A Phoenix-based startup whose product allows companies to add polls to websites and applications recently landed a new infusion of capital to ramp up operations.
Polls Platform raised $1.4 million in a seed funding round led by New York Angels with participation from PHX Ventures and Arizona Venture Development Corp. To date, the company has raised a total of $2.1 million in funding.
Arizona Venture Development Corp. invested in Polls Platform based in part on the company’s management team and business model, said Andy Lombard, CEO of Arizona Venture Development Corp.
“We're investing in them to make the transition to a business-to-business solution that many retailers and organizations can use to help their clients and customers pick and choose different purchases with their friends, colleagues and others,” Lombard said. "We think that's a really great model. But we're also convinced that Polls Platform wasn't just a one trick product — they've got a lot up their sleeve for the next layers of activating companies and helping them grow.”
Polls Platform developed a “white label tool” that companies can use to instantly add polls to their websites or apps to drive organic customer growth, engagement and retention.
“We have seen firsthand how polls drive growth,” Jeff Hanna, co-founder and CEO, said. “We acquire 180,000 new users every month, and now any business can deploy polls to grow as quickly as we have.”
As paid advertising becomes more expensive and less effective while privacy regulations prevent companies from targeting users, businesses need a new way to gain customers, he added.
“We've proven that this works and people want it,” Jeff Hanna said. “It's all about ramping up now. I think more than half of this capital is going to be invested in our go-to market sales and marketing ramp up.”
'A snowball effect'
Jeff Hanna co-founded Polls Platform with his cousin, Kevin Hanna, and Dominic King in 2020.
Jeff Hanna was previously director of product at San Francisco-based startup Skycatch, while Kevin Hanna, a Valley native and graduate of the University of Arizona's McGuire Center for Entrepreneurship, spent nine years at Deloitte as a marketing and customer relationship management software consultant for technology companies. King, who is Polls Platform’s chief product officer, was a former product manager at consulting firm 10 Pearls.
The Polls Platform team has worked together for more than 10 years. Jeff Hanna and King met at a startup competition at the University of California, Santa Barbara. After college, Jeff Hanna and King relocated to San Francisco, where they began working with Kevin Hanna.
“It was kind of serendipitous that all three of us ended up (in San Francisco) for work,” Jeff Hanna said. “We all had a background in entrepreneurship. We started working together and built quite a few apps. Some of those were chat apps."
After Apple launched iMessage, Polls Platform built an app that worked inside the chat platform, allowing groups to easily decide meetup locations and times via creating a poll with a voting system.
“We scrapped it together in about two long weekends and got it into the (Apple) App Store,” Jeff Hanna said. “We didn’t think it was really going to turn into a company. It was just a simple utility that we thought people would like. But before we knew it, we were the No. 2 ranked app in the App Store.”
The Polls Platform team noticed the growing popularity of its app was driven by users looking to gain input from friends on products, in addition to using it for deciding upon which restaurant to meet for dinner.
“That's what really drove our growth. Ninety percent of our new users came from someone who sent them a poll,” Jeff Hanna said. “Then, with every poll sent, we saw two new users acquired. So that just created a snowball effect.”
Category creator
Polls Platform decided to expand its polling app beyond iMessage into a business-to-business product, opening up a potential opportunity for companies to add polls to their websites and increase customer engagement.
The company has been in discussions with more than 50 undisclosed companies — including some large brands — for its business-to-business polling product.
“The product is white labeled. It doesn't bear any of our emblems or logos,” King said. “Any company can add a polling feature on their website or app and it will start generating organic growth, retention and engagement. We don’t grow with them. They grow with our feature attached to them.”
Polls Platform was recently named a finalist for Venture Madness, the longest-running venture capital and pitch competition in Arizona.
The 2023 Venture Madness Conference and Expo will be held April 12-13 at the Sheraton Phoenix Downtown.
The company sees potential to tap into the sports betting, retail and travel markets with its polling platform.
"Polls Platform is creating a new category of products that drive organic growth," Gregg Scoresby, founder and managing partner of PHX Ventures, said. "Anytime you have an opportunity to create a category, you should.”
