Beyond the Set-Aside: Making the Case for Small Business in Federal Tech

Set-aside goals explain why agencies have to buy from small businesses, but they say little about why an agency would want to. Host Matt Triner talks with Kevin Belanga, Chief Growth Officer at Hunter Strategy, and Roman Zhelenko, Director of Federal Capture at Hunter Strategy, about what a smaller company changes in hiring, in day-to-day customer service, and in how a contractor responds when a program’s requirements shift partway through. They also get into how cloud lowered the cost of entry for small firms, what agencies could change in their solicitations, and how small businesses can make better use of time with program offices.

In this episode

• Roman explains why small-business hiring moves faster: the CTO, subject matter expert and project manager stay involved from the job posting to the final candidate.
• Matt describes Hunter renting co-working space for a remote employee who didn’t work well at home. Kevin argues large firms usually reserve that kind of accommodation for executives.
• Matt argues that as agencies move toward fixed-price contracts, loosely written statements of work let some contractors require a modification for small changes that cost them nothing. He says a small firm’s reputation pushes it to follow the spirit of the contract instead.
• Kevin walks through how Hunter reworked its solution when its program moved to DISA during the transition from JEDI to JWCC. In his view, a less flexible contractor would likely have lost the contract.
• Matt shares an example where a vendor acquisition derailed an agency’s plan. Hunter used funds already on contract to prototype alternatives, with no cost modification and within the existing scope.
• Roman says requirements for several senior key personnel, or long paid coding challenges, can put bids out of reach for firms of 50 to 60 people. Matt suggests advisory down-selects as a lower-cost first step.
• Matt says HUBZone firms have the same kind of sole-source authority as 8(a) firms, but he has never seen a HUBZone sole-source award in 15 years.

Chapters

• 00:00 Intro
• 02:16 Matt sets up the episode and introduces Kevin and Roman
• 04:03 Why small businesses move faster on hiring and decisions
• 06:11 Flexible benefits: the co-working space example
• 09:21 Customer service and the spirit of the contract
• 12:35 Fixed-price contracts and the “that needs a mod” problem
• 14:29 Why reputation shapes how small firms treat customers
• 17:12 Adapting a program through the JEDI-to-JWCC transition
• 20:03 Redirecting obligated funds after a product acquisition derailed a program
• 23:54 How cloud changed the economics for small businesses
• 28:47 Leveling the field: key personnel requirements and coding challenges
• 33:17 Advisory down-selects and HUBZone sole-source authority
• 36:03 Why acquisition staff overlook HUBZone firms
• 41:15 Getting more from small business events and program office time
• Wrap-up
• Outro

Mentioned in this episode

• HUBZone Program (SBA certification for small businesses located in, and employing residents of, historically underutilized business zones)
• 8(a) Business Development Program (SBA program with its own dedicated support for sole-source awards)
• Women-Owned Small Business (WOSB) and Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business (SDVOSB) programs (socioeconomic categories with parallel sole-source authority)
• FAR 19.1306, HUBZone sole-source awards (the regulation setting when a contracting officer can award to a HUBZone firm without competition)
• JEDI and JWCC (the DoD enterprise cloud contract and its multi-vendor replacement, managed by DISA)
• Advisory down-select (a non-binding early evaluation step that tells vendors whether to keep competing)
• Infrastructure as code (managing infrastructure through code instead of manual setup)
• ServiceNow, Appian, Salesforce (low-code SaaS platforms used in government)

Guests: Kevin Belanga, Chief Growth Officer, Hunter Strategy; Roman Zhelenko, Executive Director, CVP (previously, Director of Federal Capture, Hunter Strategy)
Host: Matt Triner, CEO, Hunter Strategy