Eric Wilson (00:00):
You cannot understand electoral politics in this country without understanding the business of politics. And the same is true of Capitol Hill. Welcome to the Campaign Trend podcast, where you are joining in on a conversation with the entrepreneurs, operatives, and experts who make professional politics happen. I'm your host, Eric Wilson. Our guest today is David Tenet, founder of Connect, A platform to centralized social and professional opportunities for political staffers. In today's episode, we're breaking down his lessons learned, building that app and some insights he's gathered about how congressional staffers on Capitol Hill think and get information. So David, congratulations. Connect celebrates three years this month. What is the most surprising thing that you've learned about building a startup in this very unique industry?
David Tennent (00:54):
First off, when it comes to building a startup, you get this idea when you watch the social network or something like that, that things just happen overnight. It happens so quickly. And so you get this misconception that you're going to start a business and in the first year you're going to be huge and everyone's using your app and you've got money to spend. And that was just not the case for myself. But from the startup perspective, it took a lot of time to get going, but more on the political side, it's been really interesting to see, especially through our polling that we do called Capital Pulse. We're asking congressional staffers every day how they feel about politically topical issues. And something that's really stood out to me that I wasn't expecting building something in this industry was the amount of overlap there is in bipartisanship and policy.
(01:45):
A lot of the times when you think about how a typical Republican or Democrat is going to think about healthcare or big business or whatever it may be, you have these preconceived notions of how they're going to think or respond to these polls. Most of the time I'm dead wrong on what I think it's going to be. And so it's been really interesting to see opportunities where there's room for bipartisanship on healthcare. On one that I found really interesting was Republicans were extremely supportive of Lena Kahn's reign during the Biden administration. Oh, interesting. Kind of reigning in big business, so not something you would've expected, but I mean the parties moving in a more populous direction. So I guess you could guess it, but didn't expect to see it. From a policy perspective. It's good to see that there's an appetite for bipartisanship from staffers themselves, but I didn't think necessarily how much overlap there'd be in ideological thinking.
Eric Wilson (02:40):
And I want to underline a key startup lesson that you shared in your answer, which is you've got to have that conviction. Some might call it naivete to really pursue a startup because if you don't have that, you are going to get discouraged and you probably wouldn't even start. So that's the key thing. You've got to be passionate about what it is that you're building, otherwise you're not going to make it through all the ups and downs and discouragement that comes along the way. So I'm glad you called that out.
David Tennent (03:05):
Yeah, that's like if you're going to build a startup, you have to just convince yourself that even though what you see right in front of you tells you that you're failing and it's not working and you should quit, you have to have that belief that, no, I'm working towards something bigger. I'm going to get through this. And it's that grit to just keep going and to almost lie to yourself or not believe people when they tell you, I don't know if this is going to work. And eventually you come out the other side and it's this sigh of relief. But yeah, you got to get through that time where your mind just placed tricks on you.
Eric Wilson (03:38):
It is all compound interest, so you're putting little deposits in every day, and that first year your 401k looks pretty meager, but then you get two, three years down the line and you've got some returns.
David Tennent (03:52):
And I mean, I put a good chunk of money into this business, I was able to save up during COVID, and it's the same as going to business school. I could have spent more money to go to business school and learn how to build a business, or I could just build a business, just build a business, and if it fails, which I don't like to think that this is going to fail or open up that door, but the backup is like, okay, if this is a complete disaster, one at this point, I've made my money back, so we're okay. But early on it was like, if this doesn't work out, I learned how to build a business. This is going to set me up for the future, and it was cheaper than going to business school.
Eric Wilson (04:29):
And I think, well, one, based on everything I'm seeing, your trajectory is such that you're not on the path to failure. You're running a very successful business. But I think for people who are thinking about startups, that risk of failure is not as significant as you might think because a really effective startup is able to pivot. And so the thing that you started out to do, you're going to learn a lot of things about how not to do that, and then you're going to pivot to something else. And as long as you have that grit and determination and conviction in the problem you're trying to solve, you're going to end up in a good place. And so the failure isn't the worry. I think most people should concern. It's like no one caring. That's the thing that you don't want to have happen.
David Tennent (05:13):
Yeah, you get that too. Early on, we were just an app and I had invested money into building an app, and so my mind was dead set. No, the app has to work. The app has to work. Meanwhile, I'm ignoring this blossoming newsletter business that I just don't want to accept that this could be a main part of this. But over time, my heart got through it and I realize, okay, let's redirect funds, focus a lot on that and then come back to technology to a different point. But yeah, you've got to be flexible.
Eric Wilson (05:45):
Well, I really think that you cannot understand electoral politics in this country without understanding the business of politics. And the same is true of Capitol Hill. You can't understand what's going on in Congress unless you understand the men and women who make the institution function. So based on the community that you have and the research, what do Congressional Staff House or Senate Republican or Democrat have in common, aside from some of those policy agreements? What type of people are, they are extremely smart. They're
David Tennent (06:15):
Dedicated to work hard, and they care about connection. I think the human body, the human mind spirit is just so focused on finding connection and it's hard to find in the sounds. So we wanted to provide an opportunity there. But also we have this idea in politics that when we generalize the opposite party, that the other side is just doing things wrong and they're intentionally doing things wrong, whereas in reality, all these people are coming to the hill and whether you agree with how they're going about their policy decisions, they're there because they care, right? They're not trying to screw things up, honestly. They're trying to do the best that they can based on what they believe. And that might be different than what you believe, but at the end of the day, we're all trying to make this place better. Hopefully we're trying to make it more efficient. But there's a lot of opportunities. And the thing is, everyone's young too. There are a few people that are over 30, maybe 25% of the hill, but most of these people are super young. It's their first job out of school, they're working their way up the hill, and they just want to feel a part of something. They want to feel community and have opportunities to grow. And that was what's great about dc, that's why I moved here, is there's so many opportunities to be in those type of worlds.
Eric Wilson (07:37):
Yeah, it's an intentional community. You've got, especially a place like Capitol Hill, you move from all over the country to be there to do a thing. And so it is interesting to hear you say that it can be difficult to develop connection there. Tell us a little bit more about that. Why do you think that is?
David Tennent (07:53):
So there's two aspects of it, in my opinion. One, the overall idea of social media I think has been alive. What they told us it was going to be, of this idea of building community, getting to know people better, feeling more a part of something. Whereas at this point, I don't think community is really a part of social media. It's more about creating you as a consumer and consuming content. But that's the cynical side of my brain thinking about that world. But I think the other hard part is everyone's coming from all over the country. In my experience. I get here, I go onto Facebook and look at my University of Pittsburgh alumni group and realize there's a, people in the group talked to the administrator of the group, and he's like, yeah, DC is the biggest network outside of Pittsburgh for people from Pitt.
(08:53):
And I'm like, alright, so where are all these people? Help me find them. This is my ingrained connection. We have something in common. And just in my time on the hill in DC, I realized really there's no centralized process to figuring out who the other people are that are similar to you that you're going to have natural connections with. And so that was one of the reasons why I wanted to start connect was to be able to go on the app, to go on your profile and see, alright, here are all the people from Pennsylvania, here are all the people that went to Pit. Here are all the people that watching baseball. And try to just help that process because everyone's coming from somewhere different. You share things in common with certain people in town, but some of 'em could be in Northwest or Navy yard, whatever it is. So trying to help people just find that common connection quicker than having to do it on your own and run around to a bunch of receptions or whatever it may be, and hope you run into the right people.
Eric Wilson (09:50):
That is such a fascinating generational divide because as you know, I worked on Capitol Hill 20 years ago it seems like, but 2007 was when I first started out on the Hill. So before Twitter, before Facebook was beyond kind of just a college campus thing. And the way you built your community was you plugged into your state society, your alumni chapter, and this is where I think social media is strong, is it can help you maintain those offline connections. But that's so fascinating that if you flip it the other way and you start online to try and go to offline, that can be really difficult. It's just fascinating to see that generational divide. What are we seeing with this current, we had new members come in, so they bring new staff, new administration in the White House. That means lots of turnover. What's it like working on Capitol Hill during this second Trump administration?
David Tennent (10:50):
Now, obviously I can only speak secondhand of what my users are telling
Eric Wilson (10:55):
Me. Well, your users would never tell us what they think about what's going on, so you have to be our interpreter.
David Tennent (11:02):
Fair enough. I'll wrap them out. But basically it just seems like they're really busy. When I talk to 'em at events, they're like, yeah, I'm swamped right now. And that seems to be a common theme with how quickly the Trump administration is moving through executive orders and different policies that they're putting out there. They're kind of trying to overwhelm. It seems like that's their strategy and it's hard keeping up because the thing about On the Hill, at least in my perspective from being a communicator, was you have to know what's going on and all the different things that are going on. You have to synthesize it and message on it and understand it. And so there's drinking from a fire hose right now. And so I think they're just trying to survive. And I think things are slowing down a little bit on the other side of the budget for now, but it's a constant just sprint, but also a marathon. And I think now that the weather's getting nicer, things will be a little bit chiller. They can be outside, get some fresh air, some warm weather, hang out at Bull Feathers. So I'm hoping that just gives everyone a little bit of a peace of mind coming out. It just like a crazy first few months.
Eric Wilson (12:13):
And so based on that insight and other things that you've learned from this community, what's a change that you would make that would improve the quality of life on Capitol Hill for staff to help them better serve the American people?
David Tennent (12:29):
Yeah, I have a few different answers here. I think from a personal perspective, my mindset goes to how can we better embody Christlike values in how we communicate with others in politics, whether that's loving your enemies or being forgiving or understanding or trying to listen first. I really think that our political institutions are not embodying those values right now, and it's creating a toxic environment for messaging. The other part of it is I don't see deliberation as something that is encouraged or really even talked about these days. And my ideal version of Capitol Hill, I think it's embodying those values, but also figuring out how we can have conversations, being willing to disagree and to not hate someone on the other side for believing what they believe, but maybe seeing it from a perspective of, okay, they were raised differently than I was or came up with different experiences.
(13:26):
How can I better understand their side? And that's a tool to better argue against 'em, right? If you understand the other side and come at it from a perspective of empathy, you can better break down their argument in a way, why don't we debate anymore? I feel like we just kind of yell at each other. And I think if we found ways to better communicate our ideas and truly deliberate, whether it's in committee hearings or on the house floor or just at Union Pub or whatever it may be, if we're finding ways to talk across the aisle to not always try to change each other's minds, but to just be willing to talk things out. The more we have of that, I think the more it rubs off on the general electorate of, I mean, they're looking to the political leaders in this country to mirror what the rest of America should be like when it comes to talking about politics. So if the people at the top are extremely partisan and angry in how they message, not everyone is like that, but there is a lot of anger in our current political messaging. What do we expect the dude in Missouri or in California to represent how they view politics if the people at the top are acting that way too. So that's kind of my hope is figure out a way to be more educated how we discuss politics.
Eric Wilson (14:53):
Yeah, no, that's a really keen insight, right? Because the capitol and the legislator body was set up to be deliberative. We go back to the 18th century, the idea of having debates between people representing different regions and perspectives. We have gotten rid of that. And I think some of the blame could be hung on technology and the fact that it's now tending to be more performative, and there's evidence of that. But yeah, figuring out how we return the deliberation. You're listening to the Campaign Trend podcast. I'm speaking with David Tenet, founder of Capital Connect. David, you've been studying Capitol Hill staffers media diets lately with some user surveys, and let's get started with podcasts. It's on everyone's mind after the 2024 election, and we've got some really smart podcast listeners with us right now on this show. So if someone wants to reach staffers in Congress via podcast, where do they need to be?
David Tennent (15:49):
So the thing that we've realized, there are two main podcasts, and you can guess how these are going to break down, but the two main podcasts are Punchbowl and
Eric Wilson (15:58):
The Joe Rogan Podcast. Okay. Two very different sides of the spectrum
David Tennent (16:02):
There. And so we have a set limit of how many answers we can give, and the poll questions we're asking. So the question was, what is your go-to podcast each week for listening to political news? And so the answers were Playbook, punch Bowl, Joe Rogan Experience, and Wall Street Journal, and it was really just a two man race between Punch Bowl and Joe Rogan. Democrats were more likely to listen to Politico. But overall, as far as the bigger splits, it was Democrats were more likely to listen to Punch Bowl Republicans more likely to listen to Joe Rogan. Republican women are more likely to listen to Punch Bowl, which I think you would've guessed. So I think when it comes to messaging towards, if you're trying to get towards young Republican males, I think this kind of showed in the 2024 election. You can go on the Joe Rogan podcast, you can go on Lex Friedman or those more kind of just like broey podcasts and reach that group. But it's not exclusive to Republican men. Democratic men listen to this a lot, especially those in policy. That was kind of a surprising factor is Democratic policy staffers out of Democrats were most likely to listen to Joe Rogan. But towards the more newsy splits too, you get the playbooks and the daily punch, but Punch Full seemed to be a much more popular podcast than playbook where not the same splits happened when it came to newsletter consumption.
Eric Wilson (17:34):
And this is an important lesson as certainly on my side of fence when we're thinking about campaigns and how do we reach out to people. But same for public affairs where they're like, we need to do podcasts. And I think podcasts is kind of a symptom or an emblematic of a broader media fragmentation. But what you've pointed out here is that yes, you're going to have the hits the Joe Rogan experience, and so that's going to reach people, but there are these, what we would call long tail podcasts that have significant reach and penetration within key audiences. And that's the lesson here. It's not, oh, I need to be on podcast. The media has fragmented and you've got to go find these people everywhere.
David Tennent (18:15):
And I think there's a misconception. We did another question recently, and I can get more into the details as we go, but question we asked was, we have staffers what their primary news sources and news sites and nuis and social media were kind of the main answers there. But independent media got 17% overall, small number comparatively. But there's this misconception that independent media is more of a thing on the right when it comes to those podcasts. But most of the respondents who have the highest number or the majority who chose independent media were democratic communication staffers, democratic senior policy staffers, and then Republicans over 30. I wasn't expecting it to be more likely that Democrats overall would choose independent media as their main source. So it's not only the Joe Rogans on the right that are going to get that ear of Republican congressional staffer, but the same thing is happening on the left as well. So I think there's an appetite for genuine conversation for news that feels more real in a sense. And you're not getting that with cable news anymore. And so staffers are looking for some sort of medium to fill that void. And so they're going towards independent media now.
Eric Wilson (19:30):
And another thing that I've noticed is you definitely have more personalities where the reporters and the individuals matter a lot more, and so they can move from one outlet to another, but they've got their social media following and their sourcing and it goes with them. And so when I first started working on Capitol Hill, we read print versions of publications like the Hill Roll call. They were all that sort of that vertical cq, and then Upstart Politico, which started roughly the same time I did on Capitol Hill. Now there's no print versions of any of that, and it's all about the email newsletters, but that seems to be like a growing medium for news consumption. What did you learn from your users about newsletters?
David Tennent (20:12):
Yeah, it's a two man race. So we asked staffers what their favorite newsletter is. We gave them the answers of Playbook, punch Bowl, just like the AM newsletter. So Playbook, punch Bowl, Axios am, and then the Hill Morning report, it was just Playbook and Punch Bowl. Those were really the only two that stood out and had the highest response rates, and they were basically tied. The interesting part was it was a very polarized answer, and I'll give real examples, but if Democrats chose playbook, Republicans chose Punch Bowl. If policy staff chose Playbook comm staff chose Punch Bowl. And so female staff playbook, male staff punch Bowl over 30, staff playbook under 30, staff punch Bowl. So none of them lined up. That's fascinating. So I found that super interesting. I also think if you would've, obviously Punch Bowl is gaining the advantage here. They're the new upstart and taking on the political heavyweights from the kind of OG Politico playbook taking it over there. So they're gaining a lot of traction. And it's interesting to see that Republican staff are more and more edging towards Punchbowl, but not listening to their podcast, which I also thought was interesting. So it's super interesting to see the divide there. But those two, just like DC centric, these are the newsletters. If you're a public affairs person and you want to spend the big bucks and sponsor one of those newsletters, those are the two to get go.
Eric Wilson (21:44):
Yeah. So what's a news or information source that you think Capitol Hill staff should pay more attention to, but you're not seeing it in your data?
David Tennent (21:54):
Yeah, this may be a little bit of a rogue answer, but two things. One, the thing we noticed about Axios AM is that staffers don't prefer that as their primary newsletter. Whereas I think when you talk to a public affairs professional, a lot of times when they're working with clients, the executive at a company is saying, I want to sponsor Axios Am because that's what they're reading, whereas that's not necessarily rubbing off on the individual staffer. My thought process there is the reason why this divide is happening is because the executive is reading Ax CSM is because you get a dip into politics, you get a dip into tech, you get a lot of different areas of expertise going on there, and it's a more broad news source than a Punch Bowl or playbook is where it's just in the weeds politics. So I would encourage staffers to read more of that Axio style because you're going to get more content outside of the super in the Weeds politics.
(22:57):
So it kind of gives you some more insight into what's going on in the world from an economic perspective or from a social perspective, but also I would say read a sports publication or a music one or whatever it is, gets something on your radar that's not politics related, because we get so stuck in this bubble as political staffers and we're so focused on DC and the Capitol and what's going on in politics. So we've come very one track minded and it can rub off on our personalities a lot. So I would encourage staffers to not only do the typical readings that we all do to figure out the political news, but to expand kind of what you're looking at and take some time to look at something that isn't political.
Eric Wilson (23:42):
Well, my thanks to David Tenet for a great conversation. You can learn more about Capital Connect at the link in our show notes, and if you're a Capitol Hill staffer, you should go download the app and get connected with their events. And if this episode made you a little bit smarter, gave you something to think about, all we ask is that you share it with a friend or colleague, you look smarter in the process and more people learn about the show. So it's win-win all around. Remember to subscribe to the Campaign Trend Podcast wherever you get your podcasts, so you never miss an episode, and you can visit our website@campaigntrend.com. With that, I'll say thanks for listening. We'll see you next time. The Campaign Trend Podcast is produced by Advocacy Content Kitchen, a media production studio.
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