Rob Rosenberger is the visionary CEO and Co-Founder of Blackdragon, a highly innovative global consulting firm increasingly recognized across the vast US federal industry as a major disruptor.
Mr. Rosenberger served in the US House of Representatives as a hand-selected Congressional Fellow where he advised Congressmen, Senators, and various committees in both the US House and US Senate on significant national issues, in addition to heading strategic initiatives aimed at driving new laws to enhance government efficiencies. He is a former corporate Chief Operating Officer and senior executive for mid-sized federal contractor firms supporting the national defense arena and the US Intelligence Community (IC). His career to date includes flying classified missions in a naval reconnaissance squadron, holding various leadership roles throughout multiple US intelligence agencies, being a former Special Adviser to the Comptroller for the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, and later senior adviser to an assortment of our nation’s highest leaders across the Department of Defense (DoD) and the IC. He has held numerous leadership positions in large organizations overseeing classified international operations of very complex, extensive enterprise programs.
Blackdragon: “Bid smarter. Win more. Live better.”
Blackdragon radically changes how contracts are identified, pursued, and ultimately won. The comprehensive suite of on-demand solutions, covering each aspect of the bid and proposal lifecycle, is designed to boost bidder clients’ ability to win targeted contracts in the quickest time possible with the least amount of risk and disruption to everyday operations. It’s a strong collection of complimentary services for winning, having a similar goal, and simply exchanging data with one another.
The firm is the first and only of its type, disrupting long-held norms by transforming one of the largest, most mature sectors known for its resistance to change.
The Fastest Growing Bid and Proposal Firm
Rob believes that no other firm compares to Blackdragon. The company grew to become the largest and fastest-growing bid and proposal (B & P) business in the world within just three years. It has developed innovative techniques for producing high-quality proposals on a large scale. In addition, the company has developed a “bid-share” function that allows motivated subcontractor bidder businesses to volunteer to pay for the Blackdragon proposal preparation costs on behalf of the chosen prime bidder. As a result, several prime bidder clients have gotten bids generated by Blackdragon at no cost to their organisation.
The company has pioneered many groundbreaking firsts in the vast federal contracting industry that is renowned for its reluctance to change. Some of the major milestones in the company’s journey are:
- Launched first and only bona fide online matchmaking platform in the federal contracting industry. It facilitates Gig Economy transactions between buyers (bidder clients) and sellers (expert freelancers).
- First to successfully operate as a third-party proxy bidder accountable for winning contracts on behalf of its prime bidder clients. Blackdragon functions more like a ‘bid partner’ responsible for winning, than just an augmented staff of part-time individuals providing ad-hoc support.
- First to launch an innovative business model where the firm shares the risk of losing bids with each bidder client. Each custom team of Dragons is highly incented to win, which also means they don’t take projects where they don’t believe they can win for the client. Opposite of traditional approaches where freelancers compete for selection to part time gigs supporting proposal efforts, Blackdragon bidder clients compete for prime bidder selection and each team of freelancers chooses the client they want to win for.
- The first company formed as a global coalition of experts (an ecosystem of compatible entrepreneurs). It’s a constantly expanding body of talent, resources, relationships, and experiences. The platform empowers this alliance of experts to proactively self-form into project ‘Dream Teams’ in advance of finalizing the selection for the most preferred prime bidder client to win each contract.
- Conceived a revolutionary way to productize on-demand virtual services to replace the outdated, expensive, and unreliable model of hiring individuals by the hour. The clients purchase tailored fixed price products created by crowd sourced experts instead of paying someone to log hours.
The Changing Working landscape of the Industries
The longer the coronavirus epidemic continues, the less probable it is that the pre-March 2020 way of work-life as people knew it will ever fully return. This applies to both the government and private sector workforces. According to Rob, no firm will ever truly return to the office in the conventional sense. “When our industry returns to the office, it will be considerably different than it was pre-COVID,” he adds. In contrast to the old days of filling up cubicle farms in federal office buildings, work life in the future will be more focused on better defined needs, improving personnel matching for jobs, and operating more cost efficiently.
A Competitive yet Cooperative Work Culture
The company’s freelancers compete internally with their co-workers to optimise their remuneration, which is unique to Blackdragon. In contrast with conventional B&P support firms who simply peddle resumes by the hour, Blackdragon does not keep track of labour hours on its projects. Instead, Dragons maintain a transparent log of their aggregate ‘value’ contributions to each project within the Blackdragon portal. Each team member examines the compilation of contributions at the conclusion of the project and awards scores to members totalling 100 points for allocation. Averaged scores determine each member’s portion of the available fee pool for that project. This way of earning pay motivates each team member to be more concentrated on proactively creating “value” in the eyes of their peers than just recording hours for billing purposes. According to Rob, this results in each custom team of Dragons being incredibly competent, fast, resourceful, and most importantly, formidable. Furthermore, when payouts are calculated, each Dragon assigns star ratings to fellow team members across 11 different performance aspects that become part of each freelancer’s internal marketplace profile. It’s like star ratings given to sellers on Amazon or Uber drivers.
Rob opines,
“Each Dragon project team (aka, ‘Dream Team’) is the most passionate, credible, and dedicated collection of specialists capable of winning that specific contract compared to any rival bidder. When it comes to improving each client’s potential for surpassing competing bidders, Dragons unite to be aggressive, clever, and inventive. ”
Dragons with a combination of more projects under their belt plus higher performance ratings are more competitive for selection to future project teams, whereas those with lesser Blackdragon project experience or lower performance ratings are not. Rob says,
“This motivates each Dragon on every team to be selective about the teams they compete to be selected for, and once selected, they aim to earn the highest score from fellow peers and, ultimately, attain the best star rating for value contribution.”
Envisions Expanding into State, Local Industries and International Markets
Today, the biggest challenges are staying motivated and inspiring others to take risks in order to create products and services that have never been seen before. Prioritizing marketing and sales, managing cash flow, finding the right people, time management, and scaling up are all challenges.
As per Rob, future plans for Blackdragon are constantly evolving. The more the company builds and grows, the more powerful the network effect works for improving scale. To date, Blackdragon has exclusively operated in the federal contracting industry. However, the management envisions expanding into state and local industries and international markets with commercial landscapes on the horizon. Essentially, wherever there is an industry in which companies generate revenue by winning competitively sourced bids, Rob sees a potential market for Blackdragon.
