A digital city hall significantly improves accessibility and convenience, eliminating the need for residents to take time off work or rearrange their schedules to complete tasks in person. Business hours expand from the traditional 9-to-5 to 24/7 availability. However, even in this new digital landscape, some doors remain locked. Vendors can provide cities with the front-end tools they need to serve citizens, but the back-end systems, used by departments like municipal courts, water, and public works, often remain disconnected due to a lack of integrations with existing legacy software.

While vendors can build custom integrations, the software requirements vary from city to city, leading to a costly à la carte approach. These additional one-time costs place a significant financial burden on small to mid-sized cities, making full digital transformation out of reach. Armed with a deep understanding of this problem, a strong motivation to solve it, and my background in technology, I set out to become the locksmith for the digital city hall—creating the keys that would unlock seamless integration.

Taking action came naturally. My entrepreneurial spirit was invigorated, and with my existing presence as a mentor in the UMKC E-Scholars program, I leveraged my network and community resources to add structure to Lokal’s development. Market, competitor, and product research confirmed the need for such a solution, and conversations with city managers and IT staff across more than a dozen cities in the Kansas City metro provided invaluable insights.

Their input helped shape the architecture of the software and refine the technology stack—ensuring the solution would be easy to implement, perform better than standard integrations, and offer long-term viability for budget-conscious municipalities. The venture’s natural progression toward a well-defined go-to-market strategy and exit plan was deeply satisfying.

But not everything was perfect. One major obstacle stood in the way—one that has been the downfall of many solo entrepreneurs: the absence of a technical co-founder. To move forward with prototyping and developing a minimum viable product (MVP), I needed someone to take ownership of product development and a team to build it. After months of networking, searching, and interviewing qualified candidates, I faced a harsh reality: while many developers were skilled, none were ready to leave their stable 9-to-5 roles to take the leap with me. That left me in an untenable position—balancing advocacy, sales, and development entirely on my own.

Faced with this challenge, I made the difficult but necessary decision to pause development until I could find the right partner to bring Lokal to life. That doesn’t mean the vision is gone. I continue to research the technological and market landscape, refining the idea to keep it relevant and viable for the future. Who knows what lies ahead? One thing remains certain: my optimism.