Claudine Adeyemi-Adams is the founder of Earlybird AI — a voice-powered conversational AI assistant to help more people overcome barriers to employment by sharing their challenges and accessing support. It’s also designed for people teams to better engage with candidates applying for jobs at their companies.
Many of the company’s customers sell directly to governments or the wider public sector. “We have to ensure our AI solutions meet the stringent requirements and standards expected by the government,” says Claudine. “That also involves building our own relationships with the government.”
Here are her top tips for engaging with governments. Although her work focuses on the British government, most of these tips are relevant for working with most European governments or public sector offices.
Do your research
Look at past research papers, innovation teams and tenders that the government has promoted. The UK government, for example, deploys capital for ‘test and learns’ as well as other innovation projects.
Be the first to know
Get registered on relevant procurement portals like DPS — dynamic purchasing systems. Contracting authorities will invite organisations on the relevant DPS to bid for the contract as they’ll know you meet certain criteria. Once registered:
- You’ll hear about the latest tenders and market engagement sessions — there are sessions held with potential bidders that help the government understand the market and stress test what they have in mind before they draft tender documents.
- You’ll be able to bid for any contracts directly.
Find a partner
If you are an earlier stage company you might struggle to work directly with the government because you don’t have a track record — and the government has low risk tolerance. Find a larger company that is credible and will partner with you on a government contract. This will help you build your track record and visibility.
Your network is important
Despite very formal and public processes, who you know is still key. There are many opportunities I would have completely missed if people in my network didn’t share them with me. How you network with the government requires a bit more effort than normal. As well as attending relevant events and meeting people, you’ll also want to join market engagement sessions, join trade bodies and attend their meetings. Also, find the associations that work to influence policy in your space and engage with those communities.
You might need to find a third party that has partnered with or has a close relationship with the government in some way to help you get access to a deal. In the UK, Nesta, Public and the Alan Turing Institute are great partners to the public sector. Within the UK government, typical stakeholders for us have been leaders within the Crown Commercial Service’s directorate — which manages commercial agreements with the public sector.
Nominate someone in your team to lead
At the early stages of a company, when you have a lean team, the CEO is normally responsible for liaising with the government. As you scale, if the government is a big enough client, you will want a public affairs lead — they will need to be supported by a cross-functional team like sales, legal and compliance.
Expect things to take time
Prepare for it to take at least 12-24 months for things to go through if you’re trying to work directly with the government. It could also be much longer. Therefore, you need to ensure you have enough runway to keep operations running. You’ll need to have other clients or to have fundraised.
It can be quicker though. If you’re bidding for a contract then the timescale will be determined by the tender process ie. an invitation by a government body to bid for a contract.
Get on top of compliance
You need to be up to speed with regulatory requirements and procurement processes well in advance. For example, you might need to get your security in order by getting the right security certifications like ISO 27001 or Cyber Essentials Plus in the UK. If there’s a timescale on a bid, they won’t wait for you to get compliant.
Don’t rely on government money
Think very carefully about how your business strategy relies upon selling directly to the government. It’s extremely difficult to move at speed when working in the public sector. You’ll need to build real conviction that this is the right thing to do:
- Is it for credibility? Is it because that is the only possible client for your solution?
- Is it to test your tech at scale?
- Is it to gain learnings?
- Is the timing right?
- Do you have to build anything extra or can you provide a service as the company stands?
If working with the public sector isn’t right for right now, figure out what other customers you could work with that give you access to, or a pathway towards, working with the government.
On the subject of... working with the government
1. If governments want to help startups, they should stop being such terrible customers.
2. How can the UK government harness public procurement to become a global software leader?
3. How innovation can transform public services. Check out Public’s latest findings on why the government needs to engage with a wider range of suppliers.
4. How to succeed with public sector clients. Check out this video with Claudine.
