Building in Public

Before we wrote a line of code, we talked to the people who'd use GovHub. Over 50 conversations with BD directors, VP Growth leaders, capture managers, proposal directors, and CEOs at companies ranging from $40M to $300M in revenue.

Here's what we heard.

Pattern 1: Everyone Knows the Tools Are Broken

Not a single person we spoke with was satisfied with their current tech stack. Not one. The complaints varied in specifics but converged on the same theme: we're spending too much time fighting our tools instead of doing our jobs.

The most common phrase, almost verbatim across 50+ calls: "We've got a Salesforce instance that nobody trusts, so everyone keeps their own spreadsheet."

Pattern 2: The Buying Decision Is Political, Not Technical

When we asked why companies hadn't switched to better tools, the answer was rarely "we can't find anything better." It was almost always organizational. The CIO chose the CRM. The VP of BD doesn't want to learn a new system. The proposal team has their own tools that don't integrate with anything else.

The buying committee for GovCon growth tools is fragmented. BD, capture, proposals, and IT all have veto power. Any solution that requires all four to agree simultaneously will never get purchased.

Pattern 3: Domain Expertise Is the Differentiator

The feature that generated the most excitement wasn't any specific capability. It was the fact that GovHub understands GovCon natively. When we showed a pipeline view with capture stages instead of sales stages, people literally leaned forward. When we showed opportunity scoring based on past performance alignment rather than revenue size, one VP said: "This is the first demo where I didn't have to explain my job to the software."

What This Changed

These conversations reshaped three major product decisions. First: we build for the capture manager as the primary user, not the CIO or the IT department. Second: GovHub has to work out of the box with zero configuration — if it requires a consultant to set up, we've already lost. Third: every workflow has to use GovCon language, GovCon stages, and GovCon logic. No generic CRM concepts wrapped in a GovCon skin.

The Ongoing Conversation

We're still doing these calls. If you're a mid-market GovCon leader and want to see what we're building, reach out. Your feedback directly shapes the product.