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Strategic Communications Advisory For Visionary Founders
Conversation
Highlights
A seasoned Silicon Valley executive decides to tackle wildfire risk through technology. The catch? Her primary customers would be government agencies – notorious for long sales cycles and procurement complexity. Yet in just 18 months, her company’s platform went from covering 300,000 acres to 18 million acres across the western United States.
In a recent episode of Category Visionaries, Allison Wolff, CEO of Vibrant Planet, revealed how she built a successful government-focused tech company by throwing out the traditional Silicon Valley GTM playbook and embracing a relationship-first approach.
The Genesis: From Consulting to Tech Platform
The story begins with Allison mapping the climate change space for potential opportunities. While researching, she discovered a critical gap: “I started to see that we really are facing catastrophic failure in about half of land on earth… Started with small cabins in the forties and then giant $20 million homes today in places like Lake Tahoe, it’s places that we love to live.”
This insight led to a deeper investigation of land management practices. As Allison explains, “As I dove into this problem, I discovered how broken the land management, planning and monitoring capabilities are, so they really hadn’t been modernized yet… I started to see a really big tech opportunity.”
Building Trust in Government Sales
Unlike typical B2B sales, selling to government agencies requires a fundamentally different approach. “This is a very relationship, trust driven space,” Allison notes. “All of our early customers were deep relationships that might either some of my team who are foresters, or long time people in government from like EPA and bureau, land management and US forest Service.”
Even with her impressive Silicon Valley background, Allison had to earn credibility: “I earned that respect coming in as the newbie from Silicon Valley. You know, took several years of many conversations to also build that kind of rapport with folks.”
The Co-Creation Strategy
Instead of building in isolation, Vibrant Planet took an innovative approach to product development. “We built 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,” Allison shares. “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.”
Navigating Complex Technical Sales
One of the biggest challenges was explaining their sophisticated platform to both customers and investors. As Allison explains, “What we do is really complicated. We’re basically doing our best to mimic the complexity of nature… We invested heavily in the science and data engineering.”
Rather than simplifying their offering, they embraced its complexity: “We’ve got a very sophisticated engineering team and science team to build out a fine scale vegetation structure… The forest service, for example, has to manage for carbon, water, biodiversity, recreation values and protecting communities that are in and around their forests.”
Fundraising Against the Odds
Raising capital for a government-focused tech company presented unique challenges. “Government contracts scare a lot of investors,” Allison notes. However, they found success by emphasizing the strategic advantages: “The investors that get it also understand once you land them, they are very big, sticky customers.”
The key was finding investors who understood their vision: “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.”
The Path to Scale
Their strategy paid off dramatically. In just 18 months, they expanded from 300,000 acres to 18 million acres across multiple states. This rapid scaling demonstrated that government tech can grow quickly once initial credibility is established.
Looking ahead, Allison sees even bigger opportunities: “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.”
Key Lessons for Founders
Vibrant Planet’s journey offers crucial insights for founders targeting government customers:
- Invest in relationships before trying to sell
- Co-create solutions with early customers
- Don’t shy away from necessary complexity
- Find investors who understand your vision
- Build for scale from the beginning
Their success shows that while selling to government requires a different playbook, it can lead to substantial growth when executed properly. The key is building genuine relationships, demonstrating deep domain expertise, and having the patience to navigate longer sales cycles while maintaining a clear vision for scale.
Actionable
Takeaways
Leveraging Past Experiences:
Allison's journey from Netflix to Vibrant Planet underscores the importance of utilizing experiences from diverse sectors to drive innovation and tackle complex environmental challenges.
Vision-Driven Leadership:
Establishing a clear, forward-looking vision is crucial for mobilizing teams and stakeholders around complex, long-term goals, especially in fields as challenging as climate resilience and land management.
Collaborative Ecosystem Approach:
Addressing systemic issues like wildfire risk and ecosystem restoration requires a collaborative approach, integrating input from various stakeholders to create comprehensive and effective solutions.
Data-Driven Decision Making:
The use of sophisticated data analytics and modeling to understand and mimic ecosystem complexities highlights the power of technology in transforming traditional land management practices for better outcomes.
Navigating Government Partnerships:
Building relationships and earning trust are pivotal in sectors where government agencies are key customers, emphasizing the need for patience, persistence, and adaptability in business strategies.
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