We run a data/dev shop inside a non-profit 400 person company that is mostly gov contracting. _We_ will come courting. Most of our contracts require us to satisfy some percentage from five to 20% small business/woman/minority-owned. This could be services, consulting, pencils, you name it.
We. Cannot. Find. You.
The small businesses we know and love are not suitably registered with the fed/state certifications. We routinely have to document what we did to try and find adequate set asides. We'd love to be doing more business with small businesses, but yes, the paperwork is a hassle. But if you sub contract, you can negate 90% of the problem, let the prime contractor deal with it.
I have a good friend who has run his own 2-5 person shop for years and lately he says that they're often excluded by decree because the contracts stipulate some sort of minimum size of business that is acceptable.
Follow the RFPs he would like to work on, see who wins them, call them, pitch product/service. Bring along certification of small business and make the small business vehicle the pitch, not the product/service.
Let's say I need data analysis. Thousands of companies can service this need. Very few have the specific certification for the fed agency/state/municipal requirements du jour. I have no solid way of searching all holders of all these certifications by service line.
So, I search online, I call peers, I dredge for vendors. Vendors who approach me and can quickly communicate their contract value with small business/minority-owned/women-owned whatever, and can demonstrate their knowledge of the particular market the RFP is for means they know and are ready to be added to a larger RFP and can document their claims.
For me, this saves me time and money, and brings value.
The concept of "fairness" that I talked about in my previous post applies here. If two companies submit proposals in response to an RFP seeking to acquire 1,000 Widgets and Company A responds with a price of $10,000 while Company B responds with a price of $20,000, the government is required to chose Company A because they are cheaper. However, if Company B is a small business/minority-owned business/service-disabled-veteran-owned-business/etc, the contracting officer can choose Company B because it fulfills other requirements to support those types of businesses.
I could see some small cases where the government would restrict the size of the company responding to an RFP, but there are also ways around that. The small business can contact the contracting office and protest saying they were unfairly considered for that acquisition and usually will win.
The key to the Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR) is that they try in earnest to support and encourage fairness when awarding contracts. Furthermore, the government goes out of its way to give the "underdog" a better-than-equal chance at winning the contract.
As another poster said, the small business can't lose out on other reasons (i.e. certifications, financials, etc). It could be that they're losing contracts for very different reasons.
> If two companies submit proposals in response to an RFP seeking to acquire 1,000 Widgets and Company A responds with a price of $10,000 while Company B responds with a price of $20,000, the government is required to chose Company A because they are cheaper.
They aren't required, but not doing so will necessitate a good justification. The Small Disadvantaged Business (SDB) designation is basically an automatic justification, but not the only one. Contractor past performance, the reasonableness of the bid, and other considerations can drive the government to actually choose a higher bidder. It also matters whether Widget is off-the-shelf or bespoke; the contracting officer tends to get more discretion in the latter case.
This is a good point on a number of fronts. A key take away with this is that startups need to understand how to properly register their businesses to get maximum traction. SEO isn't everything. Things like Dunn & Bradstreet are often requirements to prove legitimacy, but overlooked simply because founders don't know what they don't know.
Very interesting. I'm going to be in "next gig mode" next year and am a Vet. Was thinking about what kind of company to start. Would you be available for a short chat? My email in my profile.
We. Cannot. Find. You.
The small businesses we know and love are not suitably registered with the fed/state certifications. We routinely have to document what we did to try and find adequate set asides. We'd love to be doing more business with small businesses, but yes, the paperwork is a hassle. But if you sub contract, you can negate 90% of the problem, let the prime contractor deal with it.