Building & selling a product into government is tricky — Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins shares critical advice for getting it right

Today’s episode is with Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins, co-founder and CEO of Promise, a modern government payment solution. In today’s conversation, Phaedra explores the ins and outs of selling a product into government. Phaedra pulls back the curtain of how she and the Promise team tackle the extra-long sales cycles, navigate layers of subcontractors, and convince risk-averse decision-makers to take a chance on a startup. We also take a step back to traverse the winding road that led to Promise in its current form. Like plenty of founders before her, Phaedra had to pivot her way into product-market fit. She explains the signals that the first iteration of the product, a bail reform platform, wasn’t going to work as she’d hoped. She then doles out lessons for other founders in the process of pivoting. You can follow Phaedra on Twitter at @phaedrael You can learn more about our advertiser Cocoon at meetcocoon.com You can email us questions directly at [email protected] or follow us on Twitter @ twitter.com/firstround and twitter.com/brettberson