Council funded it Tuesday. The RFP comes later

A seven-step play for a government-technology vendor. It starts from Legistar, stacks BidNet Direct and Firecrawl on top, and ends in a message to the department head that is useful before anyone replies.

Deploy in Glider

Installs this workflow, five project tables and a draft campaign. Source access and any external outputs are checked before research.

Category: Public records
Sources: 3
Steps: 7

The workflow

TriggerLegistarCouncil votes approving funding for a system
Evidence
BidNet DirectPeer cities' past purchases of the same system FirecrawlPeer RFPs, contracts and go-live reports
Artifact
What you hand overA peer-purchase pack: four comparable cities that bought the same system, what they paid, their specs, and what they would change.
Contact
GliderFinds the department head, with a verified work email and a phone
Message
Send itFrom your own mailboxes, evidence attached

Why it earns attention

Between the council vote and the RFP, the department head has to write a spec for a system they buy once a decade. Peer prices and specs are most useful in exactly that window.

The play in seven steps

01
Catch the funding vote
Legistar
What you pull
Council agendas and minutes with an approved item for your category: the city, the amount, the department and the vote date.
Why it matters
Money is approved but the RFP is not written. This is the one moment a vendor's input is welcome rather than a lobbying problem.
Example
City council, Tuesday · $380,000 approved for a permitting and licensing system · Community Development
02
Find peers that bought the same thing
BidNet Direct
What you pull
Awards for the same system in cities of similar size over the last three years: the city, vendor, contract value and term.
Why it matters
Peer prices anchor the budget. A department head will read this before they read any vendor's pitch.
Example
4 cities of 80k to 120k · contracts between $290k and $610k over 5 years
03
Read their specs and what went wrong
Firecrawl
What you pull
Each peer's published RFP, the signed contract, and any staff report or council update about the rollout.
Why it matters
Their requirements save weeks of drafting, and the go-live problems are lessons nobody else will hand over.
Example
2 of 4 went live late · both cite data migration from the old system · 3 required a public portal
04
Build the peer-purchase pack
Your artifact
What you build
A table of the four purchases with price, term and key requirements, plus a short list of what each city said they would change.
Why it works
It is useful whether or not they buy from you, which is what makes it safe for a public official to reply.
Example
4 peers · price per year · 12 shared requirements · 5 lessons from go-live
05
Check before you send
Check your state's procurement rules before offering anything that could be read as writing the spec. Send facts that are already public and keep the offer to a conversation.
06
Find the department head in Glider
Glider
Search for
Community development directorBuilding officialIT directorAssistant city manager
Why them
The department head writes the requirements. IT signs off on the technical side and is often the one asked to draft the RFP.
What you get
A work email and a direct phone, with the email verified before it goes into a sequence.
07
Send the evidence, then run the first test
To: the department headEvery line comes from a step above
On Tuesday your council approved $380,000 for a new permitting system.¹ Four cities your size bought one in the last three years, paying between $290,000 and $610,000 over five years.² Two went live late, and both blamed data migration.³ I put their prices, RFP specs and go-live lessons into one pack.⁴ It's yours whether or not we talk before the RFP is written. Want it?
- Facts from the data (the number is the step)
- What you built for them
- One small ask
Why it works
It arrives right after the vote with the research they are about to do themselves. Saying it is theirs either way removes the reason a public official would ignore a vendor.
First test
Ten approvals in one category, manually confirmed in the minutes.
Success looks like
Three departments accept the pack out of ten votes, and one invites you to an RFI.