors, Polis ended up working with 109 organizations across the political spectrum in 2016, including the presidential campaigns for Green Party candidate Jill Stein and Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson.
But after going through the Techstars Boston and MassChallenge startup accelerators last year, Polis is making its biggest move yet: selling software to businesses. And it's doing so with the help of a $1.3 million seed round led by Jennus Innovation, a business development incubator, with participation from a handful of "prominent Boston business leaders."
Tucker, CEO of Polis, told me the startup is using the funding to support the enterprise version of its software, which is designed to support businesses that run door-to-door sales operations. Since the system launched in January, she said it has been used by eight companies, representing the solar, insurance, telecom and home security industries.
For anyone who hasn't seen a door-to-door salesperson for years, the big obvious question is, do companies still even run these kinds of operations? For Polis and its investors, the answer is yes, with Jennus Innovation chairman Chris Jenny calling door-to-door outreach a "$1.2 billion market ripe for automation and improvement."
Tucker said door-to-door sales is actually making a comeback, something she highlighted in an article she wrote for industry publication Solar Power World last fall. In the article, she cited a Wall Street Journal story about how SolarCity and Vivint Solar have started making a big push in door-to-door sales and pointed to Bureau of Labor Statistics data showing that door-to-door sales employment has seen a 34 percent compound annual growth rate between 2011 and 2015.
"If you're knocking on someone’s door and forming a relationship, the likelihood of buying goes up much higher."
When it comes to complex and costly products like solar and home security systems, Tucker said it can be more effective for a company to speak with a potential customer in person rather than rely on, say, TV advertising to get the message out. That way, a company representative can answer more specific questions about how a solar system would work for a specific home.
"What we’re seeing is if you're knocking on someone’s door and forming a relationship, the likelihood of buying goes up much higher," said Tucker, who added that door-to-door sales can average above $1,000 per household.
But Polis isn't aiming to help companies spam every door in a neighborhood. Instead, it uses data from a variety of sources, including online forms and social media, to help companies zero in on people who are more likely to be receptive to a doorknock.
"We help them determine where to go, who to talk to and what to say, improving companies’ bottom lines and ensuring that consumers are approached about products and services they really want," Tucker said.
