HARBOR · Harvest findings memo
Three candidates, one scorecard, and a recommendation not to build
- Prepared for
- Composite firm
- Basis
- 8 quarters of delivery record
- Instrument
- Service-to-Product Fit, 6 dimensions
- Decision
- Investigate
1. What this memo is
This is the findings memo a Harvest Sprint delivers, applied to a composite firm so that every number can be shown. It is not a client. The firm is 58 people with $14M of revenue concentrated in two primes, holding one GSA MAS schedule and one agency IDIQ, and its delivery record contains a reusable assessment package that has run at several program offices with roughly 90 percent of the same evidence set.
The question: can that package be sold as a product? The memo answers with the instrument, the threshold checks, and the two conditions that have to be true before any build money is spent.
2. Candidates considered
The firm brought three. Two were eliminated before scoring, and the reasons matter because each is a common false positive.
| Candidate | Verdict | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Program support for one sponsor | Eliminated | One sponsor, one program, no second buyer. A one-off program is not a product, however profitable it was. |
| Staff augmentation line | Eliminated | The unit sold is hours. There is no deliverable to package, so nothing separates from the labor. |
| Authorization assessment package | Scored | Repeatable, transferable, and priced by the deliverable. It goes to the instrument. |
3. The scorecard
Six weighted dimensions, scored 1 to 5. The weighted total is the sum of each score times its weight.
| Dimension | Weight | Score | Contrib. | Reason |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Repeatability | 20% | 5 | 1.00 | The same package runs at every program office. Roughly 90% of the work is the same evidence set, the same review pass and the same document structure. Two people deliver three of these a quarter without redesigning anything. |
| Cross-Agency Demand | 15% | 2 | 0.30 | Two agencies have bought the work, and both came through the same prime. There is no independent third agency with a budget line, and no route to one that does not run through that relationship. |
| Compliance Leverage | 15% | 5 | 0.75 | The package exists because an authorizing official needs evidence. Compliance is the product, not a cost on top of it. The deliverable is a package the official can accept. |
| Vehicle Access | 20% | 5 | 1.00 | Both vehicles accept a product CLIN at this scope, and both have carried work of this size. Two program offices inside the existing agencies have asked for a fixed-price version, so the first buyers are named rather than hoped for. |
| ATO Feasibility | 15% | 2 | 0.30 | An authority to operate is required if the package becomes a hosted service. No sponsor has committed. The path is understood and unfunded, and the cost is material against this product's projected margin. |
| Economic Viability | 15% | 5 | 0.75 | Break-even is four program offices, and four exist across the two agencies already buying. Three-year revenue clears five times the investment at a realistic win rate. The model does not require winning a third agency. |
| Weighted total | 100% | 4.10 | Clears the 4.0 threshold and still does not proceed. |
4. The five checks
A total is not a decision. All five checks pass for a Proceed. One failure downgrades the result.
- Weighted total is at least 3.0 — Total is 4.10
- No dimension scored 1 — Lowest score is 2
- At most one dimension scored 2 — 2 dimensions scored 2
- Vehicle Access is at least 2 — Scored 5
- Economic Viability is at least 2 — Scored 5
2 dimensions scored 2, which fails the third check. Two scores are also vetoes: a 1 on Vehicle Access or Economic Viability eliminates a candidate whatever the total says. This one scores 5 on both, so the veto does not fire.
5. Recommendation
Do not go to Build. Go to Architect, and only after two things are true:
- a named sponsor for the authority to operate, with a budget line;
- a third agency with its own budget line, not one reached through the existing prime.
Do not package the other two candidates. One is a program with a single sponsor; the other is staff augmentation. Both are fine work and neither is a product, and packaging either spends the firm’s credibility on something a contracting officer will see through.
One more thing to hold: the product would displace some of the service. The same buyers would buy it at a lower price. That is acceptable only if the product reaches program offices the service never reaches. If it does not, keep selling the service and stop here.
6. What this costs if it is wrong
Building first is the expensive mistake. A build plus a certification program before a named buyer commits is how a $50,000 idea becomes a $700,000 program, and the certification is the line that does not come back. The order is: validate, sell a founding version, build, then authorize.