

GovCo - lazerwalker
https://medium.com/@gerstenzang/govco-6f4eb4ad18c9

======
chime
> The hardest part will be understanding the world of contractors

This point cannot be emphasized enough. I've dealt with Medicaid bids and the
amount of regulation one must adhere to is unfathomable. This unfortunately
makes his next point just as difficult:

> Hire the best computer scientists and data nerds to improve the government
> from the outside.

Data nerds want to play with data. Comp Sci folks love algorithms and novel
implementations. Neither of them like reading 300 page annotated Word
documents with multiple revisions about every little thing a system should do,
especially when the requirements are not always rational.

So the missing requirement in this list is to first hire a bunch of
experienced analysts, project managers, and people who can do the paperwork
and make them the bridge between the client and the coders. I would love to
work on pure tech. for complex Govt. problems but I do not want the headache
of HL7 and MITA 3.0 requirements.

The moment you have a good business team, you will find willing developers.
Without a business team with experience, connections, and negotiation skills,
you will have a hard time building the product, let alone sell it.

~~~
altoz
I cannot emphasize this enough. To bid for a government contract is a MASSIVE
undertaking. Just to win the bid is very, very difficult. The RFP, RFQ, ITB
are just a small part of the process and the evaluation process of each bid is
not merely the lowest price, but also a combination of responsiveness, history
of responsibility and the politics of a selection committee.

~~~
rankam
> the politics of a selection committee.

Working in government and having to deal with these things on a day to day
basis, you couldn't be more right. Also, it doesn't help that people hate when
they have to be a part of a selection committee.

~~~
mgkimsal
I'm in the process of looking at this space, and the approach we're thinking
of taking is starting with smaller/local municipalities first, vs larger orgs
(and larger contracts).

We're in the learning process right now, to see if there's any
interest/demand. One of the things that's come up is the RFP review process -
even at county levels, I've been surprised at how... paper-based it still is,
and even more surprised that people seem willing to change to e-processes.

Anyone that has any more info/insight on local gov bid processes and willing
to share insight, please hit me up.

tia :)

~~~
rankam
My email is in my profile - don't know if I'll be able to help but feel free
to reach out with any questions and I'll do my best to answer.

~~~
mgkimsal
actually, I don't see it there - mine is mgkimsal@gmail.com

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doomspork
Speaking from first hand experience I can tell you it would take a lot more
than start-up culture to change the way the software is built for the
government. For one, a lot of agencies are regulated by DHS or DoD on what is
allowed, prohibited, and open for discussion. Another big, and I'd argue
bigger issue, is that many of the people in positions to make these decision
are nearing retirement and for them it is advantageous to award lucrative
contracts to those companies that are likely to employ them or their friends
later.

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tolmasky
_> Start it as a non-profit or an intentionally unprofitable corporation._ _>
Hire better people. You’ll be able to compete with top startups for talent,
because your startup work environment combined with the mission of making this
country a better place will be a powerful call._

Not sure the "startup work environment" of macbook pros and free lunch will
really help you compete against startups that offer stock options in a
profitable company. Selling people on taking a worse deal in order to make the
world a "better place" always seems disingenuous to me whether the goals are
altruistic (help the American people!) or commercial (re-invent the tablet!)

If I put on my employee hat for a second, this is what the deal sounds like:

1\. Work on uninteresting or incredibly regulation-encumbered projects that
can't or won't be measured on customer satisfaction. Where do complaints about
healthcare.gov go? How are you as an employee of the contractor that made it
able to respond to those complaints? At least when its a product 1) people can
go to a competing product (show failure), or 2) people can use it because they
genuinely want to (show success) and not because its the only game in town.

2\. No potential massive IPO (per the description here).

3\. Very unlikely you'll get the actual cool perks of adding quirky features
you guys come up with together from analyzing customers. Its probably going to
be a super refined spec, decided by a bunch of politicians, and since you're
working at the lowest bid anyways even if you could afford to work on cool
genuine ideas you have, you probably can't afford it.

4\. Huge potential for the project to fail for political reasons anyways. (or
you'll have to work with other gov contractors on a different part of the
project)

5\. The reality that some component of the company will have to become good at
the "gov contracting game".

~~~
ethanbond
www.palantir.com

Seriously, a point-by-point real world counterargument of your comment.

~~~
rankam
Palantir is the exception, not the rule. Most software built within
governments, (I work on the finance side of tech projects for the city of New
York) are basic crud apps that have to integrate with very old data systems.
Most developers are "consultants" that are treated as code monkeys because
managers have absolutely no idea about building software - for example, there
was a CIO who didn't know what a stored procedure was and didn't understand
why they exist after a developer spent time explaining what one was. There are
smart developers working on projects, but they are typically not given the
freedom to be creative.

EDIT: relevant essay by PG
[http://www.paulgraham.com/icad.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/icad.html)

~~~
ethanbond
I totally agree that it's the exception, but I think if it were the rule this
article never would've been written.

~~~
rankam
Valid point.

------
greggersh
We're about 1 year into a experiment to do just this. A year ago we founded Ad
Hoc LLC, after working on HealthCare.gov; our idea was to bring the very best
in private-sector engineering to government projects. Based on what we've
learned over the past year, I do think creating a top-notch engineering
organization is incredibly important. But, the problem of getting work is not
to be ignored.

The procurement process is absolutely the biggest problem we face. The idea
that the government puts bids out to an open market and therefore gets the
best quality and price is a fable. Most contracts go out to a pre-selected
group of companies, are are shaped to fit into the models these companies
provide. There are some positive changes happening both at individual agencies
and at the broader federal level as to procurement reform that look positive,
but by and large this is still the biggest obstacle to getting in the game.
Subcontracting is a better option to start.

We absolutely need more companies in this space, both in the product and
services arena. The more companies, the more agencies will feel comfortable
adopting contracting practices that are geared towards these companies rather
than classic contractors.

If you're a senior level developer or UI/UX designer interested in helping
people get health care and Veterans get benefits, please be in touch with me;
we're hiring and have a lot of really interesting work. Experience with Go,
Rails and AWS are a plus, but any significant experience in web development or
design/UX will do.

------
olympus
I'll throw my hat in with all the other people who aren't being negative, they
are speaking truth. Even if it is equipped to produce a better product, a
startup is unlikely to win any government contracts for a few reasons.

First, one of the things that contract selections are based off of are a
history of performance. A startup has no history, so they better get some
civilian projects under their belt before they start competing for government
work.

Second, the government is accountable to its people, and the way that
government acquisitions proves that it is being good stewards of the people's
money is by hiring companies that can "prove" they aren't going to waste it.
That means that your company has to meet several ISO XXXX standards, your
company must be certified lean, you must be at least level 3 in the capability
maturity model (CMM, which again requires a history of performance), you have
to have six sigma black belts on hand, and a whole host of other crappy
certifications that you have no choice to go out and get.

Plus, you have to employ a certain percentage of minority races, women, and
handicapped people, or you won't get the contract -- while this sounds like it
isn't a big deal, look around the startup space and you'll see that it is made
up overwhelmingly of white males.

By the time you meet all these requirements (and there are a whole host of
nitpicky other things to think about like the contracting process and myriad
laws) and still have enough talent on hand to actually make a product, you are
no longer a startup. Competing for government contracts is not the way to go
for a startup. It is not a system set up to give the little guys a shot.

Source: I am a mid-level certified government (military) acquisitions
professional (if you want details I am lvl I in program management and science
and technology management, and lvl II in test and evaluation-- certified by
the "Defense Acquisition University" which isn't a real university and
required by DAWIA -- a congressional act that regulates a lot of this stuff).
I am 26 and have taken over 400 hours of acquisitions training in addition to
my master's degree. And I'm just the one doing the math/stats work when we
test new stuff. The program managers have to navigate a minefield of
bureaucracy every day, trying to prove to the taxpayer that we aren't wasting
their money. Ironically we end up wasting a lot of money trying to prove that
we aren't wasting it.

------
thebiglebrewski
Have you heard of [https://18f.gsa.gov](https://18f.gsa.gov) ?

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rabble
This won't work in the US. The problem is the way government contracting
works. Government Digital Service in the UK has managed to reform things there
because they demanded and got to control the way the UK contracts for
software. The whole nice 18F folks in the US are great people but they lack
the power to fix anything.

FUNDAMENTAL CONTRACTING AND BIDDING REFORM IS NEEDED.

------
mapmeld
It's a good idea. The existence of other groups trying it underlines that it
IS a good idea, and you might be able to start working on it today.

Others have mentioned Palantir (for-profit) and 18F and USDS (within the
federal government). Other groups to check out: Code for America (non-profit)
and Department of Better Technology (for-profit)

------
subway
_based in San Francisco_

Nope. SF is not the center of the universe.

------
brandonb
(I worked on healthcare.gov)

Some of my colleagues are doing just this. Stay tuned.

~~~
eddietejeda
As a former CfA fellow and civic-tech startup founder, this is a very
intriguing comment. Would you like to say more?

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wheaties
Have you heard that many of these contracts come with preselected tech stacks
or have to integrate with legacy systems that violate the standard your
contracts have to adhere to? Your requirements will change every few quarters
and those requirements may dictate a completely different tech stack? One
lovely contract I worked on required C#, C++, and then Java. All within the
span of 2 years. The actual project goals were so removed from the original
stated goal that it would not have been even remotely recognized by the
original project lead. That's good because the project lead changed three
times.

------
vonklaus
I think this is an awesome idea on paper, but could fail to translate into a
successful venture. Maybe it is because I am too cynical, however, there is so
much friction in the market. It is the way enterprise was in the 80s. No one
ever got fired for buying BigGov'tContractor. Quality may take a back seat (in
terms of contract procurement) to political affiliation, personal network, and
relationship.

Conversely, it would be great to see someone try this. The space industry (ine
of the nost monolithic and change resistant industries) seems to be favouring
privatization, cost, and reliability. Prove the cynics wrong!

------
rbhobe
Wow. I could have sworn you were writing about us...

I'm part of a small team of expats from Silicon Valley that came out to DC
last year to help fix healthcare.gov. (Mostly Stanford, Google, YCombinator
folks) We started our company, Nava, to bring the best of SV startups to DC
and create software that radically improves how our government serves its
people.

Our trajectory is very similar to what you've described, with some tweaks that
I won't go into here.

In the last 6 months, we've launched 2 major projects:

\- App 2.0, the new insurance application for healthcare.gov. It's processing
70% of apps coming through the marketplace, and: converts 35% more people than
the old app, gets them through in half the time, is mobile-friendly (20% of
apps), sits on robust, scalable infrastructure, etc etc. It was the first
system that CMS (Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services) ever hosted on
Amazon AWS.

\- Scalable Login System (SLS), the new identity management system for
healthcare.gov. Sadly, the main achievement here is that the system is
actually up and available, unlike its predecessor. It's now saving the
taxpayer $70M in annual maintenance costs.

Here's a Wired article from last summer about us:

[http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-
revamp/](http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp/)

Our momentum is strong, the problem is important, and we're looking for good
people.

If you're the type that would get fired up about reimagining broken government
experiences and technology, please drop us a line at jobs@navahq.com, we'd
love to hear from you!

------
pmorici
I'm not getting the impression that the OP understands the nature of
government contracts and the underlying incentives that have shaped things to
be the way they are. Lack of free lunch and Mac book pros has nothing to do
with the problem. I'm also skeptical of any company who's sole customer is
government. A better idea would be to start a service to help existing
reputable companies break into government contracts to offer more competition.

------
deviyer
Have you heard of Palantir?

~~~
ethanbond
Yeah, this is Palantir. Of course, recognizing that would take 20 minutes of
wading through conspiracy theories and vague press releases :)

------
marianov
Don't you have clauses requiring X years of existence, Y number of previous
projects of a given size or Z income per year in government RFPs? They exist
in my country. You could think they are thought to avoid two guys in a garage
to win a contract where you ( the government) want to hire a reliable company
that can deliver and support the product. Or you can think it's just another
way to tailor the RFP to that same big companies every time.

T

