I Learned Early: Government Buys from Who They Trust

By Jeremy Becker, Co-Founder at Cloverleaf AI

I grew up in the back row of local government meetings.

Not because I had a passion for procurement at age ten—but because my dad was a single father and a municipal finance guy. Comptroller, finance director, budget whisperer—you name it. When he went to public meetings, I went too. That was the deal.

And yeah, those meetings were long. And technical. And slow.

But they were also kind of incredible.

Because buried beneath the motions and the acronyms, I saw where the real decisions got made. Tens—sometimes hundreds—of millions of dollars moved through those rooms. Projects were born or quietly buried. Vendors got greenlit—or didn’t. And most people outside that room? Had no idea any of it was happening.

Those meetings were engines of influence. And I got a front-row seat (from the back row).

But here’s the real lesson: I didn’t just see what got decided—I saw how it got decided.

Most people outside the system think RFPs are where the action happens. They’re not. By the time an RFP drops, most of the hard decisions have already been made. The priorities are set. The scope is written. The internal champions have already weighed in. At that point, you’re responding to a process—not shaping the outcome.

And here’s what most vendors miss: government isn’t just process-driven—it’s risk-averse. Public employees, especially at the local level, carry a massive burden. If they pick the wrong vendor, it’s not just a bad look. It can blow up a budget, delay a critical project, or worse, create a headline. In small towns or lean agencies, that kind of mistake can cost someone their job.

So who do they pick? The people they trust. The people who’ve been in the room from the beginning. The folks who understand the issues, don’t need the acronyms explained, and show up before the formal process kicks off.

That kind of trust isn’t a “nice to have.” It’s a survival strategy.

Fast forward a few decades, and that’s why we built Cloverleaf AI.

My cofounder (and lifelong best friend) and I saw the same gap: there was no scalable, structured way to understand what was happening in local government before decisions were made. No system to monitor public meetings in real time. No context on what topics were gaining traction, what issues were being debated, or what projects were quietly gaining momentum.

So we built it.

Cloverleaf AI turns government meetings into intelligence—live, searchable, and actionable. We use AI to monitor, analyze, and surface what’s being said in those rooms across the country, so vendors, advocacy groups, and public agencies can act faster and engage smarter.

We didn’t create Cloverleaf because we thought government was broken or because AI is trendy. We built it because we understand how local government actually works—and we know how powerful it can be when the right people hear the right signals at the right time.

The same meetings that used to stretch on for hours now power a platform that helps organizations move faster, build trust, and show up with context.

And if a bored kid sitting in the back of a town hall could see the opportunity? You better believe we’re running at it.

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