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Because No One is Coming

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Because no one is coming, and we’re tired of waiting.
Because none of us can avoid bureaucracy, but we can all choose how to engage it.
Because fairness and competition need a better role model.
Because the procurement industry needs a creative force for change.
Because an open government market deserves to exist and thrive.

Today, we’re joining forces on behalf of a mission bigger than each of us individually.

Separately driven to help governments around the world find a better way to do business, and in our collective pursuit of “better government,” we took our own echoed words to heart and knew the only way to accomplish this was through collaboration and a freshly-minted joint momentum. Attracted by our shared and overlapping “why’s,” the decision was made.

Effective immediately, we are the new Managing Partners of the Public Spend Forum (PSF).
United under PSF, we are GovShop, GovCity, #GovAIRS, and The Bakery Creative.

To every supplier of solutions, whether small business, startup, entrepreneur, academic, business professional and everyone in between—our mission is to grease the wheels that drive your business, empowering you with the real fairness in competition that you expect of the public sector market and often do not receive. To offer you greater exposure in the market, to simplify your experience working with organizations that plead to meet and conduct business with you. To reveal opportunities that often go unanswered or undiscovered, more openly and purposefully.

To every individual working within city, state, federal and global ecosystems of government—our mission is to help you discover and understand suppliers coming in and out of markets.  But it’s so much more than that. To introduce you to those you never knew existed, to connect you on a deeper level with the venture and emerging tech community around the world, to provide you real performance data you’ve never had access to, and to amplify your voice so you can attract emerging and diverse respondents to your solicitations and challenges.

From this day on, our platform, our curated experiences, our Creative ecosystem, and most importantly, our shared understanding and career experience of your day-to-day mission needs and challenges will be poured into everything that we do for you, and with you.

These are not our goals, these are our guiding principles.

Again, we know we cannot fix the decades of bureaucracy, outdated processes and ineffective policies that hold so many of us back.

Wait. Yes we can.

But it will take more than a few people.  We know it will take an army of believers, innovators, deviants, and change agents…inside and outside of government. We will provide some of the grease needed to skid the wheels, working in partnership with you and other organizations with similar missions as ours.  We look forward to working with everyone in the ecosystem as we create open government markets.

Raj, Ben, Patrick, Molly, and the PSF Team

“For more than a decade as a U.S. Department of Defense Acquisition Professional, I have fought to replace a compliance-based culture with an outcomes-based culture; to put the power of data and knowledge of unique acquisition authorities and methods into the hands of public servants; to lower the barriers to entry for small businesses and nontraditional contractors; and to put the focus of public procurement squarely on delivering capability to the end-user at the speed of relevance. It is with these principles in mind that I decided to join the Public Spend Forum team and bring my vision to an organization that shares my values. Putting the power of data into the hands of public procurement professionals to access the absolute latest in commercial technology; keeping pace with commercial markets; and lowering the barriers to public opportunities for all entities, regardless of size, experience, or knowledge of the unique public sector market.”

Ben McMartin, Managing Partner

“After 20 years in and out of uniform, watching the inner-workings of billion-dollar major government procurement efforts and tech scouting, I’ve always believed there had to be a better way. I’m looking forward to serving the same mission in an entirely different way—I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to impact how data is sorted, shared, transferred and ultimately, utilized to make better business decisions that will save us billions in time and money.”

Patrick Wearn, Managing Partner

“The worst kept secret in the government space is that the systems we’re forced to rely on today, will not serve us in the future. Every single stakeholder in the innovation pipeline, from the entrepreneur with the idea to the senior federal executive who buys it ten years later, is unproductively impacted by tools, services, and ecosystems that only partially solve their problems, if at all. We knew that tackling this massive challenge to #innovatethegov on so many levels would require a team dynamic and an arsenal of tools you can’t find anywhere else. So here we are.”

Molly Cain, Managing Partner

“Reid Hoffman, founder of LinkedIn, says big problems that affect society sometimes take a lifetime to solve.  Well, we think helping governments spend $10 trillion more effectively is a pretty big challenge and something that needs a lot more attention. We are putting every ounce of energy into our mission, to create Open Government Markets, by building a platform that arms every government official with easy to access to market and supplier data. At the same time, we are helping suppliers more easily pinpoint the “problems” in government that need their help and innovative solutions…and then helping them find an easier path through the maze of government to deliver their solutions.  I’m excited today to be joined by Ben, Molly and Patrick and the passion they bring towards the same mission.  Ultimately, it’s not about us. It will take an army to take on this $10 trillion challenge.  So we’re calling on others who are just as passionate or on the front-lines delivering results every day to join us on our mission and help improve the lives of citizens and societies around the world.”

Raj Sharma, Co-Founder and CEO
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