I remember applying for my 8a certification back in 2015. It took nearly 2 years to complete all the requirements in the manner that they requested. Once again It was rejected, they said too much of my income came from one source. Meanwhile I picked up $5.3 million in contracts for my company Evankoff and another $4.8 million for a consultant client company. To date I still do not have my 8a certificate but maybe one day they will approve me.

Like many people getting started I thought I needed a fancy office and a full TEAM to get started. But long behold I landed my first contract within 6 months of incorporating my business because I partnered up with an established firm. Since the contract and everything went into his company name my business history did not matter. We used his accounts, his credit, and his money. I just invoice for the project and collected my slice of the profit. It was sweeter than building my own company.

One of my consulting clients in Warwick, RI said to me that he only wanted to bid projects that were sole source or set aside projects. No open market stuff. He said, “Disregard ALL other projects because construction is competitive and we cannot be the cheap guy and still make money.”

After some preliminary research I reached out to an agency that informed me of a project that was on the market with no bidders. The contract specialist asked me politely if I could bid the project so that the agency could receive at least 1 offer because they really needed the work done. I convinced my client to bid the project.

It turned out that we were in fact the only bidder. Big surprise. After a brief negotiation on price (we were really high) they awarded us the project. Like most people looking at the RFP screen I thought every job was ultra competitive. Turns out that some jobs have 1 or no competitors.