SeeClickFix is Only CT Business to Reach GovTech 100

New Haven-based SeeClickFix is the only Connecticut business to make the 2018 GovTech 100, an annual compendium of 100 companies focused on, making a difference in, and selling to state and local government agencies across the United States. SeeClickFix was launched ten years ago this month, according to co-founder Ben Berkowitz: “It began as a ‘nights and weekends’ project between friends with a goal of fixing some small problems locally and a big problem globally. SeeClickFix has become something much bigger than I could have ever imagined.”

Described as “a service to make communities stronger,” the key benchmarks the company points to include: a full time job for 33 employees, a platform that has helped facilitate the resolution of 4 million issues, a space for aspirations in tens of thousands of communities, and the official digital channel for service request resolution for hundreds of governments and tens of millions of their residents.

The annual list, compiled and published by Government Technology,  highlights leaders in the government technology sector – a marketplace that the publication says has ”brought bigger deals, more investment, new companies and many fresh new innovations that moved the needle in the public sector.”

Overall, 32 of the 100 companies are based in California, seven are based in New York, and six are headquartered in Massachusetts.  Rhode Island placed one company, Providence-based software company Utilidata.  There were no other companies based in New England.

“State and local governments have become more willing to try implementing new systems using agile methodologies that fit better with the modern tech world,” the publication pointed out. “They are striking up pilot projects and demonstration agreements that let them try out new ideas before taking the kind of big-dollar risks that government is not amenable to taking.”

“It is no secret that SeeClickFix was built from a place of distrust in the existing bureaucratic process that existed in 2007 for handling citizen concerns,” Berkowitz noted. “The three hundred governments and the thousands of officials that leverage SeeClickFix daily to engage in transparent and responsive communication has more than reversed our distrust.”

SeeClickFix is proving effective in small towns as well as big cities.  The town of Wilton in Southern Connecticut went live with SeeClickFix this past fall and used it at a Winter Carnival and Ice Festival in town this week.

The SeeClickFix blog highlighted the town, explaining that “They are a model town — they have done everything right! They have sustainable marketing, well-crafted goals and benchmarks, a responsive set of municipal departments, a champion in town leadership, and the flexibility necessary to add in request categories when citizens underscore a need.”

SeeClickFix co-founders include Miles Lasater, Kam Lasater, Jeff Blasius.  The company holds an annual User Summit every fall in New Haven, drawing local government customers from throughout the country to share best practices.

https://youtu.be/NYKo5koU_jI