Remember when making a political decision in SimCity would have an immediate impact on your constituents’ behavior? Well, the same thing happens in real-life except until now it was always hard to measure. Enter Outline, a platform that visualizes the impact of any public policy. It was such a compelling idea that it just won a Knight Foundation award for OpenGov (resulting in a spike in our internal dashbaord).

Outline gained its initial traction through a different product, Politify, which was released in late 2012. At the time, the product illustrated whether or not you’d be richer if Obama or Romney won. After attracting over 4 million users in 3 months, Outline joined Techstars and built out Outline. Founders Nikita Bier and Jeremy Black have managed to pull on the former lead developer of Visual.ly, Erik Hazzard, and a chief economist, Ray Kluender.

With some notable investors, including Mike Greenfield (Founder of Circle of Moms) and Don McLagan (former CEO of Compete.com), Outline appears to have some great initial traction. The product also happens to be a much needed one, serving as an early step in the Open Government movement. You can check out more info via the company’s website.

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