USNetizen

18 ms·

61.
by USNetizen 11y ago
He's an "assistant instructor" at at least one school/program, and others. This isn't a "kid" if he's teaching other people. We can't and shouldn't blame potential fraud on simple "yout
62.
by USNetizen 11y ago
From a self-written description of his previous project: "I know what you're thinking. FkPaying is a brand new way to watch movies, download books, and download music. I built out a really nice website that's very intuitive
63.
by USNetizen 11y ago
It seems a self-written description of the owner's "previous projects" include an FBI Takedown on one of them - and he's seemingly proud of it. This doesn't bode well for the legitimacy of the current venture: &quo
64.
by USNetizen 11y ago
I'm a little leery when the "refunds" link is dead and there is no "contact" page for a business. Hard to vet the legitimacy of a company without that information in my opinion. A lot of the site seems very cut-and-
65.
by USNetizen 11y ago
It's analogous to someone calling and threatening Firestone tires because someone broke into their Ford car.
66.
No Business Too Small to Be Hacked(nytimes.com)
6 points by USNetizen 11y ago|0 comments
67.
Linode Resets Customer Passwords After Breach, DDoS Attack(threatpost.com)
5 points by USNetizen 11y ago|0 comments
68.
by USNetizen 11y ago
Absolutely. It's like learning a new language - once you have the rules and flow down pat, the rest comes a lot easier. For as hard as people think the market is to break into, there are an abundance of FREE and funded resources to hel
69.
by USNetizen 11y ago
I'd only change one thing about your response, which was great by the way and is exactly like my own views of the space. The changes are happening NOW in the federal space, and quite quickly in some sectors, you just have to know where
70.
by USNetizen 11y ago
And who better at being a DBA than someone who did it, for example, for the intelligence community processing millions of records per day/hour? Who better for supporting IT systems than someone who did it in the middle of the desert du
71.
by USNetizen 11y ago
At a recent event, Ms. Laverne Council, the CIO for the VA who oversees a $4.1B IT budget, actually talked about how a two-person company in San Francisco was able to get her attention. They focused on solving a problem the VA was having, n
72.
by USNetizen 11y ago
That's not true at all and simply more hearsay and rumor. Banks see government receivables as reliably as if you invested in treasury bonds with cash assets. It's the only customer in the world that is 100% guaranteed to pay, on t
73.
by USNetizen 11y ago
What have you done to try and fix it? Looking in from the outside you can speculate all you want, but maybe do something to work your way inside and see what it is really all about. There you'll see things can change, but you have to b
74.
by USNetizen 11y ago
That is a stereotype. Of all procurements in the federal government, 23% are supposed to go to small businesses (i.e. startups) in general. Only about 8% actually goes to veteran owned companies. Plus, that is not how it works. They set asi
75.
by USNetizen 11y ago
Firstly, your perception of veterans is woefully wrong and misplaced. Veterans set-asides in contracting actually do very little to help a company as there is still much legwork to be done. Even then, you stereotype veterans as "rigid&
76.
by USNetizen 11y ago
This is exactly why more people need to get involved. Back then, government contracts were a major part of many leading-edge companies' business plans. Now, not so much. It needs to change so more innovation can reach these people and
77.
by USNetizen 11y ago
But the outcome is far greater than anything in the private sector. We could never have grown by 20 people in less than a year without external funding in any other market. I think you just need to get out and attend some events, talk to pe
78.
by USNetizen 11y ago
No problem. Yeah, I'm not sure how the comment ordering got messed up.
79.
by USNetizen 11y ago
I'm not very acquainted with other YC companies. But I know of hundreds of others that have gone this route for many technologies ranging from energy production to cybersecurity to sensor devices to materials science to software applic
80.
by USNetizen 11y ago
Google SBIR, STTR and CRADA. This is how so many of the common technologies that underlie our very way of life were created in the 20th century. Semiconductors, the Internet, database systems, computing in general, etc. etc. etc. People for
81.
by USNetizen 11y ago
Reach out to other companies doing business with the government and try to set up a meeting. If they are above a certain size (typically in the $30M range for IT functions) they will have mandatory requirements to work with small businesses
82.
by USNetizen 11y ago
Your local SBA office, ask for the PTAC rep: https://www.sba.gov/offices/headquarters/ogc/resources/36238... Now, not all of them are good. Ours was incredibly supportive, even referring work to us that
83.
by USNetizen 11y ago
Yeah, but the path to $20M+ in revenue is a LOT quicker in the government market. Setting up an "MVP" app with Stripe and such is easy to get some quick pennies, but the investment in going after the government market will get you
84.
by USNetizen 11y ago
I disagree. The half-dozen agencies we work with are net-15 to net-30 at most. We started out as a 4 person team just a year ago, and are now a 24 person team working in this market. So it can certainly be done if you just put in the effort
85.
by USNetizen 11y ago
The government has serious OCI (conflict of interest) concerns so, yeah, QA is almost always a separate contract. However, you forget that the average software development contract is in the millions of dollars, if not hundreds of millions.
86.
by USNetizen 11y ago
I think too few of them realize how powerful (yet easy) SBIR and CRADA programs are - free funding to develop a product, courtesy of DoD, HHS, etc. Up to $750k per year. I know entire $50M+ companies that specialize in SBIR R&D alone ev
87.
by USNetizen 11y ago
It's not that hard once you get used to it, and your industry seems to be an exception to the case as what you experienced is not typical in IT. The upside far outweighs the bureaucracy when you land your first $1M+ contract (or you co
88.
by USNetizen 11y ago
GovWorks was focused on only a small subset of the government market and rode the dot-com boom. I've personally known companies grow from $1M in revenue to over $100M in revenue in a span of only 5 or 6 years in the government space, e
89.
by USNetizen 11y ago
About 70% of our revenue comes from the federal government, including cleared work. We specialize in this space and have customers across a half-dozen or more agencies. The sales cycles can still be pretty long, but mostly for IDIQ's w
90.
by USNetizen 11y ago
I'd certainly consider a "major loss" of your customer data, not just once mind you, and on top of that admitting to having an "unstable" product certainly very "problem riddled" for a data analytics compa

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