Participatory budget proposal coach

An MVP, or minimum viable product, is the smallest version that your users can actually work with. It is not a cheap version of the full solution. It is a test, built to answer the questions that decide whether the rest is worth building.

1. Pick the riskiest assumption. Here: will civic organizations facilitating public budgets use it to solve "residents struggle to express feasible proposals in official formats"?
2. Build only what tests it. One team, one use case, a few core modules. People do the rest by hand for now.
3. Run a paid pilot. Agree the acceptance criteria, input limits and reviewer responsibilities before starting.
4. Measure, then decide. Track submission completeness and participant comprehension. Then expand, change course or stop, with evidence instead of opinions.

MVP scope for this solution. Costed pilot: One published program; estimates require local validation. Start with one buyer organization and a bounded set of representative inputs. Implement the first two modules: structure project intent; identify missing scope. Support the third task through an assisted review queue: explain supplied criteria. Handle the remaining required functions manually until validated. Include input upload, source references, user correction, a reviewer approval step and export of resident-approved budget proposal. Authentication, account isolation, deletion controls and basic operational logging are included. Specialized production certification, live write integrations and broader rollout are not included unless explicitly stated.

After the MVP. After paying customers repeatedly accept resident-approved budget proposal, automate draft cost questions; collect resident corrections; export application draft. Add one tested read integration, reusable customer configuration and scheduled repeat delivery. Increase supported formats or teams only when evaluation cases and reviewer capacity cover the new scope. One published program; estimates require local validation.

What the build depends on. Secure upload handling, reliable extraction, versioned completeness rules, submitter identity and staff routing. Third-party checklist changes require maintenance. Obtain representative authorized inputs, an agreed review rubric and a buyer-side owner. Specific scope: One published program; estimates require local validation.

Pricing to test

Test USD 500-2,000 setup plus USD 150-750 monthly for one form family and a capped submission volume. Quote specialist review and unusual document formats separately. Prices are experimental. For this buyer, package the first sale around prepare five resident-led proposals and the defined resident-approved budget proposal. Record actual review effort before offering a recurring allowance. The commercial pilot fee is distinct from the platform development budget.

Message to test

Help residents articulate their own proposal without ranking citizens. Demonstrate the result with prepare five resident-led proposals for civic organizations facilitating public budgets. Use a concrete before-and-after example without promising unmeasured savings.

Where to find buyers

Civic participation nonprofits and community organizers

Lead magnet

Prepare five resident-led proposals

The first 30 days

1. Week 1: interview five prospective buyers from civic organizations facilitating public budgets and inspect how they handle residents struggle to express feasible proposals in official formats.
2. Week 2: prepare prepare five resident-led proposals using authorized or synthetic material.
3. Week 3: share the demonstration through civic participation nonprofits and community organizers and seek one bounded paid pilot.
4. Week 4: measure submission completeness and participant comprehension, review delivery effort and ask for a repeat purchase. This is a validation schedule, not a promise that the full product can be built in thirty days.

Paid pilot

Agree the acceptance criteria, input limits and reviewer responsibilities before starting. Run prepare five resident-led proposals and deliver resident-approved budget proposal. Compare submission completeness and participant comprehension with the buyer's current process on comparable cases; include corrections, missed issues and reviewer time. Seek payment and repeat use. Stop or revise the scope if data access, accuracy or unit economics fail.

Success metrics

Submission completeness and participant comprehension

Retention and expansion

Build repeat use around resident-approved budget proposal. Save approved configurations and review decisions with permission, revisit unresolved exceptions and show progress on submission completeness and participant comprehension. Offer a recurring volume allowance after repeat demand; expand to adjacent tasks only when the buyer asks and delivery quality remains acceptable.

Why clients would pick it

Document-type expertise, tested completeness rules and a low-friction client experience embedded in a repeat administrative process. For this concept, accumulate permissioned examples and reviewer corrections around help residents articulate their own proposal without ranking citizens. The durable asset is reliable task-specific execution and trusted customer configuration, not access to a general-purpose AI model.

Alternatives and positioning

Email collection, generic web forms, spreadsheets and existing case management systems. Position this concept around help residents articulate their own proposal without ranking citizens. Compare it against the customer's current process on the same representative task. This is proposed differentiation; no exhaustive competitor study or uniqueness claim has been established.

Main delivery costs

Document processing, storage, exception review, support, checklist maintenance and customer-specific integration work. Initial validation additionally budgets for community facilitation and accessibility testing. Track model usage, storage, reviewer minutes, exception handling and customer support per accepted deliverable.