A bootstrapped company doesn’t get a marketing department. It gets whoever is willing to learn. I taught myself the whole stack: web, SEO, long- and short-form content, email. Then I treated growth like any other product. Listen to the audience, find the real problem, build the fix, measure, adjust.
The audience (public health practitioners, local government staff, the geospatial community) wasn’t asking to be marketed to. They were asking real questions about AI, data, and their own overloaded workflows. So the content strategy became simple: answer the actual questions, in public, consistently, and let trust compound.
B2G sales cycles are long and trust-gated. Advertising can’t shortcut that; a body of useful work can. The bet: if prospects arrive already trusting you (because they’ve read your posts, attended your community of practice, or seen you keynote), the first sales conversation starts in the middle instead of at the beginning. That’s exactly how it has played out.
The engine runs every week: content ships, the list grows, the community meets, and the speaking invitations keep coming. Three keynotes so far, all earned. For a two-person company selling into government, that trust is the growth strategy.
And it’s transferable. The playbook is simple: answer real questions in public, build the room where your field learns, treat content like a product. It works in any domain where trust gates the sale.