Working with public-sector buyers is a different sport than traditional enterprise sales, and I’ve learned that getting it right demands rigor, patience, and empathy. That’s why I was eager to dive into the realities of selling into government with Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins, co-founder and CEO of Promise, a modern government payment solution. The conversation sharpened my own playbooks for B2G sales and underscored how product management leadership must adapt when the buyer is a city, county, or state agency.
We unpacked the practicalities of going to market with government: the extra-long sales cycles, layers of subcontractors, and the need to convince risk-averse decision-makers to take a chance on a startup. In my experience, this requires founder-led GTM early on, paired with meticulous stakeholder mapping, procurement fluency, and airtight compliance. I’ve found it’s crucial to identify the economic buyer, policy owner, legal gatekeeper, and program operator—and then multi-thread relationships so momentum isn’t lost when a champion rotates roles or a budget committee delays.
When cycles stretch into quarters or years, I put a premium on structured pilot design. I aim for time-boxed proofs of value with clear milestones, measurable policy outcomes, and deliverables that de-risk adoption for the agency. This approach aligns incentives for forward progress, while giving the vendor room to iterate on product discovery without jeopardizing trust. It also creates a shared narrative that risk-averse decision-makers can carry into internal approvals.
We also took a step back to traverse the winding road that led to Promise in its current form. Like so many founders I’ve advised, the early journey involved recalibrating the problem-solution fit. Phaedra explains the signals that the first iteration of the product, a bail reform platform, wasn’t going to work as she’d hoped. Her experience mirrors what I watch for in my own teams: leading indicators such as stalled deployments, low utilization by the primary user, misaligned unit economics in government procurement, or policy constraints that cap impact despite strong intent from stakeholders.
From a product-market fit lens, the lesson is to separate mission conviction from mechanism flexibility. Keep the mission constant, but be ruthless about pivoting the mechanism when evidence stacks up. For me, that means codifying hypotheses, setting explicit kill/commit thresholds, and running rapid, qualitative cycles with front-line operators. In the public sector, small usability frictions often become policy blockers—so I test workflows in the field, not just in demos, and pressure-test compliance, data-sharing agreements, and funding sources during discovery, not after.
For founders navigating a pivot, I recommend three disciplined moves: narrow the value proposition to a single, high-frequency pain; re-sequence your GTM around the budget line item that actually funds the work; and redesign onboarding to deliver a visible win inside one reporting cycle. These moves increase the odds of institutional buy-in and compress the time to proof points, even amid long procurement paths.
Ultimately, selling to government rewards clarity, credibility, and outcomes over output. The path is slower, but when you align your roadmap to measurable public impact—and build trust with the program staff who carry the day-to-day load—you create durable, compounding value. That’s where founder-led GTM, rigorous product discovery, and a willingness to pivot converge into true product-market fit lessons for the public sector.
Leave a Reply