NextBidYou're a roofer in Florida.
“Show me public roofing work in the counties I serve, due in the next 30 days.”
Re-Roofing, Public Library Branch
County facilities department
You're roofing in Florida. Painting in Utah. Installing fence in Los Angeles. Your crew is busy serving customers, estimating jobs and keeping work moving. You don't have 20 hours every week to search government websites, download bid packages and read hundreds of pages just to find out whether the job is even for you.
NextBid does the searching first. Find opportunities by trade, location, deadline and program, and go straight back to the official solicitation when something looks worth your time.
Different trades, same problem: the work is out there, spread across hundreds of public agencies.
“Show me public roofing work in the counties I serve, due in the next 30 days.”
County facilities department
“Find repainting, coatings and facility-maintenance solicitations, without the unrelated construction bids.”
City parks department
“Search fence, gate and perimeter work across cities, schools and public agencies.”
Unified school district
Example searches and results, for illustration.
The search is not the hard part. Finding out, hours later, that the job was never for you is.
Without NextBid
With NextBid
Over the last year, I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how a small contracting company could compete for more public work without building a whole bid department.
We had someone spending more than 20 hours a week searching procurement sites, opening solicitations and reading through the fine print just to figure out whether a job was even worth pursuing.
Too often, we would spend hours on what looked like a good opportunity, only to find one requirement buried deep in the bid package that meant we didn't qualify.
So I started building NextBid to solve that problem for my own company first.
The goal was simple: find the opportunities that actually fit what we do, understand them faster, and get back to the official source without wasting half the week searching.
Over the last year, that process has helped my company find better-fit opportunities and start winning work we might have missed before.
Now I want to make the same tools available to other small businesses like yours.
You should be able to spend your time running your company, estimating real jobs and serving your customers, not digging through dozens of procurement sites hoping the next solicitation is the right one.
Some public work is reserved for small businesses. NextBid shows each program the way the agency used it, with the official reference and the words that find it.
The agency actually reserved the opportunity for the program.
The program appears in the solicitation, but the work isn't necessarily reserved for it.
Competition limited to small businesses under the applicable NAICS size standard.
Under FAR 19.5 a federal buyer can reserve a solicitation, in full or in part, for small businesses. Your size is judged against the NAICS code on the solicitation and the SBA size standard for it.
Official reference: SBA: contracting assistance programs and set-asides. Search: set_asides=small_business, or any of: small business, SB set-aside, total small business, partial small business, FAR 19.5, small business set aside.
For socially and economically disadvantaged small businesses certified in the SBA 8(a) program.
8(a) solicitations are competed among 8(a) participants or awarded sole source to one. Certification is through the SBA and lasts up to nine years.
Official reference: SBA: 8(a) Business Development program. Search: set_asides=8a, or any of: 8(a), 8a, 8-a, eight a, 8a competed, 8(a) sole source, disadvantaged.
For small businesses located in, and employing people from, Historically Underutilized Business Zones.
HUBZone set-asides and price-evaluation preferences go to firms certified by the SBA with a principal office in a HUBZone and at least 35 percent of employees living in one.
Official reference: SBA: HUBZone program. Search: set_asides=hubzone, or any of: HUBZone, hub zone, hubzone set aside.
For small businesses at least 51 percent owned and controlled by service-disabled veterans.
SDVOSB set-asides and sole-source awards require SBA veteran certification (VetCert). Veteran-Owned (VOSB) set-asides are used mainly by the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Official reference: SBA: veteran contracting assistance programs. Search: set_asides=sdvosb, or any of: SDVOSB, service-disabled veteran, service disabled veteran owned, veteran-owned, VOSB, veteran set aside, vetcert.
For small businesses at least 51 percent owned and controlled by women, in eligible industries.
WOSB and Economically Disadvantaged WOSB (EDWOSB) set-asides under FAR 19.15 apply in NAICS codes where women-owned firms are underrepresented. Certification is through the SBA or an approved third party.
Official reference: SBA: Women-Owned Small Business federal contract program. Search: set_asides=wosb, or any of: WOSB, EDWOSB, women-owned, women owned small business, woman-owned, economically disadvantaged women-owned.
Buy Indian Act set-asides used by the Department of the Interior and the Indian Health Service.
ISBEE set-asides are limited to Indian-owned small business economic enterprises under the Buy Indian Act. They appear on Interior and IHS solicitations.
Official reference: SBA: contracting assistance programs. Search: set_asides=isbee, or any of: ISBEE, Buy Indian, Indian small business, Indian economic enterprise.
California's certified Small Business, Small Business for Public Works, Micro-business and Disabled Veteran Business Enterprise programs.
State agencies on Cal eProcure can limit a solicitation to certified SB, SB-PW or DVBE firms, or apply a bid preference. Certification is through the Department of General Services Office of Small Business and DVBE Services. Local agencies run their own local-business, DBE, MBE and WBE programs.
Official reference: California DGS: certify as a Small Business or DVBE. Search: set_asides=california_sb_dvbe, or any of: DVBE, California small business, Cal SB, SB/DVBE, SB-PW, micro business, microbusiness, disabled veteran business enterprise, CA certified small business.
No set-aside: any responsible bidder may compete.
The solicitation carries no set-aside or the buyer marked none. Small businesses can still compete, and buyers often apply small-business subcontracting goals.
Official reference: SBA: contracting guide. Search: set_asides=open, or any of: open, full and open, unrestricted, no set-aside, no set aside.
A set-aside label on NextBid is not an eligibility determination. Eligibility, certification and size standards are decided by the SBA, the certifying agency and the issuing agency. Verify with the agency before you bid.
Let it search the same NextBid data, under your account. No agent seats.
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