CIO Bulletin

Rob Rosenberger, CEO and Co-Founder of Blackdragon “Blackdragon is transforming the federal contracting community”

Making a winning proposal is difficult, and there is no tried-and-true template to use each time you bid on a contract. Every element, from the questions to the scoring and weighting, will be unique to each proposal.

If your company’s contract management is disjointed and disorganized, relying on various systems, processes, personnel, and departments, you’re probably having trouble running your business. Without a unified process, you cannot properly manage your contracts, which can result in a slew of issues such as missed deadlines, expired contracts, and increased liabilities that can jeopardize your company’s success.

Nonetheless, some government contractors are winning new contracts and expanding their businesses.

As a result, if you want to expand your business and win contracts, you should consider hiring Blackdragon.

They are the first full-service management consulting firm dedicated to assisting select federal contractor bidders in winning government contracts. Blackdragon is the leading federal contracting crowdsourcing platform, assembling dream teams of subject matter experts (SME) from all over the world to self-organize within their proprietary online marketplace and then creating turnkey winning proposals on behalf of their bidder clients.

The mission of Blackdragon is to completely transform how new contracts with the US Federal Government are identified, pursued, and ultimately won. Blackdragon takes pride in being a modern-day free company.

The CIO Bulletin recently spoke with Rob Rosenberger, CEO and Founder of Blackdragon. Thefollowing are excerpts from the subsequent conversation.

Q. What inspired you to develop your idea of establishing the company?

For decades, success in federal contracting was largely based on an outdated system of “who you know.” As a result, I created Blackdragon, and my company is transforming the industry with an unprecedented marketplace that leverages the power of the gig economy to build contract-winning teams on demand. Business as usual

for federal contractors was no longer working. I created Blackdragon around these entrepreneurial principles to revolutionize the industry.

Leverage the gig economy with its ever-expanding remote workforce of industry experts.
Use online platforms to replace traditional, linear businesses and transform entire industries.
Allow outcome-based compensation to replace ineffective hourly hiring.
Encourage value-based compensation with peer reviews instead of hourly or salary rates.
Empower freelance experts to proactively form dream teams for a preferred bidder client.
Stress bidder expertise as a key advantage, combined with preparation and efficiency.
Stop recycling old proposal content, limited personnel, and outdated strategies.

Q. What are the biggest factors that have helped you be successful with Blackdragon?

The key to our success is providing a full scope of services. Most “experts” in the industry focus on the proposal-writing process, with minimal time, effort, or expertise dedicated to the phases that come before the RFP is dropped. While our Winning-as-a-Service™ (WaaS) product line is our flagship offering, focusing on crafting superior proposals, our integrated suite of on-demand products and services covers the full lifecycle of bidding on federal contracts.

Other “as-a-service” product lines include advice, pipeline, and capture. These are meant to work in tandem to help bidder clients win targeted contracts in the shortest amount of time with the least amount of investment risk and disruption to daily operations.

Q. What factors contribute to a typical entrepreneur’s success?

I believe successful corporate entrepreneurs must have vision, charisma, emotional intelligence, and exceptional integrity. They must be excellent communicators, good delegators, and, most importantly, be able to inspire followers to achieve great things—perhaps beyond what those people believe they can achieve on their own. They set the baseline for the growing organization’s culture. Steve Jobs once said, “Innovation distinguishes a leader from a follower.” Innovation never happens in a vacuum. Entrepreneurs must not be afraid to break with the norm and go against conventional wisdom or repeated methodologies revered as “best practices.”

Q. What characteristics make Blackdragon unique in the federal contracting industry?

Blackdragon is not only different; we are consistently better. Our most noteworthy distinctions are in our Winning-as-a-Service (WaaS) product line, where we match the most compelling bidders with the finest freelance experts to create custom “dream teams”—built specifically to win any targeted contract on behalf of the bidder client.

Better experts with better expertise are the result of the new gig economy. Our matchmaking service matches these freelance experts with bidders who need their help to win.
Better proposals with better insights are based on motivated partnering with compensation tied to winning. Our Deal Teams are not just augmented staff support; we know how to win.
Better processes with a better experience are attained by successfully working with multiple bidding clients as a third-party proxy bidder and continually optimizing best-of-breed solutions.
A better depth of talent is available with thousands in our global coalition of experts, allowing very refined searches for people with specialized skills or personal experience.
Better bidding is based on shared risk. We are less likely to partner with a client who is unlikely to win because our compensation is tied to winning. This helps avoid wasting efforts.
Better pricing options are gained with fixed-fee agreements and scaled compensation models, greatly improving budgeting and managing cost expectations.
Better team morale is felt because every bid has a reasonable expectation of winning, unlike hourly workers who just put in their time to get paid regardless of bid outcomes.
Better bid sharing is realistic when a motivated subcontractor is willing to pay for our services on behalf of a prime bidder. This may allow a prime to bid at no cost to their organization.

Q. What advice would you provide to someone starting a business for the first time?

A competitive yet cooperative work culture is key. As an example, Blackdragon’s freelancers compete internally with their co-workers to optimize their remuneration. In contrast with conventional B&P support firms that simply peddle resumes by the hour, Blackdragon does not keep track of labor hours on its projects. Instead, Dragons maintain a transparent log of their aggregate “value” contributions to each project within the Blackdragon portal. Each team member examines the compilation of contributions at the conclusion of the project and awards scores to members. Averaged scores determine each member’s portion of the available fee pool for that project.

This way of earning pay motivates each team member to be more concentrated on proactively creating “value” in the eyes of their peers than just recording hours for billing purposes. This results in each custom team of Dragons being incredibly competent, fast, resourceful, and, most importantly, formidable.

Creating successful processes to help companies win federal contracts

Rob Rosenberger is the visionary CEO and Founder of Blackdragon, a highly innovative consulting firm increasingly recognized across the US federal contracting industry as a major disruptor. Rob has always wanted to be an entrepreneur. He started his first business at the age of nine and managed 42 employees by the age of sixteen. His entrepreneurial spirit drives him forward. Rob surveys the business conditions and develops a plan to achieve the goal when navigating a complex business. He brings in the right people at the right time to provide exceptional customer service. He is self-motivated and capable of overcoming any adversity.

Based on his unique experience, Rosenberger, the original founder of the Blackdragon concept, was inspired to create a novel approach to winning federal contracts.