From Matt · Ottawa

Why I built KnockList

In July 2026, a friend was getting her run for Ottawa city council off the ground. A day job, a handful of volunteers, and 15,500 doors to knock.

The big canvassing platform quoted her $500 a month.

Building software is my day job. I run Daylight, a product studio, so I built her a simpler tool: every address pre-loaded, volunteers tap through doors on their phones.

Fifteen-plus volunteers are on it now. Her biggest single session so far: 87 doors. As I write this, she’s running two canvasses in two different neighbourhoods at once.

Their quote was $500 a month. KnockList is $50.

Today, sitting councillors are running their re-elections on KnockList, and challengers are running to unseat them — across Ottawa, Peterborough, Oshawa and Kingston.

Refunded if it’s not working for you. Live in about ten minutes. Automated end to end, which is how one person can run it, and why I answer every email myself.

Who I am

I’m Matt Thomas. Ten years building software, public policy at the Department of Finance before that. I’ve seen how software gets built and how public offices actually run.

KnockList is non-partisan. It works the same for every name on every ballot.