Launch HN: Govly (YC S21) – Making it easier to sell to the U.S. government

MattGaiser 2021-08-18 18:07:59 +0000 UTC [ - ]

As an intern I once had an assignment to try and figure out how to sell water depth monitoring to the federal government (in Canada, but it is no better) for monitoring of a waterway.

To put it mildly, we couldn’t figure it out despite our solution having a unit price of a tenth of our competitors.

This is sorely needed.

mike_d 2021-08-18 19:12:23 +0000 UTC [ - ]

You accidently discovered why the price of their product was 10x higher.

If you have a customer that is extremely difficult to work with and wants to be a special and unique snowflake, you bake that in to the price.

jokethrowaway 2021-08-19 08:28:07 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Great, I'm glad my tax money is going to pay for snowflakes in the government mistreating their provider.

To give another anecdote, I worked for another government (not US) and it was literally the worst client ever. Besides paying a year late, they had the worst pm ever.

I left that country not long after.

corty 2021-08-19 11:51:59 +0000 UTC [ - ]

It isn't only snowflakes in the government mistreating their power.

Government procurement is also complex and long-winded to ensure fairness and abuse of power, at the request of taxpayers and companies alike: Everything (with very rare exceptions) must be procured via a bidding process, so you first need a formal "call for bids". Leaving out the bidding process instantly leads to accusations of nepotism, legal consequences, or dismissal. The decision after the bids must not include interactions or refinements of the bids, because that would be favouritism and invalidate the process. So all the requirements must be known and laid down in the call for bids. So if you need someone to gather requirements for you first (because most government people actually know they would be the worst PM ever)? Have another bidding process first with "requirements gathering and CFB writing" in the CFB, taking another year, just to write the actual CFB for what you need. The eligible bidders and the bidding time is clearly defined by law, so e.g. around here you need to allow all EU companies and have to wait for 6 months before opening the bidding envelopes to decide. The decision itself must be objective, so you need to rely on a scoring system that might later on be attacked in court, therefore usually the only score that is used is the price. Using anything else will lead to a lengthy court battle about the scoring criteria, preventing you from making any progress during the proceedings. Make any mistake and bidding will have to be restarted, leading to another 6 to 12 months of delay, more if courts get involved (which they will).

Oh, and to use public money responsibly, you may only pay after execution and delivery of the contract. And only after formal verification and acceptance of the criteria laid out in the bid. So there is another few weeks to months after you are done before payment can even be ordered. If you left that out, the public would metaphorically hang you for paying for the occasional shitty job. Being informal about it would invite lengthy court battles from loosing bidders. Additional pain comes from bids where there is more than one contractor, e.g. in buildings where the electrician has to wait for the plaster and paint. Any delays in painting will lead to delays in the electrician being paid for work and material he already delivered ages ago. Lots of small companies go bancrupt in those situations.

So I actually thing a bit more flexibility, less fairness and a little more power to some government snowflakes could make everything go far smoother.

toss1 2021-08-19 13:14:36 +0000 UTC [ - ]

>>The decision itself must be objective, so you need to rely on a scoring system that might later on be attacked in court...

Yup, the current Besos/Blue Origin lawsuit against the US Gov/NASA selecting SpaceX for a lunar mission is a great current example.

weilandia 2021-08-18 18:25:51 +0000 UTC [ - ]

We see this quite a lot. Even worse is the maneuvering that can take place to make something look cheaper. This can happen when the government is procuring a complex list of things and trying to do so with one vendor. While the individual pieces can be much cheaper through multiple vendors, those vendors are not eligible to bid because they cannot fulfill the entire request.

We're trying to circumvent this with our collaboration tools--Allowing multiple companies to work together on a single bid.

MattGaiser 2021-08-18 18:31:45 +0000 UTC [ - ]

You could just become the contractor there and arbitrage :)

corty 2021-08-19 15:00:40 +0000 UTC [ - ]

That business model is already taken, most larger contracts are won that way. Somebody founds a special-purpose company for that exact contract, gets bids of their own on the subcontracts and then submits an offer. After the project is paid, money is split up, company founder gets an appropriate share.

However, this is also the usual way that the government and subcontractors taken advantage of in bidding processes: Submitting company wins, collects payments, pays founders, but doesn't pay subcontractors, doesn't perform all of the contract, hires unreliable subcontractors and when shit hits the fan just goes bankrupt. That is why there usually is a "good standing" requirement in the call for bids that excludes new, small or government-contract-inexperienced companies. Or puts liabilities on the subcontractors, who of course don't like that.

nostrademons 2021-08-18 20:03:44 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Depends whether they view the market size as fixed (where you'd want to capture as much of the surplus as possible through arbitrage) or as expanding (where they'd want to bring new firms into the marketplace that don't currently exist).

Normally government spending is about as fixed of a market size as exists, but with the recent expansion in government spending and the political winds blowing the way they are, this may be one of those rare moments in history where a platform play in government makes sense.

jscheel 2021-08-18 18:41:32 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Amazon Basics for government contracting

MattGaiser 2021-08-18 18:59:06 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Given what I’ve seen on it comes to government of Canada chair procurement, this seems like it would be a needed niche.

mikeweiland 2021-08-18 22:29:48 +0000 UTC [ - ]

That is a great tag line and I completely agree.

caseysoftware 2021-08-18 20:18:07 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I built some similar capabilities by pulling from FedBizOpps back in the day. I made money simply by doing that processing, grouping by agency, category of the work, geography, and a few keywords and then emailing it to people. For some, I integrated with their CRM (Salesforce and SugarCRM at the time) to drop them in as new Opportunities for Discovery.

If you can start pulling historical data to identify "similar" (define that!) contracts and their bid history, that could be exceptionally useful for competitive intel, understanding who the players are (govt or private side), and how they've gone previously.

Beyond that, you start getting into bid management, including writing, review, and submission and there is HUGE money in that if you can wrap in tracking, compliance, reporting, etc. If you get into Exhibit 300s, may God have mercy on your soul.

Edit: One more useful thing here: If you can track the awards (usually on the individual agency's sites), you can further dig into the contracts and identify great opportunities to be subs and/or who to sell to in the Primes.

Excuse me, having flashbacks now..

mikeweiland 2021-08-18 20:33:24 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I bet what you built is still in play with a those companies - The systems haven't changed much (if at all).

We are starting to pull in award data and amassing the database of historical awards, customers, locations, etc. Mix that with requested technologies and OEMs and the data starts showing some really interesting competitive trends.

Ultimately, organizations are going to be able to create their profile and list their certifications/capabilities/security compliances/etc. It will be a place to showcase who you are and what you can bring to the table for other orgs/primes/government customers to see.

weilandia 2021-08-18 20:45:27 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Except FedBizOps has fully transitioned to sam.gov

weilandia 2021-08-18 20:29:18 +0000 UTC [ - ]

We're going to be working on all these things, but in the context of our network. We think this is the big differentiator from the typical players in the space who focus on analytics (like GovWin).

sidlls 2021-08-18 18:59:42 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I think you've left out the most important problems in this space: the graft, turf building/protectionism, and corruption. Tech isn't going to solve those. That aside, this seems like a pretty decent idea for a company.

Also, this is a gem: " Most people don’t realize, but the vast majority of government opportunities are only released to a subset of organizations called “prime contractors”. We have built a network of these prime contractors who are uploading their “private” opportunities into our application. "

A lot of people truly aren't aware of it! Nor are they aware of the fact that often the Primes' contract vehicles have requirements/constraints on the subs the primes select to farm work out to (e.g. some minimal fraction of the subs must be minority or women owned, subs cannot be foreign entities, etc.). What your feature here looks like to me is something that may be prone to abuse: primes post a set of (sub)contracts and cherry-pick the subs that they can shoe-horn into their checkboxes at minimal cost. Alternatively, this just seems to relabel links in the chain: instead of a would-be contractor bidding on a government vendor portal, they're bidding on your portal, and the bids are submitted to Primes instead of the government. I'm not sure this solves a problem so much as adds a middle-man. Maybe I'm misunderstanding it. Any thoughts about that?

1vuio0pswjnm7 2021-08-18 20:01:15 +0000 UTC [ - ]

"I'm not sure this solves a problem so much as adds a middleman."

The default "business plan" of any so-called "tech" company.

At some point the novelty of the internet and ever-smaller computers ("tech") may wear off and these companies will just be seen for what they are: "middlemen" (with silly, infantile company names).

The problem to solve in this space is arguably one of transparency ("Most people don't realise...") Allowing citizens, i.e., taxpayers, to see what kind of deals their government is making could add accountability.

To the parent's point about malfeasance in government contracting, perhaps more transparency would better allow the exising laws to be enforced:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_Claims_Act

ineedasername 2021-08-18 21:08:23 +0000 UTC [ - ]

The default "business plan" of any so-called "tech" company

Leaving aside this example, sometimes a middleman is useful, aggregating what is otherwise disaggregated into a single location.

But if its primary function is to act as a portal into some other single system, then the problem is that other system. It also means that your business model is predicated on not fixing that system-- sort of like how H&R block and TurboTax lobby against simpler tax returns because they act as a portal to a complex system, and if that system is simplified then they are no longer necessary.

Govly may end up being useful, but I expect that if it really catches on then in a decade they would find themselves arguing against meaningful procurement reform designed to streamline the process. Maybe I'm too cynical though.

mikeweiland 2021-08-18 21:18:13 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Not cynical. We agree and to a great extent it would be nice to participate in the reform, though knowing how the gov works, it'll be a few generations from now. It would be nice to aid or even 'be' a platform that the government uses instead of industry using it to make sense of the government 'mess'.

ineedasername 2021-08-19 03:10:33 +0000 UTC [ - ]

If you're successful, the ideal scenario might be that the government acquires you to use your system instead. They couldn't just hire you since the end result would be the end of your business, at least as it pertains to the federal government.

There are other cumbersome procurement "markets" at the state and local level, but each of those would probably be essentially a new product, each designed to the idiosyncracies of each jurisdiction. However, that also could be an opportunity to be an aggregating middleman rather than a 1-to-1 middleman with like with the Feds. Any regional or national company too small to have clout & an insider track would probably kill for the ability to use a single portal as a one-stop-shop for dealing with state, county, and city municipalities.

That's where your value as a true positive middleman is hidden. Because even if they all fixed their cumbersome opaque systems (which is unlikely) there is still enormous value in aggregating them all in one place for contractors.

I know, it might look like your current plan is a "platform" but it's really kind of just middleware. Aggregation makes you a platform.

That also keeps you from trying to compete directly with something like Workday Finance/Procurement and their portals for suppliers and contract fulfillment: this has helped a decent amount in streamlining procurement even in places trying to map unnecessarily cumbersome practices derived from legacy systems onto it. If you're merely aggregating, you don't have to compete with that.

As a caveat to all of this, while I'm a well informed outsider, I'm still an outside observer of the tech startup scene and might be speculating above my pay grade here.

mikeweiland 2021-08-19 06:21:13 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Agreed on all accounts. Slowly but surely we'll start gather the State / Local / Education level opportunities in our long road to be the unifying platform. In the end we do want a more efficient government and if that is selling the platform to them, great, we are in - I definitely don't want to become a government employee...

ineedasername 2021-08-19 06:38:55 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Best of luck! With a roadmap that builds out your offerings beyond just the Feds if you're successful there, I'll wish you well. And give a final note that, with some limited experience on state-level procurement, I can say that states may be an easier nut to crack in terms of the small companies having a chance without special relationships, IF they can navigate the process. If you find a state balanced nicely between opaque processes and high annual procurement budgets, that could be a good test case: Solid value-add and enough RFPs (or purchases below the RFP threshold) to have sufficient volume. Top 5 states by budget, choose the one with the hardest procurement hurdles.

Also I'll send you an invoice for the consulting and analysis I performed in these comments. I'll call it even at $100k, or a single meaningless internet point. I'd prefer the internet point, but if you feel the need to send cash then I guess that's okay too. But not both! That would be over paying. The internet point can take any form you'd like, but I prefer to receive it in D&D-style "+1" units.

TeMPOraL 2021-08-18 22:04:52 +0000 UTC [ - ]

You're not cynical.

The problem isn't middlemen per se - often, they're very useful. For example, almost every service provider you use in your private life, like a barber shop or an accounting company, is by definition a middleman - they stand between you and the person actually performing the service. It's clear such intermediary tends to benefit both the service giver and the service receiver.

The problem starts when the middleman tries to lock you in. All kind of pathological, abusive behavior grows from there. In the relatively rare case of being a portal to a single system, they'll try to prevent you from going behind them and interacting with the system directly (TurboTax is a master example of that). In a more common case with tech companies, which is "aggregating what is otherwise disaggregated into a single location" (aka. bundling), they'll frequently attempt to decommodify the resource they're bundling. E.g. media streaming platforms making exclusive deals for content, or chat/collaboration and social media platforms working hard to prevent interoperability between services.

It's not cynical to be on the guard, because lock-in is the default business plan of many tech companies, including most of the well-known ones.

binarymax 2021-08-18 20:46:14 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I disagree with this sweeping assessment, and I prefer to calling a service like this an "agent", "assistant", or "delegate". This is because technology cannot solve most human and social problems, but they can help as a delegate in dealing with complexity so you can focus on other things worth your time and interest.

oneplane 2021-08-18 21:40:27 +0000 UTC [ - ]

With that mindset, everything becomes a middleman. Baker? Middleman for your bread. Farmer? Middleman for your milk. Hardware store? Middleman for your metal. Metal smelter? Middleman for your ore. Oxygen? Middleman for your survival.

Citizens (taxpayers as you apparently like to refer to them) already have access to this information, along with access to a vast amount of other information. When given the choice to read up on government contracts and watching cat videos on GoogleTube they will choose the latter, not the former. Education would be a way to teach people how the world around them works, but that would cost money and it appears that some governments rather spend that money on other things (guns, oil, banks or whatever top spending your local government tends to have).

thed7fu 2021-08-18 21:45:38 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Disagree. A baker makes bread. Milkman does some physical work to produce and provide a real product. What does Govly do? Get in the middle of a transaction you can complete without them and take a fee for filing some forms for you. Theyre maybe a secretary or something less at the very most.

oneplane 2021-08-19 12:49:32 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Disagree. A baker gets in the middle of mixing some ingredients you can get yourself without them and take a fee for mixing that stuff for you.

I think you might simply not have a clue what a value proposition is, what a product is or what optimisation is.

distantaidenn 2021-08-19 04:05:47 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Well that's the product. Yeah, I can sit in $place all day and complete $tasks I need done. However, if there is someone that I can pay to do it for me, then it's a simple comparison: my time vs their cost.

bawana 2021-08-18 21:18:41 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Like in healthcare. Hospital reimbursement in the US is set by negotiated contracts between hospital and insurer in dark smoky back rooms. The actual deal is unknown. Yet prices vary enormously so that middleware companies are popping up touting transparency. Something that should be mandated by law.

ramraj07 2021-08-18 21:37:00 +0000 UTC [ - ]

If google is the middleman between me and all of the internet then I suppose a farmer is the middleman between me and dirt? Like what is even the point??

This seems marginally worse than saying every data pipeline is just a bunch of materialized views materializing slowly.

johnsillings 2021-08-18 20:53:34 +0000 UTC [ - ]

What a hilariously broad take

beepbooptheory 2021-08-18 21:07:22 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Why? Is there something different in your mind that startups like these tend to do?

It seems to me that in the freemarket you can either create a "need", broadly construed, or facilitate access to a need that already exists. What else is there?

oneplane 2021-08-18 21:41:43 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Efficiency, specialisation, scale. You doing one thing on your own vs. a collection of many of those 'things' you used to do solo, guess which one has more potential?

This does or course not mean that this applies all the time, everywhere, forever. But in this case, the 'startup' merely has a model of economy of scale, and then probably making sure the benefits are big enough that they can scrape a bit of a provision off of it. That way they can make money while still delivering something that has a higher value to a customer than the customer doing it themselves.

mikeweiland 2021-08-18 19:32:02 +0000 UTC [ - ]

There is significant growth in what are call GWAC and IDIQ contacts (these are basically avenues to sell to any agency in the government under the guise that the government doesn’t know what it wants to buy [yet] but that it is going to buy a lot of it) and we agree with you that they lend themselves to a protectionism mentality because they are generally 10 year contracts with only a small subset of companies that are allowed in (they are awarded the contract- a kind of ‘hunting license’). We are trying to combat this protectionism mentality with our tool Today by bringing transparency and visibility to an arena that is previously unseen.

For the foreseeable future, there is no way of getting around primes. They are the ones on the hook with the government should anything go wrong with delivery of the goods and service. Govly provides network effect of being able to find new subcontractors or more importantly, for would-be contractors to find prime that can submit bids to opportunities they are working on with government customers (they just need an avenue to actually sell to the government). Govly doesn’t submit bids nor will it - We just facilitate the conversation and development of a bid between prime and sub in a singular place and provide both sides of the transaction a place to clearly see, find, track and analyze the massive amount of opportunities that exist (both the public and private ones [that primes grant access to]).

clairity 2021-08-18 19:49:59 +0000 UTC [ - ]

> "...the most important problems in this space: the graft, turf building/protectionism, and corruption. Tech isn't going to solve those."

rather than the byzantine prescriptive requirements we have now, the simple, straightforward solution to all of these is to disallow consolidation in procurement, making the contract sizes much smaller in most cases. it's much easier to hide significant graft in a billion dollar contract vs. a multi-thousand dollar one. the federal government tries to use size as its leverage over price, but we should be using competition instead. make contractors compete each time for smaller bites of the apple, rather than giving them the whole orchard in a single go, which often leads to complacency and corruption.

mikeweiland 2021-08-18 20:46:54 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I couldn't agree more. The GWAC / IDIQ referenced above attempts to do both (increase competition with pre-qualified companies and limit the number of primes that have access) but in the end it's still a limiter to competition.

This all said, there some valid reasons to limit. For example, if the Department of Education wants to buy 1000 laptops and there were 5,000 responses to the opp there is a significant lift/cost for reviewing and responding to each of these. What is more cumbersome for the government is when one of the 'losers' protests the award. This halts the delivery of the computers to the customer as it goes through a 3rd party (still gov) review. In the end, the original awardee generally gets the ability to sell the computers but by this time they are now 18-24 months old... This is a complicated system governed by a few thousand pages of rules called the FAR (federal acquisition regulations).

clairity 2021-08-18 21:12:20 +0000 UTC [ - ]

i'd wager you wouldn't have 5000 potential vendors once effective competition and smaller deal sizes squeezes out excess profit/graft. but from my experience with state procurement processes, the initial weed-out phase seems highly automatable, leaving a much more manageable fraction of candidates to consider manually.

also, transparency rules should be rigorous enough to illuminate all ultimate beneficiaries (through shell companies and subcontractors) so that larry, his brother darryl, and his other brother darryl can't artificially muddy competitiveness and undermine fairness.

monocasa 2021-08-18 19:54:17 +0000 UTC [ - ]

IDK, it probably comes out the same. Feels like the "one horse sized duck, or a hundred duck sized horses" argument.

whalesalad 2021-08-18 20:01:26 +0000 UTC [ - ]

You hit the nail on the head. Even if there is a "fair bid" it never ends up being truly fair, and the taxpayer is the one footing the bill for all the nepotism.

uncoder0 2021-08-19 01:08:20 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Agreed 100%, I've only ever had my companies win ~$5m while bidding on 50m+ over 10 years most losses ended up in program failure due to likely graft... It's just the way it is.

truthwhisperer 2021-08-18 20:31:57 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Good point and the personal relationships

fny 2021-08-19 13:00:27 +0000 UTC [ - ]

What's your edge over all the other sites that do the exact same thing? Your product looks identical to others I've used, and I don't see any help with the hard parts I struggle with: How do I secure a call with someone before my bid is placed? A lot of my bids have been lost because there's some undeclared requirement that someone provides which gives them an edge. What about insurance im case a deal implodes? I over charge the government because they fail to pay on time and sometimes fail to pay a chunk of the contract for some BS reason.

I do a decent amount of services and procurement sales, but at least for now, this doesn't scratch an itch.

pbronez 2021-08-18 19:13:06 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Awesome! More help is always needed in this space.

There are already a few contract opportunity search platforms. Is your primary differentiation the proprietary feeds from prime contractors?

FYI - the SEWP acronym meaning changed a while back:

> The SEWP acronym originally (1993) referred to "Scientific and Engineering Workstation Procurement". In 2007, the full name was changed to "Solutions for Enterprise-Wide Procurement", pronounced 'soup', which allowed the same acronym to be maintained.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_SEWP

weilandia 2021-08-18 19:19:04 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Thanks for the correction! Failed by a quick google search...

Our primary differentiation is the network--Being able to connect with your supply chain on the platform and find other potential partners to work with. This is what makes the proprietary data possible/compliant.

pbronez 2021-08-18 20:12:07 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Interesting idea, I have questions:

- How will you incentivize primes & subs to participate?

- How will you organize contracts and contractors to identify relevant partnerships?

- Will you provide any ratings, reputation or other mechanisms to document performers' track records? How does that change the participation incentives?

- What support will you provide to companies that haven't sold to the government before and thus need to start from scratch on certifications, etc?

weilandia 2021-08-18 20:57:57 +0000 UTC [ - ]

- Primes are incentivized to participate for a number of reasons. First, it provides a way for them to efficiently manage their own processes--Getting out of Outlook and providing transparency internally. As well as the automation tools we reference.

The incentive for the primes to participate in the network, in the beginning, is competitive advantage. Primes are always trying to get new/more manufacturers/resellers/distributors to work with them. They can use Govly as a selling point similar to how insurance brokers might use their "easy to use employee portal" to differentiate themselves.

- As far as organizing contracts and contractors to identify relevant partnerships, there are a few ways we're thinking about this. One will be to tie award data to primes and allow people to analyze the award data of opportunities that would have been relevant to them in order to identify strong partners. On the other side, primes can use the analytics we surface with their data in order for them to identify up and coming product types/technologies/manufacturers in order to find new, cutting edge partnerships.

- We actually just got off a call discussing ratings/reputation. This is particularly interesting when manufacturers/resellers are deciding which primes to use. Prime A might be cheaper but has a history of paying late, while Prime B is more expensive but pays quickly. Ratings and reputation can play a big role here. This also changes the incentives of primes as the network grows because if more and more manufacturers/resellers are finding their contacts on Govly, there will be FOMO.

- The first step to supporting companies to learn how to sell to the government is education content. Once we're funded, part of the plan is to dedicate time and money creating accessible content for this purpose. We'll also manually facilitate connections in the beginning and work on ways to productize those connections so that a new manufacturer (broadly used to describe anyone selling to the gov) will be able to more easily identify partners/contacts who can help them through the process.

imroot 2021-08-19 04:04:39 +0000 UTC [ - ]

FEDRAMP compliance isn’t cheap, and it’s not really something startups have the wherewithal of handling until they are a midsized company.

nataz 2021-08-18 22:10:16 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I don't think you're making selling to government easier, you're making it easier for contractors who are bad at selling to government connect to contractors that are good at selling to government.

There are lots of government contracting vehicles. Some lend themselves to large mega corporations, some are specifically set aside for small business. Some reward past performance, some are designed to increase women/minority/veteran owned, disadvantaged location, etc.

Different vehicles also have different risk profiles. Some are optimized for speed, some for consistent pricing. Some work better when you have poorly defined requirements, others are used when there is significant risk of completion. Basically a good government CO/COR/TOR will work with their program managers to strategically structure contracts to meet mission needs while also proving best value.

If you really want to get good at selling to the government, then you need to understand why something is out out to bid (or not out out to bid as it may be). There are tons of federal contracting classes for COs covering both general FAR rules and agency specific needs. Plus, it depends on what you are hunting for. It could be grants, SIBR, direct contracts, IDIQs, etc. All have different drivers.

My suggestion is if you really want to sell to government, find a good federal contracts person, hire them away from the federal government, and have them work bids. Or at least find someone who can explain in detail some of the things I mentioned above.

- source: I've been part of a mega corp, been a sub/small business selling to the government and a government program manager responsible for 200M/year in services and equipment.

*Edit : that came across harsher than intended. This is still a good idea, but they are helping facilitate b2b sales, not b2g sales. Plus, one of the best ways to learn is to work with someone who has already been successful.

mikeweiland 2021-08-18 22:24:40 +0000 UTC [ - ]

No worries.

First answer, we agree the headline is a bit contrived. We’ll blame the 80 character limit :)

This is a very complicated industry as you know. We do make it easier to find opportunities, run analytics on buying trends, manufacturers and customers in a single place that aggregates data that is not just in the public domain. This is a benefit for both the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ contractors. Ultimately, the bid must go through the prime and finding the opportunity you're interested in can bring you to becoming a prime or finding one that already exists. This networking enables a level of efficiency for both the user/organization and the government.

nataz 2021-08-18 23:47:00 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Fair enough on the headline.

Lots of efficiencies to be gained in this arena. The network effect here is crazy strong already, but it's historically all based on working together in person. Now that COVID is keeping everyone at home, maybe that opens you some additional space for online networking.

You guys based out of the DMV?

Good luck!

dang 2021-08-19 00:33:40 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Actually I insisted they use that headline. Mike was taking the fall for me :) - I didn't think it could be misleading!

ilamont 2021-08-18 20:39:30 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Thanks for making an effort to improve the situation. It's refreshing that you are realistic about the problems and challenges of fixing what's broken.

That's not always the case - an HN post by a VC fund some years back (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10833213) was all about the market opportunity, while glossing over the tough bits.

weilandia 2021-08-18 21:04:49 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Thanks for the link. We think to only way to make progress is to get into the complexity and realize there are good and bad parts. Not just dismiss it as completely broken.

Hopefully this link won't be as relevant in 5 years as it is today (given it was posted 5 years ago :) )

jbpnoy6fifty 2021-08-18 19:19:49 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Good idea. I'd like to follow your growth.

Ps. The oldest database system alive today if i recall correctly is one That keeps track and manages USA government contracts and it's invoices

mikeweiland 2021-08-18 19:36:53 +0000 UTC [ - ]

That's super interesting! If you (or anyone) knows the name, I'd love to read about it.

atatatat 2021-08-18 20:38:03 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Following.

hellbannedguy 2021-08-18 22:10:38 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I'd love to see this database too.

Farfromthehood 2021-08-18 21:22:52 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Your privacy policy is a 9 page PDF, which as an immediate red flag. You also auto share registrants' info for marketing unless we opt out.

I wish it was opt-in meeting.

weilandia 2021-08-18 21:24:24 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Thanks for pointing this out. This is not good and we'll make it better. I'm pretty sure it was a stock policy we threw up just to get going.

Farfromthehood 2021-08-18 21:25:11 +0000 UTC [ - ]

And the pricing link doesn't lead to pricing. Just list it. Don't make us jump through hoops to pay you.

weilandia 2021-08-18 21:27:46 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Once we have a better understanding of our pricing we will definitely do this.

weilandia 2021-08-18 21:26:45 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Though I can tell you that we have 0 marketing so at least anecdotally we're are not using your data

bfaviero 2021-08-18 20:14:00 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Love it! I spent three years selling into the government (DHS, TSA, and other agencies) at my last company, and just spent a year at Palantir as a senior PM after our acquisition. Government selling is unnecessarily difficult, so I'm looking forward to seeing you guys succeed!

mikeweiland 2021-08-18 22:30:55 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Thanks - Unnecessarily complicated and contrary to what the government wants people to believe, it is not transparent.

weilandia 2021-08-18 22:33:15 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I think this is overly cynical. It's complex and wants to be transparent, but to be honest it's hard.

graderjs 2021-08-19 10:59:04 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Great name! Seriously, it's the perfect union of GOV and COM. Perfect!

I'm wondering what the situation is for US corporations owned by non-US residents. I think in order to contract for US government, via these public tender processes you need at least one US-resident owner/executive.

Anyway, this whole area complex. Great work on what you're out to achieve! :p ;) xx

cenal 2021-08-18 18:52:11 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I've seen SaaS products like this before. https://truthantowers.com/ had one about five years ago.

Selling into the government is not just organizing the data to make the sales process more approachable but it's knowing the process for each sale.

I have a consulting business in the space (https://www.govsoft.us) and won't blind bid on opportunities. We only work on a bid where we know some of the stakeholders.

settrans 2021-08-18 18:32:30 +0000 UTC [ - ]

This is very exciting and, if executed well, a very promising avenue to dramatically shaping the efficiency of the federal government. One of the greatest sources of preventable waste[citation needed] in the public sector today is inefficient, non-competitive procurement. If Govly (or another upstart) delivers on this promise of lowering the bar of entry to the marketplace of government contracts, all of society profits from the economies of scale.

zdragnar 2021-08-18 18:52:28 +0000 UTC [ - ]

For a real change, the other side needs to pitch in too (having attempted to work with them, I am rather pessimistic).

The crux of the problem is similar to all large organizations- the power of the purse and people doing the procuring have different motivations and objectives than the people the things are being procured for.

Ostensibly, there are good reasons for this- avoiding graft, ensuring standardization among procurements, etc etc.

The downside is that what gets bought isnt what is needed, often costing more and doing less than if the people doing the work had more control over their own budget.

I have encountered a number of businesses that exist only to help other businesses win government contracts. Automating some of that might help bring in a bit more competition, but I suspect "dramatic change in efficiency" will be a taller order.

eraad 2021-08-19 09:57:42 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Hi! Looks pretty good! Please, check the pricing page, the "Prime Account" box has a higher top margin than the others, I think its an error. Really like the website.

jidiculous 2021-08-18 18:15:55 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Somewhat related: part of the Government of Canada (ESDC) has started their own pilot for making micro-acquisition opportunities much easier to both set up on the government side, and bid for on the contractor side. https://twitter.com/MicroBuysGC

weilandia 2021-08-18 18:20:01 +0000 UTC [ - ]

This is a really cool concept. It looks like the pilot is specifically targeting low dollar contracts for software eng. I love this.

jidiculous 2021-08-18 18:25:50 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Yeah, as I understand it (I currently work in another department), anything sub-10k has much less red tape for fed government procurement in Canada.

logikblok 2021-08-18 20:45:03 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Also perhaps of interest is https://openopps.com/ and the team at https://spendnetwork.com/.

hsuduebc2 2021-08-19 01:48:02 +0000 UTC [ - ]

"Most people don’t realize, but the vast majority of government opportunities are only released to a subset of organizations called “prime contractors”." How this works? This must produce less competition and therefore worse product/prices. It is exchange for making things easier for government or why? This is literally illegal in country where I came from (middle sized EU country).

weilandia 2021-08-19 01:59:48 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Yep, this is an effort to make it easier for the government. By pre-approving contractors, they have fewer people they have to deal with. To be clear, anyone can become a prime contractor I.e. get access. It can just be pretty confusing and opportunities to apply for certain contracts can be as long as 10 years apart.

ecesena 2021-08-18 21:35:48 +0000 UTC [ - ]

This is awesome!

I went through the analogous Italian process. We just wanted to sell a dozen solokeys to my university, but university are now required to go through an official process.

It's been so incredibly painful that just the thought to do something like that again (in the US or elsewhere) scared me away.

I have very big hopes for a startup to disrupt in this space, thank you for doing this.

P.S: if anyone is looking for a product to test this out, happy to have you as a reseller :)

lend000 2021-08-18 20:20:14 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Reminds me of the film War Dogs. Great idea. Hopefully you are successful, and can cut out some of the cronyism and result in improving government program quality a bit.

weilandia 2021-08-18 21:07:11 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Trade weapons for cat7 cables and there are similarities :)

bitshaker 2021-08-18 18:25:59 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Having gone through the B2G route several times now with companies, this is a welcome and refreshing service.

The best of luck to you and your team.

The long road ahead will be worth it.

mikeweiland 2021-08-18 20:28:42 +0000 UTC [ - ]

It has been a long road and an even longer road ahead. The system needs some modernization and we are just a piece of the complicated puzzle.

nickstinemates 2021-08-19 05:09:17 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Have worked with InQTel in the past. Same premise, lots of work on their part to couple your tech to a mission, and are accountable to congress. Good group.

gumby 2021-08-18 21:39:33 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Sounds useful; I don't agree with the degree of cynicism with which this has been provided in this discussion.

chaostheory 2021-08-19 04:02:07 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I’m guessing the complexity of the bureaucracy is why most government IT contracts have to go through Carahsoft?

atonse 2021-08-18 19:49:58 +0000 UTC [ - ]

If you guys can build a Vanta for GSA etc you’d probably mint money.

weilandia 2021-08-18 21:11:54 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I was actually thinking about this comparison today! Having just onboarded with Vanta...

pwdisswordfish8 2021-08-19 06:08:26 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Immigration and Customs Enforcement, made with <3 by Govly uwu

staunch 2021-08-18 19:09:41 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Many companies made processing credit cards easier. And then Stripe came along and made processing credit cards easy. This "phase transition" was what made Stripe so wildly successful.

My guess is that you might be moderately successful as a business if you can make it "easier to sell the the U.S. government" but what the market would reward in a huge way is a service that makes it easy to sell to the U.S. government.

My guess is that very few startups would find your current solution easy, with a still-confusing explanation of how the system works, the high price point, and "ask us" pricing model, etc. The bar for "easy" is quite high.

I really do hope someone solves this problem for the good of the country and for the sake of more good startups. Good luck.

hnuser2021 2021-08-18 18:47:42 +0000 UTC [ - ]

is your system able to provide historical winning bids for similar or near similar contract proposal?

weilandia 2021-08-18 19:05:15 +0000 UTC [ - ]

It does a bit of this now. More to come.

dbrueck 2021-08-18 21:43:02 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I misread 'to the' as just 'the' and was very intrigued.

finiteseries 2021-08-18 18:58:56 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Reminiscent of Stripe in the pure schleppiness x obviousness of the idea!

weilandia 2021-08-18 21:16:00 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Two of the founders are also brothers :)

carom 2021-08-18 21:29:52 +0000 UTC [ - ]

How is your integration for DARPA opportunities and SBIRs?

weilandia 2021-08-18 21:35:06 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I believe all the DARPA opps will be in sam.gov, in which case the will be in the public version of Govly. If we're wrong here we'll definitely look into specific DARPA opps.

Looking into SBIR now...

carom 2021-08-18 22:12:33 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Honestly, I would pay for better search and categorization of open DARPA opportunities, as well as notifications when BAAs get released.

carom 2021-08-18 22:11:31 +0000 UTC [ - ]

SBIRs are going to be from multiple agencies, but they might get aggregated on sam.

slim 2021-08-18 19:35:40 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Out of curiosity, did you try to buy gov.ly ? :)

mikeweiland 2021-08-18 20:27:45 +0000 UTC [ - ]

We did not - good idea though!

schoen 2021-08-18 22:18:12 +0000 UTC [ - ]

It already belongs to the Libyan government, though :-)

https://crt.sh/?q=%25.gov.ly

mikeweiland 2021-08-18 22:33:12 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Makes total sense.

pwdisswordfish8 2021-08-19 06:09:39 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Don’t worry, their government is so much in shambles they aren’t even going to notice

RobRivera 2021-08-18 20:47:16 +0000 UTC [ - ]

fedbizops with community linkage. neat

criddell 2021-08-18 20:23:00 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Are you in the same space as Carahsoft?

weilandia 2021-08-18 21:10:39 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Not directly. Carahsoft actually pays for some of our customers' subscriptions to differentiate themselves from other distributors.

mysterEFrank 2021-08-18 21:44:36 +0000 UTC [ - ]

This is a great idea! Good luck

2021-08-18 18:49:33 +0000 UTC [ - ]

testmenow123 2021-08-19 03:22:20 +0000 UTC [ - ]

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testmenow123 2021-08-19 03:22:25 +0000 UTC [ - ]

adfasdfas

testmenow123 2021-08-19 03:23:17 +0000 UTC [ - ]

asdfasdf

testmenow123 2021-08-19 03:22:13 +0000 UTC [ - ]

asfasdf

datavirtue 2021-08-18 18:44:18 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Why are startup names always so horrible?

sidlls 2021-08-18 18:55:00 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Because the founders have some experience in the domain, but think since tech is the driving factor in "solving" the problems they've identified the name isn't as relevant.

codegeek 2021-08-18 18:48:22 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Why does it matter ? If google can work, i think any name can work.

teknopaul 2021-08-18 18:59:11 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Govly sounds like something a London street seller would say.

Oi mate! Wanna up yer prices and have lucrative support contracts for ever? Lovly Govly.

mikeweiland 2021-08-18 20:37:51 +0000 UTC [ - ]

This is great - I've caught myself saying 'Lovely Govly' out loud a few times...