Building in local government: the $2 trillion market founders ignore

Executive overview

Local government controls $2 trillion of GDP annually, yet 90%+ of council votes are decided before meetings start and public comment is largely ineffective. Most founders won't touch the space. Sunil built Hamlet to make local government easy to understand — starting with a newsletter, pivoting to B2B when real estate developers came inbound.

The original insight: technology hasn't touched local government, but real estate developers, data center builders, and residents all need it.

Why local government is an overlooked market

• $2 trillion of GDP flows through local government annually
• Most city council votes are pre-decided; councils function as rubber-stamp organisations
• Public comment rarely changes outcomes — decisions are made via informal daisy chains before meetings
• COVID-era recording equipment plus LLMs created the "why now" for Hamlet
• Residents silently care but won't attend four-hour evening meetings to find out what's happening

From newsletter to B2B pivot

• Sunil ran for city council in Orinda (pop. 19,000) and discovered the opacity firsthand
• Post-campaign newsletter quickly grew to hundreds of subscribers — proof of latent demand
• Original plan was consumer; a real estate developer reached out unsolicited after seven months
• Team locked focus onto the B2B use case once two developer customers converted
• Three eventual customer segments: residents, private companies (current focus), and governments

Solo founding trade-offs

• No co-founder will match your depth of care for the problem — expect it, don't resent it
• Fundraising falls entirely on you; be a good fundraiser or learn fast
• Consensus produces average outcomes; solo founding lets you optimise for extraordinary ones
• Risk: resentment toward the team for not caring as much — requires active, direct communication
• Support system outside the company is critical; loneliness exists even with co-founders

Using advisors effectively

• Solo founders own more equity and can afford advisor grants that would be impractical with co-founders
• Intensity upfront is everything — relationships decay without active maintenance
• One advisor made 25 warm intros to real estate developers; one converted to a paying customer
• Structure for knowledge transfer in the first 30–90 days, not a standing monthly call
• Use advisors to accelerate industry knowledge across multiple customer segments simultaneously

Hiring and team building

• Started with contract-to-hire to assess working style before extending offers
• First team (from GoodRx) was consumer-oriented — wrong fit once the business pivoted to B2B
• Rebuilt around engineers from Pivotal Labs, recruited via head of engineering Mike (ex-Nextdoor)
• Mike's six years at Nextdoor meant he understood the problem, not just the code
• Company stays lean: 11 people, 6 engineers

On original insight and editorial voice

• Easy-to-explain businesses often require deep contextual knowledge to actually build
• Copying editorial voice doesn't work — authenticity outperforms formula every time
• Founders who chase trends (crypto, GLP-1s, etc.) almost never make it without original insight
• "Original insight" doesn't mean unique in the world — it means your own deep understanding of the space
• Strong points of view are required; playing it safe produces nothing memorable