Maleka Momand, co-founder and CEO of Esper, joins Sophie Buonassisi on GTMnow to break down what it actually takes to build and sell software to government. Esper is the operating system for government policy, serving as the system of record for the regulation and internal policy that shapes daily life, from NYPD procedures to nurse practitioner licensing in rural Tennessee.

Maleka shares hard-won lessons from 8 years in GovTech: why winning trust matters more than winning business, why professional services are a moat (not a cost center), and how Esper turns slow, paper-based policy processes into live digital workflows. She also covers the DOGE effect across red and blue states, why enterprise SaaS still has defensible moats in the age of AI, and her advice to founders entering regulated markets.

Whether you're a founder, GTM leader, or operator selling into complex, slow-moving markets, this conversation is packed with practical playbooks on trust, go-to-market, and building durable enterprise software.

Chapters:
00:00 Intro
00:44 Two types of government policy (regulation vs internal)
02:06 The NYPD 3,000-page policy problem
03:23 Digitizing a paper-based, 20-person workflow
04:12 Why policy is infrastructure
05:23 Real impact: Tennessee healthcare & Arkansas hunting licenses
07:45 Esper's ideal customer: complexity, catalyst, volume
08:18 Going to market in GovTech (and why it's slow)
10:16 Advice for founders entering GovTech: win trust first
11:27 Why professional services are a moat
12:38 In-house vs third-party services
13:49 What DOGE actually looks like on the ground
15:11 Is DOGE a tailwind for Esper?
16:36 The new funding round & enterprise SaaS in the age of AI
19:13 From VC to founder: why Maleka made the shift
22:10 Advice for founders: read fiction, not productivity books
24:14 AI, data quality, and the problem with vibe coding
26:43 How Esper uses AI internally (meet "Poly")
27:27 Building a high-agency culture while scaling
29:00 Closing thoughts

Connect with Maleka Momand:
Co-founder, CEO of Esper
Twitter/X: @MalekaMomand
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/malekamomand

Host: Sophie Buonassisi, SVP at GTMnow
Follow Sophie: https://x.com/sophiebuona
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sophiebuonassisi/

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The GTMnow Podcast
The GTMnow Podcast is a weekly podcast featuring interviews with the top 1% GTM executives, VCs, and founders. Conversations reveal the unshared details behind how they have grown companies, and the go-to-market strategies responsible for shaping that growth.

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