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Comment by zeratul | Hacker News Reader

We are getting the news too late. Did you know that there are 7 bills that might change how startups operate?

    H.R.3427 - Startup Technical Assistance for Reemployment 
              Training and Unemployment Prevention Act
    H.R.3571 - Entrepreneur Startup Growth Act of 2011
    S.1965 - Startup Act of 2011
    S.1826 - Startup Technical Assistance for Reemployment 
             Training and Unemployment Prevention Act
    H.R.2941 - Startup Expansion and Investment Act
    H.R.1114 - StartUp Visa Act of 2011
    S.565 - StartUp Visa Act of 2011

We need a web service that is more robust than http://www.opencongress.org/ . We need a web service that has proper data mining, visualization, and notification system. The big guys have their lawyers - we need a proper web service. Who can help to build that?

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Here are links to take action on the bills you list. Your message will be sent to the appropriate legislators and aggregated on the public bill report so that you can see how sentiment is shaping up across the country. (The "sentiment across the country" part is important. Even if everyone in Silicon Valley thinks this something is great, the case has to be made to legislators who represent very different districts.)

https://www.popvox.com/bills/us/112/hr3427

https://www.popvox.com/bills/us/112/hr3571

https://www.popvox.com/bills/us/112/s1965

https://www.popvox.com/bills/us/112/s1826

https://www.popvox.com/bills/us/112/hr2941

https://www.popvox.com/bills/us/112/hr1114

https://www.popvox.com/bills/us/112/s565

Well, there's already https://www.popvox.com/. They show bills currently in Congress, organized by category or what's most popular on the site. They also send alerts that recommend bills based on your interests, although it seems to be in the alpha stage right now.

I'm not sure if Popvox has all the features you have in mind. Rather than starting a new web service from scratch, you might find it easier to request certain features from an existing one.

Thanks, David - yes, we would love the input at POPVOX (info@popvox.com)

New alerts system is imminent, so please check it out.

BTW - we had our own go at crowdfunding for POPVOX. I explained on Quora how we had to turn down non-qualified investors: http://b.qr.ae/nXFsiM

We ended up with a crowdfunding variation to raise the money for our iPad app for Congress through Appbackr (MarkUp - the first app designed for Congress http://bit.ly/uLSrOT). See article in Entrepreneur magazine on the fundraising: http://bit.ly/rKQSzS

Marci, I saw you guys present at Dingman (capital access network). Glad to hear you got funded in an innovative way.

Did you guys move or stay in DC?

That's what we're working on with http://www.plainsite.org.

> Who can help to build that?

I would love to. But it's difficult to justify when there is no payoff for it.

Plenty of people would like to. But, more importantly... who will help pay for that?

At POPVOX, our first investor was Tim O'Reilly. Legislative advocacy is a huge market -- and one in great need of disruption.

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