Evan Steinhilb and Levi Carlisle launched the Bellingham Scan, a daily newsletter that pulled raw police incident data from their Bellingham, Washington community and translated it into a plain-language public safety dashboard. They built it as a proof of concept for their startup OpSprocket so they could get government clients to pay them to develop custom software.
When they began sharing their demo with public safety officials, they kept hearing the same unmet need: police departments wanted a consistent way to share crime data and communicate directly with their communities. But didn’t have the staff to figure it out it, let alone execute on it.
The founders pivoted. They repackaged their demo as Civic Informer, a technology platform now serving 923,000 residents across Bellingham and San Francisco. In a recent LinkedIn post, co-founder Carlisle described their surprising strategy: “sometimes the example turns out to be the business.”
I’ve talked with these founders as they built this. Their story illustrates a pattern I’ve seen across 25 years of working with Silicon Valley startups and Fortune 1000 companies: the best market opportunities often arise by building something, learning, and then pivoting to the unspoken gap in the market.
The Problem Nobody Named
The local news system that once translated public data for communities has been shrinking for two decades. The number of U.S. newspapers dropped from 7,325 in 2005 to 4,490 by 2025, according to researchers at Northwestern University. Today, 50 million Americans live in counties with no local news source or just one.
Bellingham is one of the more civically engaged small cities in the country. Still, police incident logs, call data, and location patterns were publicly available but practically invisible.
Police departments everywhere file detailed incident reports every day. Local governments post meeting minutes, permits, and budget data online. The data exists. What has disappeared is the translation layer: a consistent process for turning raw government records into briefings residents can follow.
Now, using publicly available data that was previously provided in a relatively un-user-friendly form, Civic Informer delivers it up in a simple way using AI and APIs. An automated, daily process pulls from official government records, verifies against source documents, and delivers a plain-language briefing to newsletter subscribers. It’s also available on the web.
When the Example Becomes the Business
When I talked with these founders about what led to their pivot, they described something I’ve watched play out time and again. They created a prototype that allowed for a discussion with real users and customers. That demo delivered insight that led to the real opportunity. They had just enough for the initial discussion, and then the AI coding chops using Claude to build something that got them the next one.
The Civic Informer story points to a discovery process any entrepreneur can apply. Here’s how:
- Build for a problem you personally know. Founders who solve their own problems first move faster because they can apply their own experience for the first prototype.
- Use your demo as a discovery tool. A working prototype reveals demand that surveys and pitch meetings don’t.
- Search for the gap. When people react to your demo, look for deeper pain points and needs that are unmet by other products. Those become your next set of requirements.
Founders who build demos that open doors to early customer discussions can find bigger gaps if they’re open to hearing them. When you listen to customers with an open mind, your product can transform before your eyes.
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