"They have us over a barrel."

That's what a Town Manager told us about their software vendor. Exorbitant maintenance fees. Intolerable customer service. Inflexible systems that ignore user feedback. And zero alternatives.

We heard this story once. Then dozens of times. Then hundreds.

Here's how local government software became a racket:

For decades, legacy vendors consolidated through M&A, creating regional monopolies. They charge governments millions for systems built in the 1990s, lock them into multi-year contracts, and deliver "support" through offshore call centers reading scripts. Implementations take 12-18 months. Feature requests disappear into black holes. And when budgets tighten and hiring gets harder, IT costs keep climbing while delivering less value.

Towns, cities, and counties deserve better. Their staff deserves better. Their citizens deserve better.

So we built TownCloud.

We took proven cloud architecture and modern SaaS practices—the same tech that revolutionized business software—and purpose-built it for local government. New workflows designed with actual users. Implementations in days, not years. Apps that start at $50/month. Support from real people who care. And a business model where our success depends entirely on customer happiness.

The result? Hundreds of customers nationwide with zero advertising spend. Town Managers who become evangelists. A viral growth loop driven purely by word-of-mouth.

Our mission goes beyond better software. When local government works efficiently, communities thrive. Better constituent services. Faster permitting. Transparent finances. Staff who can focus on serving citizens instead of fighting their software.

Hundreds of Customers Nationwide. 100% organic growth. No acquisitions. No bought customer lists. In govtech's tight-knit world, trust spreads one town at a time.

We've shown the model works – now we're ready to scale.

The TownCloud Advantage:

• Sales velocity that legacy vendors can't match – Customers start at $50/month for a single app or replace their entire ERP. No RFPs. No 18-month procurement cycles. We are aiming to eliminate buying risk and obsoleted traditional govtech sales.
• Ship features in weeks, not years – Proprietary enterprise platform means no bureaucratic dev cycles. We aim to adapt to customer feedback and market opportunities at startup speed while delivering enterprise reliability.
• Live in 24 hours – From demo to contract to onboarding to live production in as little as one day. Legacy implementations take 12-18 months. We aim to do it in one.
• Support calls? What support calls? – We believe our apps are so intuitive that support volume is a fraction of industry norms. Legacy systems require support for routine tasks. We think TownCloud just works.
• Flat structure = customer obsession – Direct lines from leadership to customers means rapid decisions, enablement culture, and a mission-driven team passionate about making government work better.

The Viral Loop is Real:

Our growth story tells itself:

• Customers remain enthusiastic advocates years after going live
• Most new sales are customer referrals or reinforced by word-of-mouth
• Strong market response in every geography we've entered
• Customers consistently expand from single apps to enterprise-wide deployment

When the wheels of government turn slowly, TownCloud is the grease that makes them fly.

Imagine paying $200,000 for software that takes two years to go live. Then discovering it doesn't actually solve your problems.

Welcome to local government software.

Here's how bad it's gotten:

Small agencies spend 1-2 years on procurement. Large agencies? 3-5 years. That means from "we need new software" to "we're getting value" can take half a decade. And many projects fail entirely—not because the migration doesn't complete, but because the new system is just trading old problems for new ones.

Meanwhile, the vendors who built these systems decades ago are getting rolled up into private equity portfolios. The strategy? Harvest revenue from aging technology, avoid meaningful R&D, and increase maintenance fees while service quality plummets. The original developers have retired. The systems are held together with duct tape and COBOL bandaids.

Worse, the software itself has become Frankenstein's monster: Layers upon layers of patches built over decades. The original vision lost to committee-driven bloat. Every "upgrade" adds complexity without solving core problems. And when things go wrong—which they constantly do—vendors have carefully structured contracts to blame the customer. Challenging implementations? You're "doing it wrong." Need it to actually work? Here's another change order.

The ugly truth: Vendors see customers as commodities to be bought and sold in M&A deals, not as partners whose success supports the entire industry.

The result is a vicious cycle:

• Budgets tighten, but IT costs keep climbing
• Staff shortages worsen, but software gets harder to use
• Citizens expect modern service, but governments are locked into ancient systems
• Risk-averse procurement favors "safe" incumbent vendors who deliver unsafe outcomes

Town Managers tell us they feel trapped. One called it being "over a barrel." Another said their vendor "stopped pretending to care years ago." These aren't just software problems—they're trust problems, efficiency problems, and ultimately problems that affect every citizen interacting with local government.

The emotional toll is real: Government staff who chose public service to make a difference spend their days fighting software instead of serving communities. Elected officials struggle to explain why simple services take weeks. Citizens lose faith in their local institutions.

TownCloud exists because this is unacceptable. We've proven there's a better way—and hundreds of governments nationwide agree.

What if government software actually worked?

Not "worked eventually after 18 months and $100k in consulting fees." Just... worked. Out of the box. Today.

That's TownCloud.

Here's what we built differently:

Modern cloud architecture meets real-world government needs. Our integrated apps run on a common multi-tenant platform built to scale from a town of 500 to a city of 50,000. No Frankenstein patches. No committee-driven bloat. Just clean, purpose-built software designed by a team with 40 years of govtech experience who actually listened to users.

The TownCloud difference in action:

• Zero-risk adoption – Start with one app at $50/month. No capital expense budgets. No rip-and-replace nightmares. We integrate with your legacy systems while you transition at your own pace. No long-term contracts. Just month-to-month proof that we deliver value.
• Unparalleled time-to-value – Some apps go live in an hour. Websites in a day. Full financial systems in a week. Does every customer want to move that fast? No. But we can—which means lower switching costs than anything else in the market.
• $50/month starting point – Start with a single app. Add more as you see value. No forced enterprise bundles.
• Support that doesn't suck – Real people who know your name. No offshore call centers. No ticket queues that disappear into the void.
• Apps that just work – So intuitive that support calls are a fraction of industry norms. Government staff shouldn't need a manual to do their jobs.

But the real magic? What happens after go-live.

A Town Clerk told us: "I got my Friday back." She used to spend 4+ hours every week preparing meeting packets—copying, collating, distributing paper agendas to board members. Now? TownCloud Engage handles it digitally. Board members get packets on their tablets. Citizens can follow along online. Meetings run shorter because everyone's actually prepared.

IT Directors love us because governments can update their own hardware—tablets, laptops, whatever—without checking with us first. All we need is a browser and an internet connection. No proprietary systems. No vendor lock-in on equipment.

Treasurers are sleeping better. What used to take days of reconciling spreadsheets now happens with automation in hours. Financial transparency that managers and department heads can actually access and understand. Real-time data instead of month-end surprises.

Citizens actually know what's happening in their government. Meeting agendas, minutes, budgets—all accessible online. No more showing up to Town Hall hoping to catch someone who knows something.

That's not a feel-good anecdote. That's our business model.

When government staff can focus on serving citizens instead of wrestling with systems, everyone wins. Agendas get published faster. Budgets get tracked accurately. Citizens get responsive service. Staff retention improves. Trust in local government grows.

100% SaaS subscription revenue. B2G (Business-to-Government). Predictable, recurring, and built for expansion.

TownCloud operates a pure subscription model selling directly to local governments. Customers start with individual apps at $50/month and expand as they see value—no forced enterprise bundles, no multi-year lock-ins.

The model is designed for velocity:

• Frictionless entry – Free trials let governments test before buying. No RFPs. No procurement committees.
• Rapid time-to-value – Apps go live in as little as one hour. Customers see value immediately, not after 18-month implementations.
• Land-and-expand – Governments start with one app ($50/month), then add more as trust builds. Average customer lifetime value grows organically.
• High retention – With a loyal and growing customer base, but our retention speaks for itself. When software actually works, customers don't leave.

Revenue growth is compounding: Each satisfied customer becomes a reference for their peers in neighboring towns. In govtech's tight-knit world where trust is everything, this creates a viral acquisition loop with exceptionally low customer acquisition costs.

We've eliminated every barrier that makes govtech sales painful: No capital expense approvals. No 12-month procurement cycles. No implementation consultants. Just modern software that governments can afford, deploy quickly, and expand as needed.

Over 90,000 government entities. Nearly 39,000 cities, counties, and townships—most with populations under 10,000. And they're trapped paying more for systems that do less.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau's 2022 Census of Governments, there are 90,887 state and local government entities in the United States, including:

• 38,736 general-purpose local governments: 3,031 counties, 19,491 municipalities (cities, towns, villages), and 16,214 townships
• 39,555 special district governments that provide services like water, sewer, fire protection, and more
• 12,546 independent school districts

The vast majority of these governments serve smaller populations. About 76% of incorporated places have fewer than 5,000 people, and our research shows that municipalities serving under 10,000 residents represent the underserved "sweet spot" where legacy vendors can't profitably operate and generic business software doesn't fit government fund accounting needs.

Here's why this market is wide open:

These smaller governments have been trapped in no-man's land. They're too small for enterprise vendors to care about (annual IT budgets of $10k-$50k don't move the needle for billion-dollar companies), but too sophisticated for generic business software (government fund accounting has fundamentally different requirements than business accounting—separate fund tracking, budget controls, and public accountability that off-the-shelf business tools simply can't handle).

For decades, they've been served by regional mom-and-pop vendors who knew their states' specific regulations and built personal relationships. But private equity discovered this sleepy corner of the market. PE firms have been aggressively rolling up these regional players, consolidating them into portfolio companies focused on extracting maximum revenue from captive customers.

The result? A massive, underserved market ripe for disruption.

Think of it like fracking to the oil industry. Everyone knew small towns needed software. But the old extraction methods (multi-year implementations, six-figure contracts, on-premise servers) made it economically unviable to serve them profitably at scale.

TownCloud changed the economics: Cloud architecture, self-service onboarding, $50/month entry points, and a platform that scales from 500 residents to 50,000 without custom development. We aim to profitably serve the markets that everyone else ignores or exploits.

The market dynamics are accelerating in our favor:

• Generational transition: Boomer-era IT directors who tolerated terrible software are retiring. Younger staff expect modern tools.
• Budget pressure: Economic uncertainty is forcing governments to scrutinize every expense. We believe ROI story is compelling.
• Talent shortage: Cities can't compete with private sector salaries, so they need software that reduces training time and eliminates complexity.
• Citizen expectations: Residents who can pay their electric bill with an app expect the same from their town.

While the Govtech market is growing overall, the small-to-mid-sized local government segment—our target—remains massively underserved and over-charged.

We're not fighting for scraps of a mature market. We're unlocking a market that's been economically trapped for decades.

Hundreds of customers nationwide is just the beginning. The land grab has started, and we're positioned to win it.

Big Govtech has taken our communities for granted and abused their trusted relationship by accruing technical debt, maximizing profits and lowering the standard for local governments across the country. Worse, they’ve intimidated those they were supposed to serve with one-sided contracts and by making change as difficult as possible. We take our mission seriously and believe that the strongest companies grow by providing equal value to their customers, employees, and investors. We believe this is what true sustainability looks like.