Comment by cuuupid | Hacker News Reader

Comment by cuuupid | Hacker News Reader

This is a really good in depth article but misses one thing so many projects miss: just sell to the civil government.

USG has so many programs (eg NSF grants) for tech and the disjointedness of civil agencies, IC, and state govts means they end up procuring a dramatically large landscape of software. The regulatory and compliance bar to entry is not nearly as high as you think especially if you are teaming your first few contracts. It is solid, guaranteed revenue to fund your project for usually 3-5 year commitments, and usually massively profitable.

I wish more open source companies took advantage of this, because usually fully private sector companies will end up baking open source libraries into their project and sell it at gigantic markups, pocketing everything. eg: https://x.com/ssankar/status/1749202248700420587?s=20

When I was in govt I saw so much software that was basically open source maps + open source db for $12m. To give another frame of reference, I’ve seen OCR on PDFs carry a $2mm price tag, and a tool like weights & biases carry $30mm (all $ per annum).

There are even other incentives here beyond deploying software; for example prioritizing fixing certain bugs or security flaws in your software — eg IC would have paid big $$ for safetensors.

I’ll even highlight four ways Supabase could do this: - Cybercom (direct) - DOS (direct or teaming) - VA (thru a PWS) - direct to govcon software powerhouses

And three ways to do this: - cold email GS 14s/15s or equivalent - hire an ex-GS15 - find a solicitation that fits on SAM.gov then use GovPro.ai (white glove) or rogue (diy) to put together a response

> just sell to the civil government.

From what I've seen, governments and startups typically don't go well together. By the time the government bureaucracy has finally approved the contract, most startups would already have been out of money.

This is a myth that’s exaggerated by specific anecdotes around sole-source (which is where you work with the govt and they put out a notice saying they intend to go with you). Because of there not being constraints on time there and them needing to allow others to protest this makes timelines highly random.

Most are not like this, usually the government puts out solicitations (RFI/Q/Ps). They have a set deadline by which they have to answer your questions, a set deadline for bids, and a set deadline (usually 30d) by which they have to select someone.

You can also game this by emailing people around september, which is when they are getting ready to close their budgets. They need to spend any surplus, and I’ve seen many prominent civil agencies (won’t name and shame) throw around $1-2mm on a same-day contract with vague constraints.

At least in a bunch of the defense agencies, books close for new stuff mid-August. The Aug-Oct timeframe is used to finish executing already in-flight stuff. And if you miss the 10/1 deadline, you're waiting at least until Feb (for many reasons...), assuming Congress has passed a budget.

Just started doing government research contracts. If this is in anyway similar, I'd be wary. The contracts can be lucrative, but there is just a ton of red tape where you need to have people experienced in dealing with it. It isn't for everybody and it does take a lot of time and negotiation.

Yep, for most PWS contracts there are base personnel requirements. That being said for research the bar is pretty high, for regular industry it's pretty low:

- experience in the field (or agency-based past performance)

- clearance (usually public trust for civil, which can be as short as 1-2 week turnaround)

- citizen, US based, with data centers/software inside the US

There are stringent requirements for software the higher up you go (esp to DoD & then IC) but requirements most will meet and build towards while still making $$$. You don't need to have 20 TS/SCI engineers who have IAT L2 and IL6 infra with an ATO at the agency to start with (or even know what those words/acronyms mean), but a vertical in govt will naturally enable that over time.

While I agree that government is an overlooked market, I would not start with the federal government. Massive bureaucracy aside, they are the largest, slowest and most difficult government entity to deal with. And there are literally tens of thousands of other government entities in the USA alone - schools, towns, counties, states, water and fire districts, libraries, etc.

If you want to get into the public sector, think small and wide, not all-in on the biggest one.

If it's good it's good. There are a lot of reasons it might not be, though.

The most lucrative sector of government (in the world) is the US Department of Defense.

Not only are they incredibly bureaucratic and schedule-sensitive, they are obsessed with secrets.

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