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Interested in starting my own government contractors placement company.

Veteran

Luis Zaragoza Winter Garden, FL

Any mentors here that could provide some tips, and advice on starting my own contracting company?

Thank you in advance!

2 May 2022 7 replies Mentoring

Answers

Advisor

Michael Horn Marietta, GA

A free, live, online nine week program is available at Warrior Rising. This link gets you to the registration page. https://www.warriorrising.org/vettoceo/ This program is free to all Active Duty, Reserve, National Guard, and veterans. Join the thousands of others who have taken the Entrepreneurship for Transitioning Warriors course. You can compete for a $20K grant, also.

Advisor

Patrick E Alcorn Arlington, TX

Contact your Veterans Business Outreach Center at https://sba.gov/vboc/ for all things small business. Consider attending the Boots to Business: Introduction to Entrepreneurship course in your area: https://sbavets.force.com/

Determine which federal agencies buy your product/service and get to know them.
Identify the contracting procedures of those agencies and the personnel who make buying decisions.
Focus on opportunities in your niche and prioritize.
Make contacts—attend small business events and network your business to gain exposure to key agencies.
Find out if your target agencies require you to register in their database in order to do business with them.
Registering your business is not enough to obtain a federal contract: ultimately you are responsible for your own success and you will need to market your business to attract attention from federal agencies.

Veteran

Dominic Sansone East Hartford, CT

My favorite “helper” is your local congress person. They have people who’s sole job is to help you get grants and work with the government. Should be very user friendly and getting help with congress can help with contracts

Advisor

Gary Rossi Napa, CA

Luis - have you used LinkedIn to network with individuals that have done the same thing - search contracting company and then the people send them a tailored connection request to set up an informational interview - secondly connect with me to broaden your network - https://www.linkedin.com/in/garyrossibaldrigecoach/

Advisor

Joe Engle Indianapolis, IN

Hello Luis. I had a friend that started and successfully ran a contracting company.
The keys for him were:
1) Fulfill the contracting requirements for the target organization. Luis, in your case that would be jump through all the hoops needed to be on governments list of contractors. Get the requirements from the gov.
2) Know the target organization and their needs. The more you understand the organization, the easier it will be to place people in it.
3) Contacts and networks. My friend had lots of contacts, both his friends and people he had worked with over the years. He would talk with these contacts and let them know about contracting positions he had open. (Force multiplier)...he would also ask these contacts if they knew of anyone that would be interested in the position.

From a business perspective, the contracting company was a straight forward operation. That is, there was no financing, the book keeping/accounting was simple, legals minimal, office space was home, etc.

Good luck Luis, and thanks for your service!

Advisor

ACP AdvisorNet Staff New York, NY

Hi Luis,
Thank you for your service and your question! If you have not looked already, the SBA has a great page of information and resources that highlight Veteran assistance programs available in Federal Contracting.

https://www.sba.gov/federal-contracting/contracting-assistance-programs/veteran-assistance-programs

Additionally, here is an article with some great tips and some resources that might be useful to your goals:

https://blogs.usfcr.com/tips-for-getting-started-in-federal-contracting

Finally, take advantage of our Community Tab to sort by small business advisors and use control-F to find those who work in contracting. From here you can directly reach out to advisors!

https://acp-advisornet.org/community/advisors

All the Best,
ACP Operations Associate

Advisor

Richard Byrne Hillsborough, NJ

I've added links to information & videos to these sections of my EE webpage that might be useful to you:
http://eehot.com/ee.html#networking - set up LinkedIn profile, 1 year of FREE premium
http://eehot.com/ee.html#va
http://eehot.com/ee.html#vosb -Veteran owned small business
http://eehot.com/ee.html#funding
http://eehot.com/ee.html#mentoring
http://eehot.com/ee.html#space
http://eehot.com/ee.html#satellites
http://eehot.com/ee.html#launch

These organizations might be helpful:
https://www.agc.org - Associated General Contractors
https://www.contractorsassociation.org - Int'l Ass. of Prof. Contractors

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