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Why a federal high-tech start-up is a money loser

washingtonpost.com

1–10 of 219 posts

Re: Why a federal high-tech start-up is a money loser

#2
This is disappointing to read, given I love what 18F has done. No matter whether we think they should be breaking even or not, they shouldn't be creating wildly inaccurate revenue projections and then falling drastically short of them. That looks like something is going drastically wrong with management there, especially considering greater macroeconomic conditions have not changed drastically enough in a way that would cause something like this. I'd hope there is something other explanation though.

Re: Why a federal high-tech start-up is a money loser

#3
Did I misunderstand or is the story also - A government department was started with the ambitious goal of "zero budget" and this year with a 183 person team will have recovered 68.75% of its costs.

And did we forget that fast growing startups don't usually break even either?

Re: Why a federal high-tech start-up is a money loser

#4

This is disappointing to read, given I love what 18F has done. No matter whether we think they should be breaking even or not, they shouldn't be creating wildly inaccurate revenue projections and then falling drastically short of them. That looks like something is going drastically wrong with management there, especially considering greater macroeconomic conditions have not changed drastically enough in a way that wo…

How many fast growing startups have accurate financial projections?

Re: Why a federal high-tech start-up is a money loser

#5

This is disappointing to read, given I love what 18F has done. No matter whether we think they should be breaking even or not, they shouldn't be creating wildly inaccurate revenue projections and then falling drastically short of them. That looks like something is going drastically wrong with management there, especially considering greater macroeconomic conditions have not changed drastically enough in a way that wo…

[deleted]

Re: Why a federal high-tech start-up is a money loser

#6
Governments can never provide value like this, government is not a business! Sometimes this trade off is worthwhile. I'd like to have my housefire put out in a timely fashion. I will sacrifice some of my income for this. However, the idea that the government can become some kind of silicon valley startup is just absurd. I can't believe as taxpayers we are forced at gunpoint to fund these ridiculous ideas. And people wonder why we are 20 trillion in debt and our currency is being devalued every year.

Re: Why a federal high-tech start-up is a money loser

#7
One example is staff time totaling 727 hours on a logo change. The old logo was a blue square with 18F in the lower-right-hand corner. The new logo, a black square with 18F centered and a different font, wasn’t worth the time and doesn’t look as good.

How is that even possible?

Re: Why a federal high-tech start-up is a money loser

#8
post #7

One example is staff time totaling 727 hours on a logo change. The old logo was a blue square with 18F in the lower-right-hand corner. The new logo, a black square with 18F centered and a different font, wasn’t worth the time and doesn’t look as good. How is that even possible?

I went to a 3,000 man-hour meeting this morning.

Re: Why a federal high-tech start-up is a money loser

#10
Activities that can’t be billed to other agencies are another drain. One example is staff time totaling 727 hours on a logo change. The old logo was a blue square with 18F in the lower-right-hand corner. The new logo, a black square with 18F centered and a different font, wasn’t worth the time and doesn’t look as good.

for anyone else curious:

(new) Black Logo: https://18f.gsa.gov/assets/img/logos/18f-logo.svg

(old) Blue Logo: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b3/18F_logo...

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