I wrote a book about turning GovCon services into repeatable products, happy to share what I learned

Hey r/govcon — longtime lurker (on a different account), first post here.

I spent the last couple of years working through a question that kept coming up in GovCon circles: why do firms with great CPARS ratings and solid delivery track records still struggle to scale, while smaller competitors with slicker packaging keep winning?

The answer I kept landing on: the firms that scale have figured out how to stop selling hours and start selling repeatable, compliant products... even if those products started as service delivery.

I ended up writing a book about this called "Shrink-Wrap It: The GovCon Productization Playbook" and building a free framework + tools around it (scorecard, economics calculator, contract archaeology tool) at harborgovcon.com.

The core idea is a six-stage framework called HARBOR:

• Harvest: excavate hidden products buried in your existing contract work
• Architect: design federal-grade multi-tenant systems from day one
• Risk-Proof: navigate FedRAMP/CMMC without burning years and millions
• Build: turn expertise into repeatable, standardized delivery
• Operate: defend product boundaries against scope creep (the 70/30 rule)
• Replicate: price value instead of hours, structure CLINs that actually work on Schedules

I'm genuinely curious what this community thinks — are you seeing more small/mid GovCon firms trying to make this shift? What's the biggest barrier you've seen or experienced?

Happy to answer questions about anything in the book or framework.

S/F

— AP