Using a GSA Schedule as a Key Component in a Business's Federal Market Growth Plan: BrainGu's Success Story
In 2019, BrainGu, a cybersecurity company that supported intelligence community agencies as a subcontractor, hired Blackfyre Consulting to help them obtain a GSA Multiple Award Schedule with the information technology and professional cybersecurity service SIN. The GSA Schedule contract was an essential step in BrainGu's plan to win a prime contract.
BrainGu also hired another consultant to help them enter the SBIR program with the Air Force to scale their prototype product, Structsure. Starting in 2018, BrainGu spent the next two years pursuing clients for Structsure, but struggled to find success within Federal Civilian Agencies, State and Local government, and commercial entities due to a combination of factors such as agencies not wanting to commit to Cloud-Native technology, not understanding DevSecOps, financial hurdles, and other challenges.
In 2019, BrainGu found an opportunity to work with the USAF via AFWERX, an innovative acquisitions program that provides small amounts of money to highly innovative problem-solving startups and small companies in ways that strip out traditional DoD acquisitions bureaucracy. BrainGu's product/market fit was in the DevSecOps space, supporting software factories across the DoD, and they scaled their business and technology to take advantage of this market opportunity.
The GSA Schedule obtained in 2019 was an essential asset for BrainGu as they scaled their business. They have obtained $3.4M in GSA Task Orders and have a contract value of $57M with the federal government. This case study shows that it is possible to win a GSA Schedule now and use it later down the road when a company has developed its product and network. A GSA Schedule can be valuable to a company's go-to-market plan.