Update: Our $7.2M/Year Big Data Company Was Awarded The 8(a) Certification And Has Made Bigger Impacts
This is a follow up story for PVM IT. If you're interested in reading how they got started, published almost 3 years ago, check it out here.
Hello again! Remind us who you are and what business you started.
My name is Pat Mack, President and CEO of PVM. PVM is a digital services company that helps public sector teams unlock their data for good and maximize investments in Palantir systems.
I founded PVM in 2010 after nearly 25 years on active duty in the U.S. Navy. I was, and continue to be, extremely passionate about delivering technology to make my shipmates’ lives easier, so I created PVM to help them solve the data-driven challenges they were facing every day.
Today, PVM helps our clients, whether that’s the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Department of Justice (DOJ), or local law enforcement teams, make better use of their data to help them accomplish their missions.
Over the past 12+ years, PVM has grown from a one-man startup to a $7M-$9M company with a team of 50ish brilliant professionals serving more than 10 government agencies at the federal, state, and local levels. While we were founded in San Diego, I am proud to say that I returned to my hometown of St. Petersburg, Florida a couple of years ago and PVM is now a tenant of the St. Petersburg Maritime and Defense Technology Hub.
Without question - starting, sustaining, and growing a business is one of the most challenging professional undertakings entrepreneurs will face
While building PVM has been the most challenging thing I have ever done professionally, I am continually humbled by our success and incredibly proud of the work we do to make a difference in the communities we serve.
Tell us about what you’ve been up to. Has the business been growing?
Over the past year, PVM has hit some exciting milestones! First and foremost, we were awarded our 8(a) certification in March. This is something we have been working on for a long time, and are excited to finally be accepted into the program. Joining the 9-year 8(a) business development program makes us eligible to compete on federal set-aside and sole-source contracts and form joint ventures.
The program also gives us access to resources to help us scale the business, including training and technical assistance. As an 8(a) company, PVM will have more opportunities to make a bigger impact and help more public sector teams accomplish their missions by extracting value from their data. I am absolutely thrilled about the opportunities that lay ahead of us as a part of this program.
Since we last talked, PVM also has had the opportunity to make a bigger impact on our clients’ missions. PVM has been heavily focused on delivering value on our current contracts and leveraging our work to grow our relationships within our client base. Over the past year, PVM has continued, to grow, and expanded many of its current contracts.
For example, we have continued and expanded our six+ year relationship with the CDC with six new and ongoing projects. We help CDC with its data modernization initiative, specifically focusing on optimizing its enterprise systems built on Palantir Foundry. Specifically, PVM’s team of engineers enables CDC to use its diverse data sources to respond to public health emergencies.
For example, PVM integrates various pathogens and diseases like Salmonella, E. coli, Listeria, Cholera, and more. I am so proud of our partnership with CDC and am thrilled PVM continues to be able to play a role in helping improve the nation’s public health.
In addition, PVM continues to help other public sector teams working on Palantir systems accomplish their missions, including the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the DOJ, the Department of Defense’s Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency, local law enforcement teams, and more.
Over the last year, PVM has also had the opportunity to build new relationships and start working with new clients, specifically in my hometown of St. Petersburg. For example, we are now partnering with the Foundation for a Healthy St. Petersburg as a technical advisor to help them advance health equity in Pinellas County. As members of the St. Petersburg Maritime and Defense Hub, PVM recently formalized a partnership with fellow tenant Pole Star to support the U.S. Coast Guard’s Track Management System. As a St. Pete native, I am honored to be able to give back to our community and am excited about these opportunities and those that lie ahead in my hometown.
To support all of this growth, especially with our new 8(a) certification, we’ve also recently made some organizational changes and strategic hires in our operations, capture, accounts, and marketing departments. In addition to standing up individual departments in each of these areas, as a team, we are focused this year on implementing a Revenue Operations model to make sure that we grow responsibly and sustainably.
What have been your biggest challenges in the last year?
There are far more tech-related jobs than there are candidates, and given the nature of our work, all of our positions require engineers with Federal security clearances. Our challenge continues to be filling our available positions. I’m passionate about providing opportunities locally to underrepresented, talented IT professionals, so we’ve been working hard with local organizations to help us meet this need.
Our activities will lay the foundation for a robust internship program that leads to full-time positions with PVM. The effort has been years in the making and it is finally ready for implementation and scale. As a company, we have an about average number of veteran team members and are excited about working with Veteran internship programs like SkillBridge.
These programs are win-win opportunities: PVM brings aboard future engineers and introduces them to professional life after uniform; and Veterans get to continue working on impactful, mission-focused efforts in a Veteran friendly, fun, and rewarding environment.
What have been your biggest lessons learned in the last year?
We are an extremely fortunate member of St Pete’s Innovation District and its Maritime and Defense Technology Hub (Hub). We simply could not ask for a better environment for our continued growth and scale.
The Hub is filled with roughly 20 other fantastic companies, and we have formed enduring relationships with several of them. In addition to our Hub-based partners, our relationships with Federal, State, and local small business development organizations continues to thrive. These organizations provide us with invaluable technical, training, mentorship, and networking resources all at no cost to us.
The lesson that we continue to learn and practice is that we are stronger together.
What’s in the plans for the upcoming year, and the next 5 years?
PVM has a bright future ahead of us! Our main goal for the next nine years is to maximize the benefits of the 8(a) program. We want PVM to be an 8(a) success story and are really laser focused on doing everything we can to make that happen. I think there are a few important milestones for us in the short term to make sure we are set up for long-term success.
First, we have to leverage all of the resources available to us through the 8(a) program. Currently, we are doing that by building relationships with small business offices across the federal government, and are working on forming strategic mentor-protégé relationships and joint ventures.
Second, we need to make sure our business is set up for growth. As I mentioned, we are leaning in heavily on this concept of Revenue Operations. Revenue operations is really a framework to align capture, marketing, and account teams, and if you do it right, it can help you provide a consistent experience across the customer lifecycle.
In the short term, PVM is focused on implementing a “minimal viable product” for Revenue Operations so we can start to measure our efforts and identify problem areas that we can optimize. I believe in this framework, and I think if we can implement it the right way, it will help PVM achieve its growth goals in the 8(a) program and beyond.
What’s the best thing you read in the last year?
As you can probably tell, Revenue Operations has been a huge game changer for me and for PVM over the past year. My team and I have all taken HubSpot Academy’s free RevOps course, and I can’t recommend that enough to anyone looking to learn more about this framework. My leadership team also took a course from Winning By Design that introduced the “bowtie model,” which turns the traditional “funnel” on its side and adds a focus on expansion and achieving impact within current client relationships.
Advice for other entrepreneurs who might be struggling to grow their businesses?
My advice to other entrepreneurs is to remember, “You are not alone!” I think many founders struggle with feelings of isolation: I certainly did in our early years. Without question, starting, sustaining, and growing a business is one of the most challenging professional undertakings entrepreneurs will face.
My advice is to not face the challenge alone. There are resources available to assist you at every level of the journey, and the great news is that many of them are free!
Are you looking to hire for certain positions right now?
Yes! PVM is growing fast, and we almost always have positions open. Right now, we have openings for software engineers, systems administrators, and robot assemblers. Follow us on LinkedIn to stay up-to-date on our open roles.
Where can we go to learn more?
If you have any questions or comments, drop a comment below!
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