Earlier quoted context omitted.
Lots of software is awful because the client is an awful purchaser. If you have a convoluted and slow purchasing process that favors existing vendors you are going to have problems. If you have that type of process and can't spend very much money up front, you are going to have worse problems. Government, at all levels, has the second problem. This selects for large vendors (they can handle cash flow irregularities,…
Most of what you describe takes place at the state and federal level, but not local. In fact, discretionary funds are plentiful in our target market—people are often shocked to learn that we've never run into price objections when selling, and we've successfully sold to cities ranging in population from 20k to 4m. In other words, they aren't "awful purchasers" as you call them—they're hard-working, dedicated people l…
In my experience cities have just as many procurement problems as state/federal but with far less money to spend. You may have success with a Dropbox/Hootsuite approach of selling to non-traditional users under certain price limits. It just makes it so much harder when it's your only market.
As to plentiful discretionary funds... everyone's definition of this is different. Another challenge I've faced with local governments is that their speed to spend is similar to state & feds. Smaller sales with a sales velocity the same as if not slower than the feds is another challenge.
But if you've got people to make fast decisions and spend enough so that the unit economics makes sense you have my heartiest congratulations.