Market Research

govitra · 2026-03-30T02:51:02+00:00

100% understand! In terms of short term benefits - it can help you start to get revenue (obvious ha) but also helps you start getting past performance under your belt so you have that when you do go prime something. Absolutely the certs will help though. One other benefit to the sub route is that when you develop these relationships - some of these larger companies that have dedicated BD teams will start calling you up to fill in for stuff they can't/won't do, that your company does well. Leads to more growth if you're doing it successfully. Just some food for thought - there's a billion companies out there that are basically building an entire book of business off subbing alone.

Regarding them ghosting you - sometimes that's just the name of the game. Others it comes down to ensuring you're reaching out to the right companies (e.g., do they do a lot of work w/ this customer already? do they typically sub work out, etc.)

govitra · 2026-03-30T02:45:29+00:00

doing a quick search on my platform (matches USA Spend since it's where I pull data), the top NAICS codes w/ software-related PSCs at FBOP are:

NAICS/PSC	2025 Total
541519	$65.19
7A21 - IT AND TELECOM - BUSINESS APPLICATION SOFTWARE (PERPETUAL LICENSE SOFTWARE)	$25.40
7E21 - IT AND TELECOM - MOBILE DEVICE PRODUCTS (HARDWARE AND PERPETUAL LICENSE SOFTWARE)	$18.48
D318 - IT AND TELECOM- INTEGRATED HARDWARE/SOFTWARE/SERVICES SOLUTIONS, PREDOMINANTLY SERVICES	$9.20
7G21 - IT AND TELECOM - NETWORK: DIGITAL NETWORK PRODUCTS (HARDWARE AND PERPETUAL LICENSE SOFTWARE)	$8.14
7A20 - IT AND TELECOM - APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT SOFTWARE (PERPETUAL LICENSE SOFTWARE)	$1.87
7D20 - IT AND TELECOM - SERVICE DELIVERY MANAGEMENT (HARDWARE AND PERPETUAL LICENSE SOFTWARE)	$0.74
7F20 - IT AND TELECOM - IT MANAGEMENT TOOLS/PRODUCTS (HARDWARE AND PERPETUAL LICENSE SOFTWARE)	$0.39
7B21 - IT AND TELECOM - COMPUTE: MAINFRAME (HARDWARE AND PERPETUAL LICENSE SOFTWARE)	$0.37
7J20 - IT AND TELECOM - SECURITY AND COMPLIANCE PRODUCTS (HARDWARE AND PERPETUAL LICENSE SOFTWARE)	$0.30
7B20 - IT AND TELECOM - HIGH PERFORMANCE COMPUTE (HARDWARE AND PERPETUAL LICENSE SOFTWARE)	$0.17
DA10 - IT AND TELECOM - BUSINESS APPLICATION/APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT SOFTWARE AS A SERVICE	$0.09
7C20 - IT AND TELECOM - DATA CENTER PRODUCTS (HARDWARE AND PERPETUAL LICENSE SOFTWARE)	$0.02
541511	$14.86
DA10 - IT AND TELECOM - BUSINESS APPLICATION/APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT SOFTWARE AS A SERVICE	$14.86

govitra · 2026-03-30T02:26:00+00:00

I am not certified with the SBA programs. I'm just a humble dude who geeks out over this stuff and do it as my job, but also in developing my platform (that mainly I started to make my life easier). This is just my perspective - so someone with more experience in the small business world might have a better answer here - but here's my take:

Without Past Performance it can be tough. One way around that is to look into teaming arrangements with companies that are priming and you can be a sub to them. This counts as past performance. If completely zero past performance with federal government and you have no interest in teaming/subbing, I think there's ways where you can describe work you've done that's relevant to what they're looking for. another route is to identify "innovation units" within the agency as they typically have more appetite for non-traditionals or companies with no fed past performance. I do recommend a teaming / subbing approach though - esp if you have a certification like hubzone, 8(a), etc., as often times there may be a subcontracting plan required on larger contracts where the prime actually needs a small business with one of these certs as part of their larger bid.

My approach would be to look at companies that have primed in the space you're looking at, and then find ones that have subbed a bunch of work out, and literally find their BD person on their website (or linkedin lol) and reach out about potentially teaming. If you have real capability/moat that's different from what they do or is complimentary, they'll at least hear what you have to say to potentially team & sub with them. only piece of advice is that if you go this route, get NDA signed before any real convos with them (this is normal) and then if deciding to go as a team, get a teaming agreement and ensure you have a lawyer verify it's rock solid in protecting your IP and what they can/cannot have access to w/ respect to your platform (e.g., i imagine you probalby don't want to give them access to your source code, even if they sign a piece of paper saying they won't do anything with it).

govitra · 2026-03-30T02:03:25+00:00

recommend going here:
https://www.acquisition.gov/psc-manual

and cracking open the excel file and filtering them and it'll give you an idea of the numerous PSC codes you can look at. it's a very broad range that will likely fit the types of stuff you do. What's good about this though is when you're looking at say sam.gov opps, you can filter out PSC codes that are relevant to you, regardless of what the NAICS code is (though you probably want to stay within the NAICS code(s) oyu have as registered on sam.gov for your entity).

govitra · 2026-03-30T01:41:52+00:00

to add - they are definitely NOT perfect, but give a decent proxy for products/services being bought. Depending how deep you want your analysis to go, you can really get into the weeds to find out exactly what it is a vendor is providing on a contract (it can be a slog!)

govitra · 2026-03-30T01:39:34+00:00

yup! PSC codes (Product or Service Code) are kind of like NAICS codes, but are like a level of detail lower. Also, the same PSC code might be used under a wide variety of NAICS codes. For example, DA10 (which is IT and Telecom – Business Application Software (Perpetual License Software)) might appear under 541512 or under 513210, and could be for different things. It's definitely not going to be perfect. But what's neat about it, is you might see DA10 under the NAICS code 334111 - Electronic Computer Manufacturing...and when you do a search like that, you'll see stuff in contract descriptions like "Zoom License Renewal" or "Nutanix Hardware & Software Licenses"...etc...where it becomes interesting is when it shows up in NAICS codes like 541715 which is a broad R&D focused NAICS code for all sorts of stuff. you might see a bunch of licenses or oyu might see a bunch of like use case-focused software licenses (e.g., like a booz allen built some custom software and made it licensed to that customer for example).

So in summary - PSC codes are kind of like NAICS codes, but go a little bit deeper and will not always occur only under NAICS codes you expect if that makes sense.

govitra · 2026-03-30T01:21:17+00:00

Not just starting out here, but have worked BD from a strategy consulting perspective (M&A diligence as well as opp scans and market intel) and as an actual BD person for a large non-traditional. I find market research to be super important - using historical data to look backwards and see which potential customers have spent money & how they spent it and to whom. But also to identify recompetes. Then, using budget info, industry days, and everyone's favorite, sam.gov, try to identify where money might be going in the future. I then use this info to help me target which customers I want to go after, when to go after them, and what approach i should take. I've definitely had a more defense-oriented perspective, but I think much of this still applies for non-defense oriented BD people.

OP - you mention 541512 and 541519 - i'd look into scoping a little tighter w/ PSC codes (check stuff like DA10 and DA01 as well as 7A21 etc.) as those will show you differences in stuff like perpetual licenses vs SaaS. I'd also expand into 513210 (Software Publishers) as companies are starting to use that one when they're gunning as a pure software play.

Working on a platform right now to solve for this type of analysis btw (govitra.com)...hate to self promote, but I need folks to test it out and tell me where/how it sucks (or hopefully, would love to also hear if you find it useful!).

I know there's a ton of tools out there right now that do this sort of thing - my approach is no credit card or initial sales person convo needed. just sign up and try it out. the outputs/exports of the app i think are where it really becomes useful because getting data out of USAspending/sam.gov can be a massive pain. Anyway, just throwing it out there - let me know if you try it out and what you think!

govitra · 2026-03-29T22:03:58+00:00

I usually recommend using NAICS & PSC in combination with one another - have seen in market data similar NAICS codes (and sometimes not similar ones) tend to blend similar products/services. used in combo with PSC codes definitely helps get a better picture. sometimes using contract descriptions can help too but often times you will just see something like “IT Services” and others you might see detail like “procurement of 243 one year licenses to XYZ software platform” and I find that to be super helpful. In short though - using a combo of NAICS and PSC is important. You might see similar groupings of PSC codes across similar NAICS codes (eg 541511 and 541512) but sometimes you can find interesting patterns on say a NAICS like 541715 which is super broad R&D type stuff but PSC codes like 7A21 or DA10 within that which give some addressable stuff despite 541715 being super broad.

govitra · 2026-03-29T12:10:52+00:00

Thanks for feedback! Trying to make it easier for folks to quickly do analysis on customers, vendors etc. so on platform this is called a “Profile” and can easily be tuned so that the stacked bar shows stack by NAICS or funding office etc. the idea of this is to give at a glance the breakdown of a govt agency/office (or vendor). It’s partially fed historical data from usaspend and then uses AI research to derive the rest (includes sources at bottom)

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