Selling to government agencies requires throwing out the traditional B2B playbook. Just ask Vibrant Planet, which scaled from 300,000 to 18 million acres in 18 months by mastering the art of government tech sales. In a recent episode of Category Visionaries, CEO Allison Wolff revealed the counterintuitive GTM strategies that drove their rapid growth.
- Embrace Complexity Instead of Simplifying
While many startups try to simplify their offering, Vibrant Planet took the opposite approach. “What we do is really complicated. We’re basically doing our best to mimic the complexity of nature,” Allison explains. They invested heavily in sophisticated engineering and science teams to build out complex data structures that could handle intricate land management decisions.
This commitment to tackling complexity head-on earned them credibility with government stakeholders who understood the nuanced challenges they faced. As Allison notes, “The forest service, for example, has to manage for carbon, water, biodiversity, recreation values and protecting communities that are in and around their forests.”
- Build Trust Through Co-Creation
Rather than developing their product in isolation, Vibrant Planet worked directly with early customers to shape their solution. “We really co-designed the system with them as they were going through a risk management workflow. We built it side by side with them, and then they became our earliest and biggest paying customers once they saw the potential of the system,” Allison shares.
This collaborative approach served multiple purposes: ensuring product-market fit, building trust with key stakeholders, and creating internal champions who would become their biggest advocates.
- Master Relationship-Based Sales
Unlike typical B2B sales cycles, government tech requires deep relationship building. “This is a very relationship, trust driven space… It’s the most relationship driven business I’ve ever experienced,” Allison emphasizes. Success came from leveraging existing networks and spending years building rapport through sustained conversations.
Even with her impressive Silicon Valley background, Allison notes it “took several years of many conversations to also build that kind of rapport with folks.” This highlights the importance of playing the long game in government sales.
- Find Investors Who Understand Government Sales
While many VCs shy away from government-focused startups, Vibrant Planet found success by targeting investors who understood the unique advantages of government customers. “Government contracts scare a lot of investors, although the investors that get it also understand once you land them, they are very big, sticky customers,” Allison explains.
The key was articulating both the vision and the business case: “Early stage vision sells, and so I think being able to articulate a big vision with, hopefully, a big business behind it is absolutely critical.”
- Show What’s Possible
Rather than just pitching ideas, Vibrant Planet focused on demonstrating concrete value. “One of the things I learned working in Silicon Valley for my whole career was you have to show people what’s possible,” Allison shares. They invested in building “an incredibly robust, minimum viable product that was actually functioning in a very high profile area of California that was one of the highest risk areas.”
Beyond Government Tech
These lessons extend beyond just government sales. Vibrant Planet’s experience shows how technical complexity, when properly managed, can become a competitive advantage. Their journey demonstrates that while selling to government requires a different playbook, it can lead to substantial growth when executed properly.
The company’s expansion to 18 million acres across multiple states validates their approach. As Allison explains their broader vision: “Ultimately, we are a nature based climate solutions company… we’re in a way, leveraging the hyper focus on the wildfire crisis to get people focused on resilience building.”
For founders entering complex markets, whether government or enterprise, Vibrant Planet’s journey offers a masterclass in building trust-based GTM strategies that scale. Success comes not from simplifying complex problems, but from building the relationships and technical excellence needed to solve them properly.
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