Founding 1,000 Investor Frequently Asked Questions - FAQ
The following questions have been compiled from Founding 1,000 members and potential investors.
If you have any additional questions, please Contact Us
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What will VoteMatrix do with these funds?
The budget overview is available on our Founding 1,000 page and outlines our major deliverables and expendiatures. Each deliverable has been prioritized according to ease of development, dependencies upon other deliverables, and early revenue generation potential. This is why the Principle Matrix is our first deliverable.
The PrincipleMatrix has been identified as a core dependency to most other modules and is fairly straightforward to develop. It can provide early revenue and be easily adopted by a small initial group of users. We anticipate completing 25 major principles during this 1 year timeframe, with an initial release in Q2. This will include Facebook and Twitter integration.
The VoteMatrix Gov module will follow with an initial release in Q3. This module will integrate voting records of Federal representatives using open source data feeds. This will allow us to provide personalized ratings on existing candidates based primarily on their voting and legislative history. This module will have limited revenue generation until we reach a large number of users, but will be the major engine driving the data behind the VoteMatrix Ballot module. Basic TrustMatrix functionality will also be developed along with the VoteMatrix Gov module in order to allow analysts to begin mapping legislation to principles. We will hire several analysts at this time to populate initial data into the system. Initial entry will include Federal level information and then we will move to State level information. We do not plan to populate local data within the first year.
The VoteMatrix Ballot module will complete our initial offerings in Q4 and will utilize both other modules to provide election season data to users including their sample ballot, voter information guide, paper opt-out option, personalized ratings, and candidate/measure support features. This will have immediate revenue potential as we license this module for State and County agency use which may be completely offset by government savings due to the paper opt-out option.
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How can I trust this opportunity?
Every investment comes with risk but we have spent a lot of time considering the possible risks and identifying the best paths to avoid them. Many of these risks are listed on the Investor Risks popup. But when it comes down to it, your investment in VoteMatrix is based on your trust in our founder, Robert Freeman. The best way to get to know Robert is to meet him in person at a rally, have lunch with him at a Pizza with the Founder Meetup in Sacramento, join one of our Kialo debates, or chat with him on Facebook or Twitter.
You can review Robert's public resume and his LinkedIn Profile, including professional references. Many of our initial investors have worked directly with Robert and trust him based on his work ethic and competency in the field of technology. We will also compile a showcase of investors over the next few months to demonstrate the quality company you will keep when joining the Founding 1,000.
Finally, VoteMatrix is not a new company. Incorporated in 2011, we have been in business for 7 years now, have great credit, excellent customer loyalty, and operate on a surplus. We are used to success and plan to keep it that way. We can't promise a 1,000 time ROI over 5 years, but do consider it a distinct possibility. We will do our best to make sure your investment is worthwhile for the country, the world, and for you. Our reputation and Robert's are on the line.
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What percentage of the company is being offered in this seed round?
Actual share values are listed in the 13. Share Issuance Value section of the Investor Pledge. At the time of issuance, each share will be worth 0.03846% of the company, which means Type B shares will total 38.46% of the company, although some may remain in the treasury for future sale. Robert Freeman will remain majority shareholder and will continue to run the company as President until the Shareholder Democratization Provision kicks in.
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What corporate voting rights will investors have?
Investors will receive corporate voting rights when VoteMatrix reaches 10 million users. Until then, investors will be able to participate in the company by providing services or advice adhering to standard private company legal restrictions. There will also be a Facebook group for investors to participate in.
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How will you fund operations past 1 year?
By prioritizing early revenue generation, we plan to be self-sustaining by the end of Q1 2020. If revenue is less than desired, we will implement Series A or B funding rounds, borrow capital, or explore additional revenue sources.
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What would happen in a worst case scenario?
In a worst case scenario, we would consider selling or licensing the software and brand to a large company like Google, Microsoft, or Facebook. Investors would be consulted prior to any merger or intellectual property transfer.
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Will voter information be safe on your platform?
The information stored on the VoteMatrix platform will be thoroughly protected using information security best practices. We will attempt to describe some of the important safe-guards here. Many of the following points are highly technical in nature, so if you don't understand the tech, you can always refer back to our founders' extensive experience in information security implementations and solutions architecture as a measure of our reliability.-
Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services hosting platform threat management
VoteMatrix uses state of the art big data platforms with extensive threat management offerings to prevent DoS attacks, administrative account hijacking, cryptanalytic attacks, and other threats. Click on the links above to see information regarding each platform's offerings. -
Personally Identifiable Information (PII) encryption and data separation
Any information that can identify a voter's true identity will be encrypted in the database and only used when user verification, authentication, sharing, or platform integration requires it. PII will be stored in a separate database with extremely limited access, database level encryption, and separate business layer encryption. This means that any black hat with access to this data would find it quite useless and even if they had access to the principle and voting information data, they could not track it back to a specific user. VoteMatrix staff with access to this information will be very limited. -
HTTPS SSL 256bit Encryption
All traffic passing to or from the VoteMatrix App will occur over 128 or 256 bit encrypted HTTPS. 128 bit will only be used if the user's client does not support 256 bit SSL. Currently, both these encryption levels are safe for non super-computer and non quantum-computer cryptanalytic attacks. This protocol encryption is in addition to the app and database level encryption of PII. -
OAuth 2.0 and Platform Specific Authentication
These technologies are the industry standard for user authentication and authorization using shared credentials from other platforms. This will allow users to use a Facebook, Google, or Microsoft login to access their information in VoteMatrix. If a user uses one of these platforms, their login information will be secured by that platform independently of VoteMatrix. Their external login information will be considered PII and will be protected by the PII encryption mentioned above. -
PrincipleMatrix sharing
Users may want to publicize specific principles to their friends or to the public. This will be allowed and configured on a per principle basis. This means that a user can publicly announce their support for one issue, keep other issues to their friends, keep some issues completely private, and select a few issues that will only be visible to like-minded friends. All settings default to private and PII will not be shared unless the user allows it.
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Will VoteMatrix use blockchain technology?
VoteMatrix data will not be stored using blockchain technology. There are too many risks involved in publicly distributing the data that we need to safeguard, regardless of the assurances of cryptographic strength. With advances in neuromorphic processors and quantum computing as well as the possibility of new techniques to hack or manipulate the chain, we cannot take this risk. We may use blockchain in limited fashion to provide transparency into our real-time polling numbers, but only anonymous information will be stored within this chain. We may reconsider this perspective at a future date, but only with an opt-in program for our users. It's also good to note that blockchain is more wasteful from an environmental and device battery perspective.
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Won't this just result in mob rule?
The VoteMatrix app is specifically designed to inform voters and to help them form their opinions on issues carefully. In this way we believe that rule by the majority is acceptable assuming the majority is well informed (VoteMatrix assisted) and moral (Societal). We share concerns that the majority of a population may choose to be immoral, but that is a societal issue which must be handled through debate, culture, ethics, and (spirituality or intellect). The US representative republic system will still provide traditional safeguards for states rights, but that could eventually be changed through constitutional amendment.